Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” is beautiful. It’s peculiar. It’s sad. It reflects a path of life on which we have all wandered. But which version is best?

“Perdido” was supposed to be a live showcase for Charlie Parker. Then Ella Fitzgerald – who would have been 100 today – stepped up to the mic.

I was quite active in the early days of live television, most of which was shot in Hollywood, California. Sometime in the latter part of 1951, I got a call from the director and producer of many teen-oriented TV shows. You May Also Like: How Pee Wee Ellis Finally SteppedRead More

by Mark Saleski As record stores vanish, as more and more people get their music digitally, as the physical medium is phased out, well … honestly, I don’t know what the heck is going on out there. You May Also Like: Ella Fitzgerald, “Perdido” (1949): Appreciations Top 20 Versions ofRead More

by Nick DeRiso Though not the hoped-for third-act triumph, Ella and Oscar still has its enduring charms. See, Oscar Peterson, a hard-banging piano genius as bluesy as he was inventive, should have made the perfect foil for Ella Fitzgerald on this stripped-down date, set for reissue on March 15 byRead More

Oscar Peterson, one of jazz music’s most recognizable modern-day pianists, was felled on Sunday not from the lingering effects of a 1993 stroke — he kept playing after that — but from kidney failure. He passed, aged 82, in his native Canada outside Toronto. Peterson’s stroke compromised his left handRead More