Sold Date: August 17, 2017
Start Date: August 10, 2017
Final Price: $66.00 (USD)
Bid Count: 10
Seller Feedback: 0
Buyer Feedback: 69

"Ella and Louis" Verve Records MG V-4003/ ~33&1/3 High Fidelity LP 1956

This is one of THE classic Verve Jazz LP's of the 1950's!! And a wonderful copy it IS! While I am not an aficionado, from the research I've done I believe this to be a first pressing. It's got the original orange verve label and has machine cut numbers on the vinyl. If YOU ARE and aficionado, you know this album is extremely collectible. You won't be disappointed with this copy!

The album itself is in excellent shape. It belonged to my mother who took extreme care with her records. Ella Fitzgerald was her favorite. She also loved Oscar Peterson, who accompanies Ella & Louis Armstrong on this record. The front of the album cover is nearly pristine. There is some wear on the lower edge. All in all, this is a great find, and of course you can't argue with the music!

Thanks for looking, good luck!

(And read more about the album below)

Ella and Louis is a 1956 studio album by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, accompanied by the Oscar Peterson Quartet. Having previously collaborated in the late 1940s for the Decca label, this was the first of three albums that Fitzgerald and Armstrong were to record together for Verve Records, later followed by 1957's Ella and Louis Again and 1959's Porgy and Bess.

Norman Granz, the founder of the Verve label, selected eleven ballads for Fitzgerald and Armstrong, mainly played in a slow or moderate tempo. They were arranged and conducted by Verve Record's resident arranger/conductor and Head of A&R, Buddy Bregman. Recording began August 16, 1956, at the new, and now iconic, Capitol Studios in Hollywood. Though Granz produced the album, Armstrong was given final say over songs and keys.[2]

This album joined the Grammy Hall of Fame on November 22, 2015.

Side one:

1. "Can't We Be Friends?" (Paul James, Kay Swift) – 3:47

2. "Isn't This a Lovely Day?" (Irving Berlin) – 6:16

3. "Moonlight in Vermont" (John Blackburn, Karl Suessdorf) – 3:42

4. "They Can't Take That Away from Me" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 4:39

5. "Under a Blanket of Blue" (Jerry Livingston, Al J. Neiburg, Marty Symes) – 4:18

6. "Tenderly" (Walter Gross, Jack Lawrence) - 5:10

Side two:

1. "A Foggy Day" (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) – 4:32

2. "Stars Fell on Alabama" (Mitchell Parish, Frank Perkins) – 3:34

3. "Cheek to Cheek" (Berlin) – 5:53

4. "The Nearness of You" (Hoagy Carmichael, Ned Washington) – 5:42

5. "April in Paris" (Vernon Duke, Yip Harburg) – 6:33

"The first of three successful collaborations between Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, “Ella and Louis” is nearly perfect. It is one of those works of art — and they don’t come along often — that seems to have always existed. It features two of the greatest artists the century produced: Armstrong, the innovator and ambassador of jazz, and Fitzgerald, its most gifted singer. The album was produced by a man (Norman Granz) almost solely responsible for bringing jazz into the realm of respectability and desegregating its audience, who founded the label which released it, and assembled the all-star team of musicians who made it so marvelous. “Ella and Louis” helped rekindle interest in what would become known as The Great American Songbook. Though it is something only American culture could produce, “Ella and Louis” was also something a large part of American society worked hard to prevent." --Tom Marshall