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Nice Work If You Can Get It (album)

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Nice Work If You Can Get It
Studio album by
Released1983
RecordedMay 23, 1983
GenreJazz
Length35:44
LabelPablo
ProducerNorman Granz
Ella Fitzgerald chronology
Speak Love
(1983)
Nice Work If You Can Get It
(1983)
Easy Living
(1986)
André Previn chronology
It's a Breeze
(1981)
Nice Work If You Can Get It
(1983)
After Hours
(1989)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings[2]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[3]

Nice Work If You Can Get It is a 1983 studio album by Ella Fitzgerald and André Previn, with accompaniment from the double bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.

It was Fitzgerald's only album recorded with Previn, and represented her first album of single composer material since her 1981 album Ella Abraça Jobim.

Nice Work If You Can Get It was the last in a long line of collaborations that Fitzgerald made with predominantly jazz piano accompaniment. Her earlier albums in a similar vein were Ella Sings Gershwin (1950), Ella Fitzgerald Sings Songs from "Let No Man Write My Epitaph" (1960), and Ella and Oscar (1975). For these albums she was accompanied by the pianists Ellis Larkins, Paul Smith, and Oscar Peterson respectively. Nice Work If You Can Get It was also Fitzgerald's first all Gershwin album since 1959's Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook.

The album cover is a caricature of Fitzgerald, Previn, and the Gershwin brothers by the American cartoonist Al Hirschfeld. The album notes were written by Benny Green.

Track listing

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  1. "A Foggy Day" – 6:10
  2. "Nice Work If You Can Get It" – 5:14
  3. "But Not for Me" – 3:54
  4. "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" – 2:46
  5. "How Long Has This Been Going On?" – 5:01
  6. "Who Cares?" – 4:30
  7. Medley: "I've Got a Crush on You"/"Someone to Watch Over Me"/"Embraceable You" – 4:56
  8. "They Can't Take That Away from Me" – 3:27

All songs composed by George Gershwin, with all lyrics written by Ira Gershwin.

Personnel

[edit]

References

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  1. ^ Yanow, Scott. Nice Work If You Can Get It at AllMusic
  2. ^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 493. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  3. ^ The Rolling Stone Album Guide. Random House. 1992. pp. 246–247.