Most people, when they think about Ella Fitzgerald, think about her classic albums of the 1950s and 1960s – the American Songbook series, the Louis Armstrong collaborations, her live albums and her work with Count Basie. But in the 1930s she was the featured singer in the Chick Webb Orchestra, a fantastic swing band that launched her storied career. On this collection of tracks recorded with Webb during the late 1930s and then after he died and Fitzgerald took over management of the orchestra in the early 1940s, you might not even recognize her voice at first: she’s very young (in her late teens and early 20s) and her singing style is still somewhat derivative and underdeveloped – but there’s no denying her purity of tone, her already rock-solid intonation, and the sense of joy that infuses every note. The 1998 GRP issue of these recordings is beautifully mastered.