The record in context

Irving Berlin wrote “Blue Skies” in 1926 — a burst of pure optimism, one of the most straightforwardly happy songs in the American catalogue. By the time Ella Fitzgerald recorded it for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook in 1958, the song was more than thirty years old and had been sung by everyone. What could possibly be left to do with it? Fitzgerald’s answer: treat the optimism as a starting point, not a destination. She begins with Berlin’s sunshine and ends somewhere in the jazz stratosphere, and the journey between the two is the whole point of the record.

The Berlin Songbook was the fourth of the eight celebrated sets Fitzgerald recorded for Verve between 1956 and 1964, and it presented a particular challenge. Berlin’s songs are deceptively simple — plain melodies, plain words, no harmonic tricks to hide behind. A lesser singer would have nothing to work with. Fitzgerald, whose technique was the most complete in jazz, found everything: she could honor the simplicity of the tune and then, when the moment was right, open it up into the kind of improvisation that only she could deliver.

“Blue Skies” is the set’s great example of the Songbook method. The first chorus is reverent — the song as Berlin wrote it, sung straight, with the famous clarity of Fitzgerald’s diction making every word of the lyric shine. Then, as the arrangement loosens, the mischief starts. A scat phrase here, a rhythmic displacement there, and suddenly the optimism of the lyric has a second meaning: it is not just Berlin’s happiness anymore, it is Fitzgerald’s own delight in what her voice can do.

The recording captures something essential about her artistry. Fitzgerald never treated the great songwriters as museum pieces; she treated them as collaborators across time. Berlin gave her the sky. She decided to fly in it.

Listen closely

The opening chorus is sunshine, straight up. Fitzgerald sings Berlin’s melody with no ornamentation, and the effect is disarming — listen for how the famous diction makes a thirty-year-old lyric sound brand new. The words “blue skies smiling at me” arrive with such clarity and warmth that you believe them completely. She is not interpreting the optimism; she is embodying it.

Then watch for the turn. As the song progresses, Fitzgerald begins to play — a scat syllable slipped into a phrase, a rhythm nudged slightly off the beat, a note held a fraction longer than written. Listen for the exact moment the performance shifts from reverent to playful. It is not a single break but a gradual loosening, like someone smiling wider and wider until the smile becomes a laugh. The band follows her lead, the swing getting lighter and more buoyant as she opens up.

The scat section is the record’s centerpiece. Listen for the melodic invention: these are not random syllables but shaped phrases, each one leading logically to the next, the way a great horn solo builds. Fitzgerald’s scat had been her signature since the 1930s, but here it serves the song rather than showing off — the improvisation feels like the natural expression of the lyric’s joy. She is not leaving Berlin behind; she is taking him with her.

The ending brings it all home. She returns to the melody for the final chorus, and after the flight of the scat, the simple tune sounds richer — as though the improvisation has added colors to it that were always there, waiting. Listen to the last phrase and notice how satisfied it sounds. This is a singer who has taken a song apart and put it back together, and the song is better for it.