The Jazz Queen would have had a birthday today which no doubt would have been widely celebrated not only in her motherland – the USA – but around the whole world, because this woman deserved a lot of praise and honors even after her death. “Lady Ella” was born today in 1917 to become the first lady of song and a remarkable personality in the world of music, particularly jazz. Let’s mark this event!
Lady Ella
When going through Ella’s bio one can’t but be astonished by the many hardships she had to live through but despite which she still managed to turn into American Jazz-Queen with impeccable diction and singing technique. Ella went through various phases, not to be the one who gets everything easy. She used to be married to a drug-dealer, was homeless, lost her mother when a child, was abused by her step father, had legs amputated and suffered from diabetes. But it didn’t stop her from becoming a strong woman. Music community can be thankful to destiny for discovering such a ‘rough diamond’ as Ms. Fitzgerald. A unique voice covering three octaves span got her a diverse repertoire: songs "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", "How High the Moon", "Sugar Blues" and many other are still up in the memory. During her almost 60-years career Ella’s albums were sold in 40 mln copies, brought her 13 Grammies and Medals handed by Reagan and Bush personally.
The ever charming Audrey Hepburn is not only known for the angel look and remarkable acting skills but for her soft voice that, once heard, can’t be forgotten for its melodic sounding and innocent sincerity. She was and is the icon in many senses - appearance, figure, play, fashion, style, lifestyle in general. Let’s remember some of her brightest moments as a singer today – particularly Audrey’s role of Holly in 1961 movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and the theme song “Moon River”.
Audrey Hepburn
This phrase must be immediately evoking a mental picture of Audrey’s sitting at the fire escape exit casually playing her little guitar. So iconic the image and the sound was that this song was chosen as a sample of pop culture used in various tests for studies of people’s memory. The song was composed by Henry Mancini specially for Audrey’s vocal range and the lyrics are due to Johnny Mercer. During the film production it was first decided to skip the song leaving it out of the scenario at all. But the fragile Audrey Hepburn reacted unexpectedly sharply even using some strong words to express her most ardent desire to leave the song as it is. Who could resist the charming girl? The song remained.
“Moon River” became a hit, and not only did it beat the Billboards on both sides of the Atlantic, received an Academy Award and two Grammies, it even became the name of a street (in Johnny Mercer’s home town). No need to mention the endless list of names of artists who covered and arranged the song. Such a short piece of music with such a powerful influence.
“What if?” is the major question of regret. We keep imagining what would have changed if we had behaved differently in this or that situation. But for the moment we have what we have and the only thing remaining is to face the reality the way it is. That refers to everything, but the brightest example is no doubt romantic relationships between a man and a woman. Once we lose someone we start looking at things differently and too often our eyes open for things we refused to see while the thing lasted.
Familiar situation, familiar thoughts and reflection for most of us, huh? Bruno Mars admits, too, that when righting this song he didn’t even need to concentrate much because the whole thing came from the gut so naturally that the piece was composed at once. That was another piano soul ballad as a result, a single from Bruno’s second studio album, even though the singer had said he was not going to compose any of the kind anymore.
The work was positively received both by the fans and by the music critics. “When I Was Your Man” is said to have elements from different styles and even epochs. Critics saw something from Frank Sinatra, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Michael Jackson and Billy Joel. Mars’ vocals colored the song with additional vulnerability and emotional load.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is indeed one of the most significant music works in the Western-classical repertoire. Some critics even named it the greatest music piece that has ever been written. And there are definitely reasons why this could be a deserved title.
Beethoven conducting
By the time the symphony was premiered in Vienna in 1824 Ludwig Beethoven was almost deaf. However, he was almost ‘directing’ the piece himself, notching the time and actively gesticulating to musicians, rising and shrinking as long as the music sounded according to his calculations. The orchestra, though, was told to mildly ignore the great composer because of his deafness. They say that the Symphony was badly rehearsed (only two dress rehearsals before premiere), but it didn’t bother it to be received with grand applause. After the orchestra ceased playing and calmed down at the last sound, Beethoven was a bit off the track and kept conducting. They say that one of the singers (contralto) came up to him and turn the master face to the audience – so that he could SEE the ovations if not hear them.
This was a choral symphony (Beethoven’s first one of this kind) and the choral part of it deserves special attention. “Ode to Joy” is one of the most played things up to now. The lyrics was taken from Schiller’s poem and revised, reworked and redone many times by composer before it reached the present form. Interesting but like many later-to-become-masterpieces works are initially underestimated by their authors. Schiller, too, thought that his poem was a complete failure. But it wasn’t. And Beethoven’s usage of it in his Symphony 9 engraved the greatness of for another few centuries minimum.
