Ella in July

The summer before I moved to New York my uncle Jerry gave me an Ella Fitzgerald CD that lived in my beat up Jeep Liberty.  I was fresh out of college, newly 21, and thirsty for life.  I spent a lot of time in my car that summer, between holding down my first post-college job and enjoying my new found adult freedoms, and Ella was the soundtrack to it all.

While I sweated into my leather seats I dreamed and prepared for what my life would be like when I left my home for the big city.  I got my Starbucks Gold card in anticipation of all the coffee I would undoubtedly consume while I pounded the pavement, trying my first of many Iced Chai Lattes.  I got lost in "Autumn in New York" imagining myself strolling through Central Park in all its orange and red glory.  I felt, for the first time, that I had taste and that my life was going somewhere and Ella was carrying me there.

I've come and gone from New York City and I'm not driving the Jeep anymore, but we're in the midst of another muggy Missouri summer and what I need more than anything is Ella. Lucky for all of us, in celebration of Ella's 100th birthday Verve records have put together "Ella and Louis: The Complete Duet Recordings."

My summer with Ella was one of colliding reality and hope. Adulthood, though just beginning for me, was a rough transition.  Yet my heart and soul were carried away on the wings of this music and the passion of an impossible dream.

I wonder if, by listening to this new collection, I can recapture some of that lust for life, or find an entirely new joy just waiting out there for me.  There's only one way to find out... -xo Sydney