The Best of Twelve Nights In Hollywood (Live At the Crescendo)

These recordings capture Fitzgerald at what many of her fans consider the apex of her vocal prowess. The songs were culled from ten nights of performances at the Crescendo Club in Hollywood in 1961 (as well as a couple of shows in 1962). A month following these recordings she would record her most critically celebrated album on Verve Records, Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie! with a jazz quartet led by Bud Powell disciple Lou Levy (who plays piano here). Other recordings from Fitzgerald’s same residency at the Crescendo were immediately released in 1961 under the title Ella In Hollywood, but to the benefit of stalwart jazz music completionists, this collection does not repeat any of those tracks, nor "Ol' Man Mose" and "Bill Bailey," the ensuing singles birthed from her 1962 stay. Her bouncy take on “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive” serves as a starting point for her outstanding scat-singing talent which can be better exemplified in Frank Loesser’s “On a Slow Boat to China,” where she scats a call-and-response with the guitar. But her cute Louis Armstrong impression on “Mack the Knife” takes the cake.