Ella and Louis

Ella Fitzgerald was early in her historic run on Norman Granz’s Verve label when she was paired up with the great Louis Armstrong in the summer of 1956 for Ella and Louis. Their Porgy & Bess album followed soon after, as did Ella and Louis Again (all of it collected on The Complete Ella and Louis on Verve). The alchemy between the two giants is a marvel in the annals of American song. They take a simple approach that essentially can’t go wrong: beautiful expressive standards, uncluttered arrangements, virtuoso small-group backing from pianist Oscar Peterson’s working unit with bassist Ray…