Speak Love Explained

Speak Love
Type:studio
Artist:Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass
Cover:SpeakLoveElla.jpg
Released:1983
Recorded:March 21–22, 1983
Genre:Jazz
Length:42:33
Label:Pablo
Producer:Norman Granz
Chronology:Ella Fitzgerald
Prev Title:The Best Is Yet to Come
Prev Year:1982
Next Title:Nice Work If You Can Get It
Next Year:1983

Speak Love is a 1983 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by the jazz guitarist Joe Pass.

It is the third of Fitzgerald's series of duets with Pass, following Take Love Easy (1973) and Fitzgerald and Pass... Again (1976) a later album, Easy Living, followed in 1986.

The title of the album refers to the first line of the opening song on the album, "Speak Low", a quotation from Much Ado About Nothing.

Reception

AllMusic critic Scott Yanow wrote that "the setting was perhaps too intimate for what she had left. Fitzgerald's phrasing remained a joy despite the limited range, but there are many more significant records by the singer than this CD reissue despite touching versions of 'Comes Love', 'There's No You' and 'Gone with the Wind'."

Track listing

  1. "Speak Low" (Ogden Nash, Kurt Weill) – 4:13
  2. "Comes Love" (Lew Brown, Sam H. Stept, Charles Tobias) – 3:00
  3. "There's No You" (Tom Adair, Hal Hopper) – 4:45
  4. "I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)" (Harry Ruskin, Henry Sullivan) – 5:08
  5. "At Last" (Mack Gordon, Harry Warren) – 4:21
  6. "The Thrill Is Gone" (Lew Brown, Ray Henderson) – 4:14
  7. "Gone with the Wind" (Herbert Magidson, Allie Wrubel) – 3:55
  8. "Blue and Sentimental" (Count Basie, Mack David, Jerry Livingston) – 3:06
  9. "Girl Talk" (Neal Hefti, Bobby Troup) – 4:09
  10. "Georgia on My Mind" (Hoagy Carmichael, Stuart Gorrell) – 6:09

Personnel