Ella Fitzgerald performed at the end of the Fifties at the Newport Jazz Festival, a famous jazz festival in Newport, Rhode Island. The concert was together with Billie Holiday. In 1973 Ella repeated the pleasure, but this time she brought many more friends from her past. Fitzgerald’s fame had grown in the meantime. So had the festival: organizer George Wein moved it to New York to benefit from the many indoor venues there, like Carnegie Hall.
The list of songs on the streaming / CD version is rather different from the one on this record. Some songs are missing, and most have been shuffled. I couldn’t find out which was the right order. My guess would be that since this came out before the arrival of the CD that the order was changed for the record, because it fit better. Then when the CD came out, it was a good occasion to set matters straight. Proof of that might be that the CD has some small interjections and repeats of songs, something that might happen during a concert.
On the record the third song has some interesting lyrics. It is the Cole Porter classic Miss Otis regrets. In three verses Porter tells a story about classy woman telling someone as a message that she is not able be there for the lunch. The song ends with the admission that it is because she is lynched and hanging from a tree.
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today, Madam
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today
She is sorry to be delayed
But last evening down in Lover's Lane she strayed
Madam
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today
When she woke up and found, that her dream of love was gone
Madam
She ran to the man who had lead her so far astray
And from under a velvet gown
She drew a gun and shot her lover down
Madam
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today
When the mob came and got her and dragged her from the jail
Madam
They strung her from the old willow cross the way
And the moment before she died
She lifted up her lovely head and cried
Madam
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today