Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Ella & Louis Together, Part 1 (Restored 2024) (2025) Hi-Res

Originally released in October 1956, 'Ella and Louis' is a studio album accompanied by the Oscar Peterson Quartet. Producer Norman Granz selected eleven ballads for Fitzgerald and Armstrong, mainly played in a slow or moderate tempo.

What we have here is the mating of honey and molasses. Or is it the sound of melted butter over gravel? Never mind--sweeter, more joyous music has never been recorded. You can't listen to these two without smiling. It's such an inevitable pairing that you wonder what titanic forces of nature could have kept Ella and Satchmo apart until they made this record together in 1957, accompanied by the Oscar Peterson trio and Buddy Rich on drums. The songs are standards--extraordinary standards, of course, like "Moonlight in Vermont" and "A Foggy Day"--but nirvana is reached on "Cheek to Cheek". In one word--Heaven. --Jim Emerson.