Slouching Towards Birdland (Will Friedwald's SubStack)

Articles

Ella Fitzgerald Sings "Post-Nuclear Show Tunes"

1 week ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Pop! Goes The Ella - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Great Hits of Today(SSS #144 2025-03-19)download: <or> play online:Ella Fitzgerald had a fascinating relationship with Broadway: she had come up during a curious age in which white popular singers, especially Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, frequently were assigned to record new show tunes - including virtually all the major new Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Loewe productions - but Black artists, not so much.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and That "Ringo Beat!"

2 weeks ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Pop! Goes The Ella - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Great Hits of Today(SSS #144 2025-03-19)download: <or> play online:This was by far the most successful of Fitzgerald’s seven Beatle-centric numbers.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Burt Bacharach Songbook

3 weeks ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Pop! Goes The Ella - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Great Hits of Today(SSS #144 2025-03-19)download: <or> play online:First, here is a note from KSDS listener Ms. Gloria Warren, who just heard my latest Sing! Sing! Sing! Program for KSDS San Diego - which is titled “Pop! Goes The Ella” and features a lot of the tracks I’m talking about here on Substack. She writes to me with the following words of encouragement:Ella gives a whole new sound to Bacharach. His songs never sounded so good.
"Pop! Goes the Ella," Part 1

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

One thing, out of many, that Judith Tick - latest and greatest biographer of Ella Fitzgerald - and I agree on is that Fitzgerald deserves more credit for her repertoire choices. We also agree that it was her two major producers - first Milt Gabler, and then, to a much greater extent, Norman Granz - who deserve credit for the Ella Fitzgerald songbook series.
Ella Fitzgerald & Nat King Cole Go "Crazy Over Horses!"

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Here’s a 150-year-old lick that appears prominently in the “quote library” of both Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald - and, more recently, inspired by both of them, Diana Krall. “Horses” is a 1926 novelty song recorded by the New York-based hot dance orchestra, George Olsen and his Music. The song is credited to Byron Gay (lyrics), who wrote a number of novelty tunes (“The Vamp,” “Four or Five Times”) and Richard Whiting (music) who wrote a lot of everything.
"Night of the Living Ed"

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

When we talk about the great champions of musical and performance culture, we are making a serious omission if we don’t include Ed Sullivan who presented and preserved more great music than virtually anyone in American history. For 22 years he brought us the greatest in American vernacular music, sometimes opera, classical, and world music as well.
Nat & Nelson, continued: "Night Lights" & "That's You"

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

On January 4th, 1956, the team of Nat King Cole and Nelson Riddle cut a particularly excellent session of singles - six altogether - including two Nat-Nelson masterpieces, “To the Ends of the Earth” and “Never Let Me Go.”“Never Let Me Go” was a classic song by a pair of well-established but still relatively young writers, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. “To the Ends of the Earth” was by the newer team of the brothers Joe and Noel Sherman.
"Sunday in the Park with Nat"

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

In 1954, Capitol Records released a new ten-inch LP titled Nat King Cole: Unforgettable. This was a compilation of tracks previously released as 78 and 45 RPM singles, which included most of Cole’s hits as a popular crooner, working with orchestras and string sections.
A NAT KING COLE BIRTHDAY SPECIAL, Part 3: Nat & Nelson -"Sweethearts on Parade"

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Very special thanks to Jordan Taylor, the number one Nat King Cole discographer and researcher, for his essential help with this column. Also special thanks to Robert Isaiah for his expert art direction on the special album covers in this series! (Thanks also to Ellizabeth Zimmer & Dan Fortune for their expert proofing, hey!)Slouching Towards Birdland (Will Friedwald's SubStack) is a reader-supported publication.
A NAT KING COLE BIRTHDAY SPECIAL, Part 2: THE NAT & NELSON STANDARDS SESSIONS, continued.

2 months ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Above: Photos by Kurt Reichert. Capitol Melrose, Studio B. August 23, 1955. Very special thanks to Jordan Taylor, the number one Nat King Cole discographer and researcher, for his essential help with this column. Also special thanks to Robert Isaiah for his expert art direction on the special album covers in this series! (Thanks also to Ellizabeth Zimmer & Dan Fortune for their expert proofing, hey!)Slouching Towards Birdland (Will Friedwald's SubStack) is a reader-supported publication.