Norman Granz, president of Verve Records and personal manager for Ella Fitzgerald, introduces ELLA IN BERLIN -- MACK THE KNIFE:

"For six years now I've been arranging and booking Ella Fitzgerald's concert and club dates, and wherever she goes, her reception bears out an opinion that I have long held: people who love good popular music are the same all over the world.

"Take, for example, this record --'Mack the Knife.' It was recorded during a concert at the Deutschlandhallen in Berlin which holds almost 12,000 people, and you can hear the same enthusiastic reaction, the same eager applause, that mark similar recordings Ella has made before live audiences in America.

"That concert -- and this album -- have come to be regarded as something special because of Ella's version of Mack the Knife. It was the first time she'd sung the song, and not knowing the lyric too well, she substituted her own -- for what may well have been an improvement on the original..."

Verve Records