Ella Fitzgerald - Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) [VINYL] Classic Records 200gm - 24-bit/96kHz plus CD-compatible format

Classic Records 200 gram QUIEX SV-P re-issue.

Another eBay snipe. For a ridiculously low price, I got the Classic Records 200 gram QUIEX SV-P re-issue. While there's still more groove noise than I would have expected from Classic Records, you won't notice it. And the music is superb, btw. It's just Ella and a piano player, just like the Decca "Ella Sings Gershwin". Dig it, and dig in. This was recorded just before her Harold Arlen Songbook, FYI.



Allmusic Review by Ken Dryden
"This album is a rare gem, a 1960 duo session featuring Ella Fitzgerald singing classic ballads, which she performed in the film Let No Man Write My Epitaph, with pianist Paul Smith as her sole accompanist. Unfortunately, this audiophile LP reissue by Classic omits seven of the 13 selections heard on the original record in order to release it as a pair of one-sided 12" 45-rpm discs. While the fidelity is superb, it seems like it would have been more intelligent to utilize both sides of each disc or the regular 33-rpm speed in order to include all of this valuable music. In any case, Ella's gift for capturing the essence of each melody is matched by Smith's flawless backing for her, especially in her powerful interpretation of "Angel Eyes" and the loping "One for My Baby (And One for the Road)." There's no doubt that the missing songs, which include "I Hadn't Anyone Till You," "Who's Sorry Now," and "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," are every bit as good as the tracks on this abbreviated reissue."

(Note: he's wrong about the 45rpm re-issue. He only had 1/2 the package. Classic did some 4 lp x 45rpm releases.)

Available on cd as "The Intimate Ella". Here's a review of that:
Review by Scott Yanow
"This is a most unusual Ella Fitzgerald recording, reissued on CD by Verve. Recorded around the time when she performed some of these songs for the film Let No Man Write My Epitaph, the masterful singer is heard in duets with pianist Paul Smith interpreting 13 songs (even "I Cried for You," "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" and "Who's Sorry Now") at slow expressive tempoes. Listeners who feel that Ella Fitzgerald was mostly a scat singer who had trouble giving the proper emotional intensity to lyrics will be surprised by this sensitive and often-haunting set."



01 - Black Coffee.flac
02 - Angel Eyes.flac
03 - I Cried For You.flac
04 - I Can't Give You Anything But Love.flac
05 - Then You've Never Been Blue.flac
06 - I Hadn't Anyone Till You.flac
07 - My Melancholy Baby.flac
08 - Misty.flac
09 - September Song.flac
10 - One For My Baby (And One More For The Road).flac
11 - Who's Sorry Now.flac
12 - I'm Getting Sentimental Over You.flac
13 - Reach For Tomorrow.flac




LP > Rega P1 with Ortofon Super 30 > TC-750LC > E-Mu 0202 > Adobe Audition 3 (AA) @ 96kHz 32bit float > Manual click removal in AA > Click Repair set @ 20 > Equalizer (from the ClickRepair guy) used to combine into mono) > AA used to split tracks, fade in/out, and for manual click removal > RX Advanced to resample > RX Advanced to dither MBIT+ > TLH to FLAC and sector align (16bit, pad) > MP3 Tagger to edit tags.

"16bit" = 16bit at 44.1kHz
"24bit" = 24bit at 96kHz

No music was harmed in the making of this vinyl rip.