Christmas Music Review: Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas

Nothing but spiritual songs here, and Ella Fitzgerald can really sing.  This compilation CD was released in 2007.  She sings several songs with a choir, and in a few the choir is too loud.  Fitzgerald's voice is calm and peaceful, and her solo numbers a truly fantastic.  "The First Noel" is one of these.  Her voice is so crisp and pure.  I like her version of "Away in a Manger."  "Silent Night" also falls in one her voice is allowed to shine.  However she may have a bit too much movement on some of the notes.  "Sleep, My Little Jesus" is a song with which I wasn't familiar.  However it tells a good story.   I usually don't care for "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" but she sings it so well. She does "We Three Kings" and "God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen" with the back up choir, and in these cases they don't dominate but compliment.  These songs really carry a catchy beat.  In a couple songs her voice sounds just a bit too much like Doris Day, but for the most part this is not evident.
I love Christmas, especially the spiritual aspect, and this CD hits that aspect.

Music Review: Ella Fitzgerald: The Rodgers and Hart Songbook Volume I

This is Ella Fitzgerald singing songs form the 20s 30s and 40s.  You can tell the quality of Fitzgerald's vocals, a big band jazzy style.  However I am not much into this type of music.  It seems to get boring easily.  Rodgers and Hart wrote many songs for musicals together.  So the music here is representative of the early era of musicals.  I much prefer the music of today with the rousing melody's and cutting lyrics.