Here’s an amazing duo – Duke Ellington, possibly one of the most talented composers of Jazz, presenting his and Irving Mill’s 1931 song, one of the Swing Era anthems in this 1943 soundie; and Ella Fitzgerald, one of the of best jazz vocalists in all time and the queen of scat, presenting her version in 1974. Swing is of course, one of the most elusive concepts to define, but it is closely tied in to the propulsive rhythm and bouyancy and groove that you feel in jazz. Yet I hesitate to claim that only jazz or swing music swings. Ella does a great job swingin’ all her examples in the clip, to give us an idea…
Here we have a sound and image rather than video track, a little more extensive, where Ella actually sings with Ray Nance, with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra plays, with Jo Jones on drums and Ben Webster on tenor sax, recorded in 1966.
