Furthermore, Hammerstein sees Rodgers’ work in his “chosen field of light dramatic music” in a no-nonsense manner — never hesitant, indefinite, or too sentimental in the case of the song of love (the "self-deception that believes the lie," as the wonderfully acerbic "I Wish I Were in Love Again" puts it). In an almost utilitarian, square-peg-to-square-hole approach, “Each melody adheres to the purpose for which it was put into a play. It is romantic, funny, or sad according to the situation for which it was written and the character required to sing it.”
Hammerstein places Rodgers’ successful earlier teaming with Hart in this witty and well-written tradition of drollery and drama: “Any contemporary must feel grateful to Rodgers and Hart for all the joy they have given us. This is a group of lovable songs…”
Indeed it is, but backtracking from Ella Fitzgerald’s 1938 million-selling swing time nursery rhyme “A Tisket A Tasket,” the 20 years leading up to the album of lovable songs under discussion (the second entry in Verve’s Song Book series, after the Cole Porter Song Book), had — as William Simon outlines her bumpy road of bop, swing, scat, jazz, blockbusters, covers, revivals, and mediocrities for other record labels — amounted to an inconsistent recording career for Fitzgerald. As such an indiscriminate waywardness may indicate, “Few people made as many records as Ella, and nobody recorded as many bad songs.”
But by the time of the Rodgers and Hart Song Book, Simon notes, Fitzgerald was back on track with larger audiences and “the better songs.” She was also in tune and in technique with the greater sensitivity such craftsmanship — in interwoven word and tune — the 20th century American pop standard called for in general, and the Rodgers and Hart song demanded in particular:
- She is constantly maturing, as evidenced by her increasingly profound understanding and projection of lyrics. Tonally, she commands greater variety — she can slip easily from an intimate huskiness to a clear bell tone and back. When she sings a slow blues or ballad, there’s a trace of melancholy in her sound that stems directly from the tradition of Bessie Smith...
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