It's something everyone has experienced: whether at one of the great jazz festivals in Berlin, Montreux or Paris, or in a small, provincial jazz club which exudes the charm of a dingy jazz cavern in the Fifties - you sit, listen, and then rack your brain to remember the name of the number which the young jazz musician is playing with all his heart. Just what was the name? Put the "Ella Sings The Rodgers And Hart Song Book" album on your turntable and you’re guaranteed to recall "My Funny Valentine", "Blue Moon" and "It Never Entered My Mind". All these and many more excellent ballads flowed out of the pens of the songwriting team - and each and every one of them is a winner. But don’t make the mistake of associating merely scat singing taken at a cracking pace with the most famous (the name ‘Ella’ is a fully adequate epithet) and the BEST (for that’s what she is and she will remain so!) jazz vocalist between 1930 and 1995: this album more than demonstrates her excellent powers of expression and her brilliant modulations. The ballads are done true justice in these sensitive, almost subdued arrangements by the West Coast film music expert Buddy Bregman, which put Ella's voice, Richard Rodgers' melodies and Lorenz Hart's lyrics in the limelight. With the exception of "Blue Moon", all the numbers are themes taken from Broadway musicals, virtually none of which will ever have been seen by us, but whose evergreen melodies will remain in our memories for ever. What is more, there is a special treat for us in store on this album: three titles are now appearing on stereo-LP for the very first time. A further milestone along the road of jazz singing is at last re-released with this song book: it constitutes an important documentation of Ella’s musical path which began with the children’s song "A-tisket, a-tasket".