Ella (and Roy Eldridge) at Juan-Les-Pins (1964) : Live Video in True Stereo
They Can’t Take This Away From Us
1964 was what they call a “banner year” for Ella Fitzgerald. (Did you ever have a banner year? I haven’t. Likewise, I’ve been a member of the press for 50 years and I have yet to experience a “field day.”)
This was the period when she teamed semi-permanently with the great Tommy Flanagan, who would become her regular musical director for most of the next 15 years. She also had a particularly strong rhythm section in bassist Bill Yancey and veteran Basie drummer Gus Johnson. Plus there was a major ringer in the group: for roughly a year beginning in mid-1963, she toured with the legendary trumpeter Roy Eldridge.
The group with Ella & Eldridge appeared on The Ed Sullivan show in May 1963, doing, among other things, a colossal version of “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” The earliest officially-released recording of this combination was taped in Tokyo over two nights in January 1964, on a relatively lesser-known concert CD released on Verve’s Hip-O imprint. (There’s actually more material from that tour - specifically a “television concert” videotaped at at a Tokyo TV studio. This contains, among other things, the only live performance by Ella that I know of “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” The only copies of this show that I’ve seen are in substand quality, unfortunately.)
Then, Ella truly rocked the world on Sunday, February 2, 1964, when she not only brought this combo onto the Sullivan show, but joined forces - for the only time documented - with a lifelong friend, the one-and-only Sammy Davis, Jr. For some, the next week’s Sullivan show - the famous American debut of the Beatles on February 9 - was a big deal. I do not dispute, but to me, the combination of Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis, Jr., Roy Eldridge, and Tommy Flanagan amounted to an even more fabulous four. (I’ll put the links to those five numbers down below.)
Apart from Tokyo in January and the Sullivan show in February, there would be only one additioal significant document of the Ella - Roy - Flanagan group, and it’s a doozy. In July, Fitzgerald and company were part of the Fifth Annual Antibes Jazz Festival - her first appearance at that event. I believe that she played for four sets over two days, July 28 and 29, all of which were filmed and recorded by French television. Granz later said that he hadn’t planned to record the concerts, but they came out so well that afterwards he wound up procuring the audio from the French TV producers. (Which doesn’t explain why the album is in stereo - would the French TV folks be recording in stereo in 1964?)
The resultant album - Ella at Juan-Les-Pins - was issued in early 1965 and, as Ella biographer Judith Tick notes, was not a chart hit (unlike Ella in Berlin (1960), but, over the years, came to be regarded as another of her great concert albums.
Cut to almost 40 years later; around the time that both Flanagan and Granz died, within a week of each other in November 2001, Verve / Universal catalog head Ken Druker unearthed the complete recordings from July 1964. All of a sudden a 40-minute LP became a two-hour and 35-minute double CD epic, and what’s more, the extra material was hardly filler; the additional material confirmed the status of Ella at Juan-Les-Pins as one of the all-time great concert albums, by Fitzgerald or anyone else. (I was honored to be asked to provide the album liner notes.)
More recently, the video portion of the concerts has surfaced from French TV. Although the actual audio on the soundtrack is good, it was clear that it could be improved by adding the stereo audio from the CD. This has been done at least once before - in fact the single best video of blues great Muddy Waters comes from Newport 1960, with the audio taken from a separate source, also a stereo recording from a commercially issued master tape.
Thus inspired, I asked my buddy Steve Kramer to stitch the audio from the Ella at Juan-Les-Pins CD together with the visual footage from French TV for one track as a test. I think it came out spectacularly well! I picked a Gershwin song so that I could use the clip as part of my video presentation Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook. I happen to love this slow and bluesy version of “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” with prominent obligato work by Roy “Little Jazz” Eldridge.
Note that I’m only including this here for Slouching Towards Birdland subscribers - I’m asking that no one grab it and post it on the YouTubes, something that I wouldn’t do without express permission of Universal Music and the Fitzgerald Foundation. My purpose here is to convince these organizations that this is a good idea, that we should make it legal - and “restore” more selections from Antibes 1964 and make them legally available, either on YouTube or a home video release.
(PS: As we all know, Fitzgerald’s 1967 appearance at the Antibes Jazz Festival - this time with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - was even more spectacular, and was also filmed.)
While we’re on the subject, the numbers from Fitzgerald’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, February 2, 1964, have, thankfully all been officially posted on the youTubes.
First, Ed introduces Ella, who sings three numbers, starting with “Them There Eyes” followed by “I Love Being Here With You” and the ballad “My Last Affair.”
Later in the program, Ed introduces Ella again, for “Perdido” (another Roy feature) and then there’s a delightful exchange between Sammy Davis and Sullivan on the subject of a Gershwin duet with Ella (“S’Wonderful”). This is probably Sammy’s greatest documented scat solo - the notion that he can keep up with Fitzgerald is in itself astounding. After which, Ed himself, surprisingly, gets into the act, to Ella’s amazement.
Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!
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June 29 - Americana - For the Fourth of July - Songs of Civil Rights & The African American Experience
July 6 - The Four Freshmen & Other Great Jazz Vocal Groups of the 1950s
July 13 - Bastille Day: Guest Co-Host ERIC COMSTOCK shares his favorite French songs! Formidable!
July 20 - The Margaret Whiting Centennial: “Happy Birthday Maggie!”
July 27 - “Calypso Blues” OR “It’s The New Calypso Bebop!”
August 3 - The Tony Bennett Birthday Special: Tony Sings the Cole Porter Songbook
August 10 - Try a Little Tenderness: The Songs of Harry Woods
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Hip-O is the reissue/compilation division for the entirety of the Universal Music Group, not just Verve. (I have to think the name was adopted as a cheeky response to their rivals in that field, Rhino Records).