Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born on 25th April, 1917. Her career spanned more than 50 years during which time she worked with other giants of Jazz including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Benny Goodman.
Loved and cherished by a world-wide audience, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.
This is just one brilliant, breath-taking performance from her long and wonderful career.
Happy 99th birthday, Ella.
One of the most uplifting and contagious of contemporary Christmas songs, Feliz Navidad was edited by Jose Feliciano to include the English lyric “I want to wish you a Merry Christmas” so mainstream English-speaking radio stations would play it. And play it they did!
In 1968 the Puerto Rican Feliciano interpreted “The Star Spangled Banner” in his own style at a World Series game in Detroit which was greeted with mixed response, yet his album Feliciano! went No. 2 on the Billboard charts. The following year he won two Grammys, but was still keenly aware of the challenges facing multicultural artists. When he wrote Feliz Navidad two years later he included the English lyrics to help bridge the gap.
Billboard’s Holiday 100 list includes this bright and joyous song every year as it remains a favourite, and I’d be happy to hear it more often on Australian radio too.
To our wonderful Blue Velvet Jazz community we’d like to wish you the best for the Season and a fabulous start to 2016.
Sarah, Michael, Peter, Maxwell, Darryl, Kelvin
“Feliz Navidad” celebrates its 45th birthday this year Read More »
There is always one song that tops our list, and one we love to include in our Christmas gigs.
Maybe it’s a sixth sense thing because even though it’s a Northern Hemisphere composition, it was written during a blistering summer. That’s something we can relate to in Australia.
Mel Torme said it was borne of “an effort to stay cool by thinking cool”. Bob Wells had written a few wintery phrases on a notepad, Torme spied it sitting on the piano, and 40 minutes later the Christmas song that is among the most performed was completed.
This version is gorgeous, Mel Torme and Judy Garland getting into the Christmas swing of it from 1963.