Smooth Sailing (Ella Fitzgerald song)
| "Smooth Sailing" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Ella Fitzgerald | |
| from the album Lullabies of Birdland | |
| B-side | "Love You Madly" |
| Released | 1951 |
| Label | Decca |
| Songwriter | Arnett Cobb |
| Audio | |
| "Smooth Sailing" on YouTube | |
"Smooth Sailing" is a scat song[1][2] written by Arnett Cobb[3] that was a hit in 1951 for Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded it for Decca with The Ray Charles Singers.
Background
The song peaked at number three on Billboard's Most Played Juke Box, Rhythm & Blues Records chart.[4][5]
According to Joel Whitburn, it is one "one of Fitzgerald's most popular scat-singing performances" of all time.[6] Steve Bergsman writes in his book What a Difference a Day Makes: Women Who Conquered 1950s Music that the song has "pedigree written all over it."[3] The song's "melodic line grows into arabesques of instrumental precision and agility," describes The Ella Fitzgerald Companion.[1].
Stuart Nicholson in his book Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz notes that the "virtuoso scat performance" was "less frantic than its predecessors" and that it "contain[ed] the early feel of the emerging hard-bop movement."[2] "This is safe, user-friendly scat over an engaging down-home feeling, and it clicked with the public,"[2] narrates the jazz historian.
Charts
| Chart (1951) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard Most Played Juke Box, Rhythm & Blues Records[4] | 3 |
References
- 1 2 Gourse, Leslie (1998). The Ella Fitzgerald Companion: Seven Decades of Commentary. Omnibus. ISBN 978-0-7119-6916-2.
- 1 2 3 Nicholson, Stuart (22 July 2014). Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz, Updated Edition. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-78813-0.
- 1 2 Bergsman, Steve (30 October 2023). What a Difference a Day Makes: Women Who Conquered 1950s Music. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4968-4896-3.
- 1 2 "Most Played Juke Box, Rhythm & Blues Records". Billboard. 13 October 1951. p. 30.
- ↑ Bergsman, Steve (30 October 2023). What a Difference a Day Makes: Women Who Conquered 1950s Music. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-4968-4896-3.
- ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2002). Joel Whitburn's Billboard Pop Hits, Singles & Albums, 1940-1954. Record Research. ISBN 978-0-89820-152-9.
