Which 1956 Ella Fitzgerald album began her acclaimed Great American Songbook series?

Ella Fitzgerald’s 1956 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook began her acclaimed Great American Songbook series.

The album was released by Verve Records and produced by Norman Granz, who designed a sequence of recordings showcasing Fitzgerald’s interpretations of major American composers. It contains songs written by Cole Porter, including “Anything Goes,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and “Night and Day.”

The project established a model that Fitzgerald and Verve continued with songbooks devoted to Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Harold Arlen. These albums helped define her mature recording career.

The series is sometimes described loosely as beginning with an Ella Fitzgerald songbook album without naming the composer. The specific starting point was the Cole Porter set, recorded in 1956 with arrangements by Buddy Bregman.