Pure Ella

Throughout her long career, Ella Fitzgerald was usually accorded the full orchestral treatment. She rarely recorded with a straight trio except in live settings, and almost never appeared with piano accompaniment alone. It is for this reason that these Decca sessions with the superb pianist Ellis Larkins are so special.
The first eight selections on PURE ELLA, which was originally released as the 10-inch LP ELLA SINGS GERSHWIN, find the singer beginning to explore the work of a composer she would thoroughly master a few years later on the more famous GERSHWIN SONGBOOK sessions for Norman Granz's Verve label. Still, these earlier versions and other purely rendered standards are hard to match for sheer loveliness, due in large part to the sympathetic stylings of Larkins, who unassumingly takes up the role of equal collaborator, his touch and tone so distinctive. The session belongs to Ella of course. Her burgeoning artistry was just coming into focus at the time of this album's release, and PURE ELLA was certainly a harbinger of major achievements to come.|