Billie or Ella? Maria or Renata? Technique or feeling?

I’m a great admirer of Billie Holiday’s singing and have most of her recordings. I would like to acquire some Ella Fitzgerald jazz recordings as well. Most of what you most commonly see of her work are the the "Songbook" type recordings like the Cole Porter or Gershwin songbook or recordings like Porgy and Bess with Louis Armstrong.

There must be outstanding straight jazz Ella Fitzgerald albums you might recommend that I could search out. Nothing against the above mentioned recordings, which many of you must enjoy, they’re just not to my individual taste. Thanks for any suggestions.

Mike

@skyscraper So as to properly address your query, I’m curious as to what you mean by, “straight jazz.” What would be an example of such?

Tylermunns, just as an example, Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" or "Birth of the Cool" recordings as opposed to his "Sketches of Spain" or  Louis Armstrong's "Hot Five and Hot Seven" recordings as opposed to His "Hello Dolly" material. 

Mike

@skyscraper 

As far as vocalists go, Ella isn’t “straight jazz.”  When we talk of vocalists of this ilk, (Holiday, Vaughn, Washington, Sinatra, etc.) I don’t consider any of them “straight jazz.” I think of Abbey Lincoln who, by the 1960s, was singing real-deal jazz music with the great Max Roach (her husband).  Brilliant.

Those previously mentioned vocalists are singing the songs of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Rodgers & Hart, Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc.  

These are some of the greatest pop songwriters in history, but not what I would call jazz.

tylermunns, that is a terribly narrow definition of what a Jazz singer is; and one that I could not disagree with more.  Of the singers you mention, I may grant you Sinatra……maybe.  However, Ellla, Vaughn not Jazz singers?!  Ella Fitzgerald, with the possible exception of Eddie Henderson and today’s Kurt Elling was possibly the greatest vocal improviser ever.  There have been very few vocalists who have had the vocal technique and, more importantly, the command of harmony and the general vocabulary of improvised Jazz to be able to scat in a way competitive with good instrumental Jazz improvisers.  Surely, that alone puts her in the Jazz category.  Of course, all this in her generational style which was rooted in Swing and, as you say, American Songbook standards.  Btw, the vast majority of Jazz instrumentalist also used, and still use, the Great American Songbook as the primary source of their material.  So…..

Abbey Lincoln was fabulous no doubt.  Being a civil rights activist her later material reflects this.  Her “protest songs” during the time that she was married to Roach were a reflection of the social climate of the time; just as was some of the instrumental Jazz of that time.  However, her earlier recordings were centered on the American Songbook.  Does this mean she wasn’t a Jazz singer then?