Afternoon Aural: Ella Fitzgerald
This 1968 performance of Ella Fitzgerald singing Mack The Knife goes out to Mollygood editor Cord Jefferson, who just returned to America after three months in Saudi Arabia. He’s sitting right next to us and it’s wonderful!
Ella Fitzgerald might have known the words to this song at some point, but she butchered it in this performance.
Bobby Darin would have been so proud.
Ella definitely knew the words to the song, but never stuck to them. That’s what made her performances of it so popular. Her live recording in Berlin is considered one of the best ever.