75th Birthday Celebration (Decca Jazz 619) is a beautiful sampler of thefirst 20 years of her recording career, selected by Milt Gabler, whoproduced many of the original dates.

Like many another major Afro-American artist of the '30s, her works of thisperiod (with Chick Webb, Teddy Wilson, her Savoy Eight, her FamousOrchestra and Benny Goodman) have been collated most completely once againon the Classics label:

• Ella Fitzgerald, Vol. 1 1935-'37 (500), with Webb and her own Savoy Eight
• Vol. 2 1937-'38 (506) and
• Vol. 3 1938-'39(518), both with her own post-Webb orchestra on
• Vol. 4 1939(525) and
• Vol. 5 1939-'40(566).

American Decca has also so far issued three doubles of early Ella, whichare neither complete nor can they be called highlights either (they'realmost complete, omitting only the occasional track that the producerdidn't like, such as 'Melinda the Mousie'):

• The Early Years-Part 1, 1935-39 (GRP 618),
• The Early Years, Part II 1939-41 (Decca Jazz 623) and
• The War Years (Decca Jazz 628).

Also: Pure Ella contains two LPs worth of superlative duos with the greatpianist Ellis Larkins. It is absolutely essential.

And last but not least: Ella: The Legendary Decca Recordings (Decca Jazz 648), a 4-CD set released in 1995.

First the songbooks:

• Duke Ellington (three CDs, 87-035-2)
• Harold Arlen Vol. 2 (817 528-2)
• Rodgers and Hart Vol. 2 (821 580-2)
• Cole Porter Vol. 2 (821 990-2)
• Johnny Mercer (823 247-2)
• George and Ira Gershwin (three CDs, 821 024-2)
• Jerome Kern (825 669-2)
• Irving Berlin Vol. 2 (829 535-2).
• Or just go whole hog and invest some salary in the 16-CD box The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books (519 832).

Live Sets:

• Ella in Rome, The Birthday Concert (835 454-2)
• At The Opera House (831 269-2)
• Returns To Berlin (837 758)
• The Complete Ella In Berlin Mack The Knife (519 564) and Ella at Juan-Les Pins with nine bonus cuts (Japanese Polydor POCJ-1925).

Concerts from the Verve years issued by companies other than Verve:

Ella Fitzgerald & Jazz At The Philharmonic, Stockholm 1957 (Tax 3703) and two with Duke Ellington from their 1966 tour, Live at the Greek Theatre,Los Angeles 1966 (Status DSTS 1013, UK) and The Stockholm Concert (Pablo2308-242).

Team-Ups:

• Ella & Basie (Count, of course, 821 576-2)
• Ella and Louis (Armstrong, that is, 825 373-2)
• Ella and Louis Again (825 374-2) and
• Porgy and Bess with Louis Armstrong (once two LPs, now one CD, 827 475-2).

Ella and Great Arrangers:

• Ella Swings Brightly With Nelson (519 347) and
• Ella Swings Gently With Nelson (519 348) - Riddle, that is!
• Ella Swings Lightly (847 392) with Marty Paich.

Other Verve albums:

• These are the Blues (829 536-2)
• Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (827 150-2)
• Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie (835 646-2 +)
• The Intimate Ella (originally released as Let No Man Write My Epitath, (839 838-2)

Verve Samplers:

Start with First Lady Of Song (Verve 517 898, 3 Cds), as a basic, 75thbirthday sampler of the entire Ella-Norman Granz experience (there's also aone-CD sampler of highlights from this three-CD sampler, if you're notsampler'd out already).

Compact Jazz has four Ella entries:

• Ella Fitzgerald (831 367-2)
• Ella Live! (833 294)
• Ella & Louis (835 313)
• Ella & Duke (517 953).

More samplers:

• The Essential Ella Fitzgerald The Great Songs (517 170 +)
• For The Love Of Ella (841 765 , 2 Cds)
• The Best Of The Song Books (519 804)
• The Best Of The Songbooks The Ballads (521 867)
• Jazz Round Midnight (843 621) and
• Jazz Round Midnight Again (527 032)

Miscellaneous '60s & Early '70s:

At one point Capitol had all of their bafflingly undistinguished Ellaalbums on CD:

• The Gospel collection (almost as lame an idea as Ella doing Bessie Smith-style blues)
• Brighten the Corner (C2-95151)
• Misty Blue (C2-95152)
• Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas (Capitol/EMI 94452)
• Thirty By Ella (C2-48333).

Reprise has both Things Ain't What They Used To Be on one disc(Warner 26023-2).

And Columbia's two-volume Live at Carnegie Hall, 1973 was available on twosingle discs from CBS France (466 547-2 & 466 548-2) or one double set fromJapan (CBS/Sony 50DP-565/566), and, most recently and most satisfyingly asa double from American Columbia (C2K 66809). Also features the reunions ofboth the Chick Webb Orchestra and the Jazz at the Phil all-stars, as wellas Ella's splendiferous final team-up with the great Ellis Larkins.(Easily the most recommended release of this entire period.)

Pablo (currently available from Fantasy Records):

• All That Jazz (2310 938-2)
• At Montreux, 1975 (2310 751-2)
• The Best Is Yet To Come (2312 138-2)
• The Best of Ella (2405 421-2)
• A Classy Pair with Count Basie (231 132-2)
• Dream Dancing with Nelson Riddle (2310 814-2)
• Easy Living with Joe Pass (231 921-2)
• Ella & Oscar Peterson (2310 759-2)
• Ella In London (2310 711-2)
• Fine and Mellow (2310 829-2)
• Ella and Joe Pass... Again (2310 829-2)
• Lady Time (2310 825-2)
• Nice Work if You Can Get It with Andre Previn (2312 140-2)
• >A Perfect Match with Count Basie (2312 110-2)
• Speak Love (2310 888-2)
• Take Love Easy with Joe Pass(231 0702-2)
• Ella a Nice, Live (OJCCD-442-2)
• Ella Abraca Jobim (2630-201)
• Montreux '77(231 0702-2)
• Digital III At Montreux with Basie & Pass (2308 223)
• and lastly, the spectacular live Concert Years box (4 CDs, 4414)

Miss Ella Fitzgerald and Mr. Gordon Jenkins Invite You To Listen and Relax, her all-time finest collection of 'big' ballads with strings; Whisper Not, a stunning cool jazz set from 1964 (update: Released November 2006); JATP: The Ella Fitzgerald Set, stellar concerts from 1949 to 1954 (update: Vol. 15 released October 2006); and Lullabies of Birdland,an authoritative assemblage of Fitzgerald's scat masterpieces, including 'Flying Home,' and 'Lady be Good.' Four decades later Birdland remains the greatest collection of vocal improvisation ever compiled (update: Released November 2006).

This is by no means a complete discography. Ella released some 250 albums during her phenomenal career, an output far surpassing any other female performer's, and second only to Bing Crosby in terms of the the number of recordings released by a popular artist.

• Fitzgerald/Armstrong