Verve teases unheard Ella Fitzgerald live recording The Lost Berlin Tapes
By 2020/08/21
Ella Fitzgerald in 1963
Credit:Olavi Kaskisuo / Lehtikuva
The recording of a brilliant Ella Fitzgerald concert in Berlin on March 25, 1962, will finally be heard for the first time as Verve Records prepares to release The Lost Berlin Tapes this fall.
That concert took place two years after the First Lady of Song’s previous performance in the German capital that yielded her highly successful album Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife — and it promises to be just as impressive and noteworthy, if not more.
Verve will release The Lost Berlin Tapes on Oct. 2.
The first single is a bubbly, upbeat take on Mack the Knife, the titular song from Fitzgerald’s 1960 album.
The Lost Berlin Tapes were recorded in high-quality stereo at Berlin’s Sportpalast, and the performance finds Fitzgerald at the top of her game with a trio comprising pianist Paul Smith, bassist Wilfred Middlebrooks and drummer Stan Levey.
After almost 60 years, Verve founder and producer Norman Granz, who was also Fitzgerald’s manager, found the tapes unopened in his private collection.
The new album will be released on vinyl, CD and digitally.
So, if you’ve been eager to hear more from Ella’s deep musical relationship with the city of Berlin, you won’t have to wait much longer.
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