The Complete 1960-61 Ella in Berlin 2CD release combines the complete Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife from 13 February 1960 that won two Grammy Awards, on CD 1, plus “bonus” tracks of her 1 July 1959 concert at the Cannes Jazz Festival and a further two tracks from the Hollywood Bowl from 1956. CD2 comprises the complete return concert the following year in Berlin on 11 February with the addition of two additional tracks recorded in Copenhagen on 25 August 1961. Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife captures Ella at the peak of her powers, and, as one of her best live performances captured on record is essential listening for anyone interested in the jazz vocal art. The return concert does not have the same intensity and joie de vivre but even so is a remarkable document capturing her complete performance as she effortlessly sails through 18 songs of up-tempo, medium-tempo and ballads from the great American Songbook and more. Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife last appeared on CD in 1993 as The Complete Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife (Verve 519 564-2) and the 1961 concert as Ella Returns to Berlin (Verve 837 758-20) in 1991. If you already have these two original Verve releases, then it's a question of weighing up whether the bonus tracks merit purchase - certainly, the inclusion of her rare 1959 Cannes Jazz festival concert (seven tracks) might swing it. The liner notes are reasonably complete] and include uncredited quotes from my own biography of Ella. Ella Fitzgerald At Mister Kelly's 1958, a 2CD set includes 27 tracks recorded at Mister Kelly's on 10 August 1958 by Verve, but not released by them. They account for all the tracks in Phil Schaap's Ella Fitzgerald 1993 discography. The remaining seven “bonus” tracks come from the Storyville Club Boston in 1953 (four tracks), the Apollo Theatre, 1954 (one track) and Basin Street, New York, August 1955 (two tracks). On the Mister Kelly's tracks, Ella is backed by Lou Levy, Max Bennett and Gus Johnson with whom she had an excellent working relationship. The tracks were well recorded by Verve, capturing the nightclub intimacy between artist and audience and we can only speculate why they were not released at the time. Certainly, Ella had created a stir in the music business with the release of her Cole Porter Song Book, her debut on the Verve label. Given the release date was spring 1956, Ella had, in a remarkably short period of time, accumulated a remarkable amount of recordings in the Verve vaults by the time she came to record at Mister Kelly's in August 1958, including the Rodgers and Hart Song Book, the Duke Ellington Song Book, an album with Louis Armstrong, a small group session, JATP sessions, her Jazz at the Opera House album – her first live album released by Verve – several dates with Paul Weston and his orchestra, and on 25 April 1958 a live concert in Rome (with the Mister Kelly rhythm section). This session was shelved and when it was finally released in 1988 it went to the top of the album charts as Ella in Rome: The Birthday Concert and garnered world-wide critical acclaim. If an excellent concert like this was not released at the time, then it perhaps places in context the fate of the Mister Kelly tapes, since I'm sure Granz had not yet worked out that the essence of Ella Fitzgerald on record was not realised in the studio with big orchestras but in live performance where, with just a microphone, piano, bass and drums, she could hold an audience that could fill the massive Hollywood Bowl to a small, exclusive nightclub like Mister Kelly's in the palm of her hand with her under-appreciated ballad singing, the intensity of her medium tempo swingers and finally elate them with her complete command of uptempo singing and scat. Thus, the release of the Mister Kelly tracks is something anyone with an interest in the art of jazz singing will welcome, and wonder of wonders, quotes from my bio are credited. She even includes some songs in this set that she rarely performed, such as ‘Across the Alley From the Alamo’ and ‘Your Red Wagon’, where on the latter she disabuses the notion that she was no blues singer. An important addition to the Ella discography, as important in its way as Ella in Rome: The Birthday Concert.