Ella Gatsby Instrumentalist

This was a live concert in Belgium performed in the year 1957. The lead singer was Ella Fitzgerald, performed with a band of instrumentalists. The instruments in the band included the piano, guitar, bass, drums, and the trumpet.

The first song performed by Ella Fitzgerald was Angel Eyes. This is a beautiful song that gives the listener a calm, peaceful feel. This song was further enhanced by Ella Fitzgerald’s soft, silky voice that creates an angelic feel to the song. Additionally, Ella Fitzgerald’s mezzo-soprano range gave an elegant and tender feel to the overall song. I thought that the slow rhythm and the colorful harmonic changes in the song created for an achingly sad, and deeply meaningful song. The piano can be clearly

heard throughout the song producing a deep, soft melody that creates the blues feels that this elegant masterpiece is known for. Additionally, the bass and drums added to moody sound to produce the deeper tones.
Another song performed by Ella Fitzgerald was Lullaby of Birdland. This song is a stark contrast from Angel Eyes, as this song has a light, cheerful melody, in addition to a quick, upbeat tempo. This song is bright and cheerful, giving off thoughts of love and happiness. Ella Fitzgerald’s vocal range goes high in this song as she reaches some of the higher notes. Additionally, I noticed that she improvised some scat singing into the song that added a jazz feel to the song.
Lastly, Ella Fitzgerald ended the concert with a fast paced swing song.

The tempo was quite fast, but Fitzgerald was able to keep up the pace without losing her breath. She incorporated some scat singing into the song. I did notice that at the very end of the song Ella Fitzgerald had a bit of a struggle trying to reach the very last high note and hold it. As for the instruments, the piano could be heard especially in this song, with the strong chords creating a distinct sound. Something I thought that was neat was that during the middle of the song, Ella Fitzgerald stepped out of the spotlight and allowed just the instrumentalists perform. The Guitarist played an amazing rhythm with the pianist accompanying him. This continued for each of the instruments, allowing them to get the spotlight before returning it to Ella

Fitzgerald.
To comment on Ella Fitzgerald’s voice, I believe she has an amazing voice.

I must say that I find her voice to sound very unique. Her voice sounds cheerful and elegant, and so light and airy. In addition, I thought it was amazing that she is able to have such a large vocal range. She was able to reach the demanding high notes in the songs Lullaby of Birdland and Roll ‘em Pete, but she was also able to sing the lower notes, creating a low and deeper tone in the song Angel Eyes, which is impressive since she is a mezzo-soprano.

This performance was similar to what I had expected in that it sounded jazzy and incorporated a wide range of colorful melodies to give an amazing performance. In addition, I expected it to be upbeat, and cheery with an upbeat swing beat to give it an overall loose and free feeling, which it did.

What I did not expect was for there to be so many caucasian people to be in the audience. Truthfully, I was quite surprised by this fact. I would have thought that racial segregation and views on African-Americans in this time period would have made the caucasian audience have a different view on her performance because of her race. However, the opposite was seen at this concert. The audience was enthused and enchanted by Ella Fitzgerald’s voice and swing melody of the band. Likewise,

their
Something interesting that I noticed was that all of the instrumentalists were male. This was not surprising since most instrumentalists are males. Although, it was surprising that a white male was playing a band with black instrumentalists, and a black female solo singer.
Overall, I thought that the concert was performed very well and that all the members of the band were wonderful. Additionally, I believe that Ella Fitzgerald was an amazing singer with a unique voice. However, I do not enjoy Jazz style of music.