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From album
Ella and Louis
Ella Fitzgerald · 1956 · Track 10
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The story behind
In 1940, when jazz was still breathing in ballrooms and orchestras filled the radio waves, a song written years earlier found its definitive voice. The Nearness of You was born in 1937 by the hands of Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington, but it wasn’t until three years later, when Glenn Miller and his orchestra recorded it with Ray Eberle on vocals, that the world heard it for the first time. That version, released as a single under the Bluebird Records label, reached the top of Billboard’s Best Seller charts that same summer, proving that a simple melody could become an instant standard. What’s curious is that, although the song was originally intended for an Paramount Pictures film that was never released, it ended up being far more than just an accompaniment: it slipped into the repertoires of legends like Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, and Charlie Parker, each giving it their own unique twist.
But where The Nearness of You found its warmest home was in the album Ella & Louis, recorded in August 1956 at the newly opened Capitol Studios in Hollywood. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong had collaborated before, but this time Norman Granz—owner of the Verve label—gave them free rein to choose eleven ballads, including this one, and shape them to their style. The result was an album that not only topped Billboard’s jazz chart but also made it into the top ten bestsellers in pop. The magic lay in the contrast: Fitzgerald’s crystal-clear voice, with its precision and improvisational skill, and Armstrong’s raspy yet soulful timbre, which lent those trumpet solos that seemed to whisper rather than play. The accompaniment, handled by Oscar Peterson’s piano quartet, Ray Brown on double bass, Herb Ellis on guitar, and Buddy Rich on drums, was the perfect frame for the song to breathe at its own pace, as if each note had been hand-carved. It lasted 5:42, but in that time, everything fit: nostalgia, camaraderie, and that closeness the title promises.