Thread by @GeePawHill

this is ella, "just a closer walk".

i've put it up before, and i hereby announce i will put it up again. i put it up in different moods, with different reactions, cuz that's how it is. it works in many ways.

this woman is the greatest vocalist of all of jazz history. there might be two or three others who play in her league, just maybe not quite at her level.

tonight my theme is maybe different than usual.

billie, billie, billie, all day, yeah? look. i love billie holiday, for many reasons. billie could not carry ella's jockstrap as a pure singer.

ella could sing the holy living fuck out of anything. she was more precise than garfunkel, more creative than anyone but armstrong, more bold, it goes on and on, this list.

here's a complex horrible thing. billie was "pretty". ella was not. billie was slim (heroin). ella was not.

this isn't made up retro shit. even at the time, they did not know what to do with her. "yes, she's the greatest we've ever known. no, we do not know how to sell her."

the music business is as corrupt as any you might imagine. but music, *music*, is not corrupt. and many musicians form a significant part of the business. so. ella rises. cuz they just can't fucking stop her. she's too good.

there is no singer anywhere on the planet who does not regard ella, chubby non-pretty unquestionably-african-american, as one of the most astonishing things that have ever happened.

maybe you're not convinced. here's ella and lous, singing one of the songs one of the most famous of transgressive composers ever made, summertime.

this is the single most influential popular musician of the 20th century, singing a duet with ella. he's a little past his best, she's just peaking.

that boy, ya know, 50'ish here, but we can't know, cuz when he was born birth certificates for poor black kids didn't happen.

to me, this is why music matters.

we don't care who you are. we don't care what you look like.

we care whether you can hear the sounds of god and re-make them so that we can hear them.