Who wouldn't love Ella Fitzgerald? Or appreciate her devotion to the lyrics and melodies of American popular song, and the joy of her rhythmically energized scats?

On what would have been Fitzgerald's 90th birthday, April 25, an all-star congregation of singers, musicians and fans gathered in Los Angeles to pay tribute to perhaps the most beloved of jazz singers, who died in 1996.

The result: "We Love Ella! A Tribute to the First Lady of Song," a 90-minute concert airing as part of PBS's Great Performances series.

Featured are co-hosts Natalie Cole and Quincy Jones (she sings, he doesn't); veteran vocalists Patti Austin and Nancy Wilson; and new voices such as Ledisi and Lizz Wright.

There also are a few unusual guests, including Stevie Wonder, who performs an appropriately joyful rendition of the 1956 standard "Too Close for Comfort," at one point letting his harmonica "scat" a cavalcade of notes with an effortlessness reminiscent of Fitzgerald.

Cole, who grew up knowing Fitzgerald, opens the program with a spry reading of "A Tisket, a Tasket," the nursery-rhyme-turned-hit that launched Fitzgerald's career in 1938.

Cole later offers an elegant rendering of the melodically circuitous "Midnight Sun," and she closes the tribute in a rousing duet with Austin on "You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)."

The program's intent is to honor Fitzgerald's legacy by covering her signature songs - and for the most part, it works. Austin teams up with Take 6 on a "How High the Moon" that moves from low key to vocal spree in just a few bars, while the vocal sextet serves up an a cappella medley of "Justin Time" and "As Time Goes By."

But "We Love Ella's" most compelling moments belong to Fitzgerald herself, who's featured in rarely seen film clips and in the gimmicky but effective marriage of a previously unheard 1975 recording of "Cry Me a River" with a new orchestration smartly rendered by the USC Thornton Symphony and Jazz Orchestra.

"Was that beautiful or what?" Cole asks.