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Music for
Grown-Ups Newsletter
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07/05/2007 Ella Fitzgerald’s wonderful Songbooks – now at remarkable prices
With Forever Ella, the wonderful new compilation, selling alongside the washing powder and dog biscuits in your local supermarket, Ms Fitzgerald is, once again, back on the musical agenda. About time, too. The cream of the new comp album is the material from the Songbooks project. Ella Fitzgerald’s songbooks house some of the greatest music of the last century. Problem is, when they were re-mastered/released, at the end of the 1990s, they were grossly overpriced in the UK. Lovingly repackaged, but far too expensive: the single discs were priced at £15, doubles at £20-25, and the Gerswhwin 4CD box at £35-£40. Keep’em, I decided, I’ll stick to the old versions. The good news is that Universal has slashed prices. I recently gasped when I saw the Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Irving Berlin 2CD sets marked down to £10 at Fopp. But then last week amazon.co.uk were offering them at under £7 each, with the Gershwin box at a mere £12.97, and the Johnny Mercer single disc at £3.97. So you can now get the whole set of Ella Songbook remastered Songbooks – 16 CDs - for just over £60. Three months ago, it would have cost almost £200. Remarkable value: now is the time to stock up on the Songbooks. The Songbooks collection has stood the test of time - after 50 years, the eight albums, covering 245 songs, stand as the high point of both Ella's and Norman Granz's illustrious careers, arguably the greatest recording project in popular music. Each Songbook set is dedicated to the works of a specific composer: Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer. Confusingly, there are also three brand new Ella Songbook releases. The Very Best of The Songbooks (2CD) is a fine introduction. It’s overpriced at £20 in the shops, though 101cd has it at £14. Two long overdue new best-of compilations, cherry-picking the Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart Songbooks, would also be very desirable, if it wasn’t for the Very Best Of, and the crazy new prices for the Songbook collections proper.
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