Ella Fitzgerald (with Chick Webb): A-Tisket, A-Tasket

Endearing as this performance is by Ella, it also says a lot about her as an artist. For her the song is fun. When she performed it in the 1942 Abbot and Costello movie Ride Em Cowboy, it gave a unique insight into her performing persona. Difficult impossible even to imagine Lady Day, who was into grown-up emotions such as the end of a love affair or the discovery of infidelity, performing in this way. Yet Ella was into joy, sunshine and happiness and getting hung up on their stylistic differences somehow misses the point. Rather like a film negative, the light and the dark images perfectly compliment each other, both essential components in the overall picture. Joy too has a right to be expressed in jazz, and nobody did it better than Ella.