Frank Sinatra – Ella Fitzgerald – Count Basie Tour
By Mahnuel Muñoz
Too good to be true? Well, it was a wonderful reality that materialized in 1975, a year in which the world was shocked by the first bars of disco music and also by the definitive emergence of a new King of Rock, Bruce Springsteen. Punk gives its primal screams to the other side of the Atlantic and from there, too, Queen is preparing to offer us “Bohemian Rhapsody” and with it, the first video clip in history.
In the traditional scene, the Broadway musical, “Chicago“, by Bob Fosse, breaks the insurmountable fourth wall and provides dark touches hitherto unheard of in the genre.
In 1975 our three protagonists enjoy the well-deserved status of deities unrelated to market studies and explosions of rebellion, with a fresh and active discography in the case of Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie, and all of them an international projection as powerful or even more so than in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, with myriads of fans selling out venues of all sizes and locations.
And so, in 1975, after decades of waiting, the agendas of three of the most influential jazz figures of the 20th century coincide. Fourteen concerts at the brand new Uris Theater in New York (now the Gershwin Theater) and subsequent recitals in Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago in which the most sacred of the American songbook is uncovered… I simply don’t believe that Reprise or Pablo Records (the record company of Ella and Basie) did not record one or more of these shows, which are glorious musical episodes and also unrepeatable historical tapestries. Although Frank Sinatra and Norman Granz (founder of Pablo Records) didn’t get along very well and perhaps pride took precedence over art…
No…let’s allow ourselves to dream…somewhere there will be a good recording and perhaps we will be fortunate enough to enjoy it and escape from this fecal present. Until then we will be content with the recordings with humble sound quality that circulate among collectors: I know the one corresponding to September 20, and it only contains Sinatra’s part and two songs with Ella, whose repertoire is the following:
Where Or When
Bad Bad Leroy Brown
Let Me Try Again
My Kind Of Town
But Beautiful
Didn’t We
something
Nice’n’Easy
Saloon Medley
I Believe I’m Gonna Love You
Pennies From Heaven
Send In The Clowns
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
The Song Is You (feat. Ella)
They Can’t Take That Away From Me (feat. Ella)
The Lady Is A Tramp (with Ella)
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