Ivie Anderson - Ivie Anderson Collection 1932-46 (CD)

Details: Ivie Anderson was a jazz singer who was so versatile and highly regarded that she was the longest-serving female vocalist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, occupying that exacting role from 1932 through to 1942, a vital and exciting formative era for Ellington's music. Born in 1905, she began performing in her native Los Angeles in 1921, and by 1925 was singing at New York's famous Cotton Club and toured with stage musicals, before joining Earl Hines in 1930. She was soon hired by the Duke, and enjoyed a lengthy stay with him, as he made the most of her fine jazz feel, and her ability to work across a range of styles and material, from highly original renditions of up-tempo material like her much-lauded recording of "It Don't Mean A Thing" to sensitive treatments of ballads like "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good" which place her alongside the likes of much better known peers as Billie Holiday. This great value 50-track 2-CD set primarily comprises recordings with the Ellington orchestra for the Brunswick, Columbia, RCA-Victor, Variety & Master labels across the era, including the 1942 pop and R&B hits "I Got It Bad" and "Hayfoot, Strawfoot", plus later solo recordings for the Excello and Black & White labels, including her 1944 hit "Mexico Joe". It also includes a version with Duke of "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" which she performed in the 1942 Marx Brothers movie "A Day At The Races". It's a thoroughly enjoyable and, we hope, nicely representative overview of the most important period of her career and a fine showcase for a distinctive performer who has not received the recognition her talent merits.

Tracklist:

1. It Don't Mean A Thing
2. Delta Bound
3. Happy As The Day Is Long
4. Get Yourself A New Broom
5. I'm Satisfied
6. Ebony Rhapsody
7. Troubled Waters
8. Cotton
9. Truckin'
10. Isn't Love The Strangest Thing
11. Kissin' My Baby Goodnight
12. Oh Babe ! Maybe Someday
13. Shoe Shine Boy
14. I've Got To Be A Rug Cutter
15. My Honey's Lovin' Arms
16. Did Anyone Ever Tell You'
17. There's A Lull In My Life
18. The Old Plantation
19. Alabamy Home
20. All God's Chillun Got Rhythm
21. If You Were In My Place
22. Carnival In Caroline
23. Swingtime In Honolulu
24. You Gave Me The Gate
25. When My Sugar Walks Down The Street
26. Watermelon Man
27. La De Doody Do
28. In A Mizz
29. I'm Checkin' Out Goom Bye
30. A Loney Co-Ed
31. You Can Count On Me
32. Killin' Myself
33. Solitude
34. Stormy Weather
35. Mood Indigo
36. So Far So Good
37. Me And You
38. At A Dixie Roadside Diner
39. Five O'clock Whistle
40. I Got It Bad
41. Rocks In My Bed
42. I Don't Mind
43. Hayfoot Strawfoot
44. Mexico Joe
45. Play Me The Blues
46. On The Sunny Side Of The Street
47. You Ought To Know
48. He's Tall Dark And Handsome
49. Empty Bed Blues
50. Big Butter And Egg Man