American Masters (TV Series) Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For (1999) User Reviews

The best female vocalist of all time

[hcmi · 8/10 · 28 August 2000]

Video and sound quality are not first rate given the age of the material. Many TV clips with Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Durante. I have been a fan of Ella for years and while the quality is not up to her recordings you do gain a greater understanding of the artist through this video. Many of the performances will give goose bumps to Ella fans. To me she always sounded effortless in her singing but the video shows how hard she worked and how much she really put into every song.

Fine bio on finest voice of 20th century.

[st-shot · 8/10 · 21 March 2011]

" She's the best" declares Johnny Mathis of Ella Fitzgerald in the opening moments of the documentary Something to Live For . " Of all of us who do this she is the best" In a career that spanned well over a half century Fitzgerald won a boatload of Grammys and sold some forty million records and never lost her huge following but writers tend to give more ink to the glamorous Lena Horne or the tragic Billie Holiday whose life is a more provocative tell than that of a numbers running husky kid who quickly switched from dancing to singing before a tough Apollo crowd and never looked back. Personally I agree with Mathis though it took me years to get past what she sang to discover the way she sang and just marvel at a voice that could provide instant up-lift or blue mood.

Something to Live For does an excellent job of giving an overview of Fitgerald's career from her youthful big band days with Chick Webb to her triumph with the American Songbook series. Dueting along the way with Perry Como, Frank Sinartra and Louis Armstrong among others as well as riffing with a trombone player the remarkable stage presence of Fitzgerald making it look easy is awe inspiring, especially in this age of screeching songbirds miked up like their working the drive through at Burger King and lip synching in some cases.

Privately there is little to dish on Ella though she had her share of bumps in the road with husbands and segregation and gave enormous amounts to charity without fanfare. Thankfully the bio remains mostly on stage with Fitzgerald through the years maturing and adapting without a hitch her five octave instrument to any song and making it uniquely hers.

Something to Live For is well worth a watch and a listen not only for fans but by the generations who have been subjected to howlers (Cher, Whitney, Barbra etc) with big voices and little nuance. Watching this grand songstress sing Angel Eyes is worth the price of admission alone. It does a fine job of making Johnny's point.

Smooth as silk documentary.

[movibuf1962 · 28 January 2003]

I grew up watching Ms. Fitzgerald in the glass-breaking Memorex commercials, which are shown in this DVD. Even then her voice was something to behold. This documentary captures Ella's golden era- before the various medical problems. The documentary itself is not perfect as it glosses over a few years and decades, and doesn't caption everything. But there are tons of clips showing concerts from Denmark, France, Germany, and the U.S., always stunning and always of a buoyant, incredibly shy woman, beautifully full of figure with a resonating, satin-like voice. (Check out the first torch ballad of "Lover Man" about three minutes into the DVD as the title comes on screen. A breathtaking piece.) There are also clips of the songs "Misty," "Summertime," and "Azure Mood" as well as interviews with Andre Previn, c. 1979-1980, and recollections from her band musicians. The TV show clips are what you really want to see: performances with Nat "King" Cole, Bing Crosby, Mel Torme', Dinah Shore and Joan Sutherland, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and probably the most memorable: a parry-and-thrust duet with Frank Sinatra on "The Lady Is A Tramp" from his own 1967 special. A nice time capsule of a timeless performer. Buy and watch.

Documentary of a Great Singer

[tjmayerinsf · 24 February 2002]

This is a great documentary of a great singer, with clips of Ella from concerts, old TV shows, and feature films. The film maintains a balance between biographical details and extended film clips of entire songs sung by Ella herself. Look for it on your local PBS station during Black History Month.