They Can’t Take That Away From Me

They Can’t Take That Away From Me sounds like a waltz swaying between nostalgia and swing, yet never losing that playful sparkle that makes every note feel like a wink. The magic lies in how Ella and Armstrong take turns playing with the melody, as if telling a joke where the punchline is always better than the joke itself. Ella enters with her signature clarity, but it’s Louis who answers with that thick phrasing full of nuances, as if every word carried the weight of gold. What’s most curious is that, despite being a songbook by Cole Porter, it sounds like something invented in the moment, as if the song had always existed and they had merely rediscovered it.They recorded it in August 1956 at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, in a session where Norman Granz—the man behind Verve Records—gave them free rein.

Armstrong had the final say on which tracks to include and in what key, and it shows: there’s a freedom in the performance rarely achieved in recording studios. The album, Ella and Louis, was released in October of that same year, and its success was such that the following year they repeated the formula with Ella and Louis Again. The song itself lasts 4:40, just the right amount of time for the dialogue between the two voices to feel unforced, like a conversation between old friends reuniting.