Ella Fitzgerald—”Hard Hearted Hannah”

Ella Fitzgerald had not made any significant appearance on the movie screen since she sang "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" in Abbott and Costello's "Ride 'Em Cowboy" in 1942.

In 1955 she appears as singer Maggie Jackson in Warner Bros' "Pete Kelly's Blues." Here she sings "Hard Hearted Hannah" and really displays that her voice works like a musical instrument.

Warner Bros' "Pete Kelly's Blues" was a 1955 film based on the 1951 radio series. Actor/director and jazz lover Jack Webb plays jazz cornetist Pete Kelly in a setting of 1927 jazz musicians and gangsters in which Peggy Lee plays a jazz singer. Ella Fitzgerald's name appeared only in small print at the bottom of the movie posters.

Ella Fitzgerald almost didn't appear in the movie at all. She was angered when she learned that the film was shot in the new Cinemascope technique. Ella apparently was fearful that proces would make her look enormous on screen. But director Jack Webb managed to put her at ease and the filming went ahead.

Ella recorded the song for the film in Hollywood on May 3, 1955. She was accompanied by Don Abney-piano,Joe Mondragon-bass, and Larry Bunker-drums.

"Hard Hearted Hannah (The Vamp of Savannah)" was originally composed in 1924, not by any Georgians but by two talented Jewish men who were born a half-world apart.

Chicagoan Milton Ager (1893-1979) wrote the music and the lyrics were by Polish Jack Yellen (Jacek Jelen, 1892-1991). Bob Bigelow and Charles Batess were also credited with contributing to the lyrics.

When following the films release, Norman Grantz took Ella and his Jazz At The Philharmonic ensemble to the South, Grantz expected Ella's movie appearance to attract more people to the concerts. But that turned out not to be the case, for it was unlikely that anyone in the Southern states had had a chance to see Ella in the film.

At that time censors in the South were in the habit of deleting all scenes from movies in which a black and a white person were depicted as equals. Hence Pete Kelly's Blues was shown there without Ella's appearance.

So for anyone who missed her appearance in the mid-fifties, turn to YouTube and have a nice Sunday listening to her saxophone-like phrasing of this song.