The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books

The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books are a series of eight studio albums released in irregular intervals between 1956 and 1964, recorded by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, supported by a variety of orchestras, big bands, and small jazz combos.

• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book (1956), arranged by Buddy Bregman
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Song Book (1956), arranged by Bregman
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book (1957), arranged by Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Song Book (1958), arranged by Paul Weston
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book (1959), arranged by Nelson Riddle
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book (1961), arranged by Billy May
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Song Book (1963), arranged by Riddle
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Book (1964), arranged by Riddle

Considered a cornerstone of 20th-century recorded popular music, they collectively represent some of the finest interpretations of the greater part of the musical canon known as the Great American Songbook. Verve Records reissued the eight albums in an expansive 1994 box set compilation, which won the 1995 Grammy for Best Historical Recording.

Following Fitzgerald's death, The New York Times columnist Frank Rich was moved to write that the Song Book series "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis's contemporaneous integration of white and African-American soul."

Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians. As Ira Gershwin said, in the line quoted in every obituary: "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them." Most of the rest of us didn't know, either. By the time she had gone through the entire canon, songs that had been pigeonholed as show tunes or jazz novelties or faded relics of Tin Pan Alley had become American classical music, the property and pride of everyone."

Frank Sinatra was moved out of respect for Fitzgerald to block Capitol from re-releasing his own albums in a similar, single composer vein.