What Is This Thing Called Love? Cool Love Songs

Personnel: Connie Haines, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Frank Sinatra, Helen Forrest, Helen O'Connell, Helen Ward, Johnny Desmond, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Anita O'Day, Ray Eberle, Thelma Carpenter, Billie Holiday (vocals).
Liner Note Author: Hugh Palmer.
Recording information: Hollywood, CA (09/12/1934-12/22/1943); Los Angeles, CA (09/12/1934-12/22/1943); New York, NY (09/12/1934-12/22/1943).
Life is sticky, messy and sometimes delightful, and then you fall in love and everything magnifies until the world itself seems to shine and vibrate with the sheer joy of being alive to someone else. That's why people write love songs. That's why people sing them. The nearest thing to actually being in love is a good love song, and people have been singing such songs forever, but seldom with the sheer joy and elegance that was on display in the golden age of vocal jazz in the 1930s and '40s, the period covered by this charming little set. There are so many graceful gems here, including Ella Fitzgerald's "Taking a Chance on Love," Nat King Cole's "Sweet Lorraine," Fats Waller's "When Someone Thinks You're Wonderful," Louis Armstrong's "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, and the Mills Brothers' easy, infectious "Old Fashioned Love." Marvelous stuff. ~ Steve Leggett