Cheek To Cheek

Irving Berlin wrote Cheek To Cheek for Fred Astaire in the 1935 film Top Hat, and the duet by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong appeared on their 1956 Verve album Ella and Louis, with Oscar Peterson at the piano. Fitzgerald sings it clean and Armstrong answers with a gravel that makes the whole thing sound like a conversation between two people who like each other. Couples choose it because the title describes a first dance exactly, the tempo is a relaxed swing and it suits two people who do not take themselves too seriously. The pair recorded the album in Hollywood in August 1956, the day after a Hollywood Bowl concert, with no time for rehearsal.