Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl Van Vechten Ella Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl Van Vechten
Background information
Birth name	Ella Jane Fitzgerald
Also known as	Lady Ella, The First Lady of Song
Born	April 25, 1917
Origin	Newport News, Virginia, United States
Died	June 15, 1996; Beverly Hills, California, United States
Genre(s)	Vocal jazz
Years active	1934–1991
Label(s)	Decca, Verve
Website	EllaFitzgerald.com

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as Lady Ella (the First Lady of Song), was one of the most well loved and influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century .

Her vocal range spanned three octaves. Ella was known for her purity of tone, near faultless phrasing and intonation, and improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. She was one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook . In spite of her lack of formal voice training, Ella's voice quality was in a class with formally trained opera singers. Her vocal talent was a gift that came to fruition in spite of difficulties and lack of educational opportunity in her youth.

Over a vibrant and proliferous performing and recording career of fifty seven years, Ella was the winner of thirteen Grammy Awards. She was awarded the National Medal of Art by President Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush.

Biography

Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A. on April, 25, 1917.

Her father, William Fitzgerald, and mother, Temperance, or Tempie, Fitzgerald separated soon after her birth. She never knew her father. Ella and her mother, moved to Yonkers, New York, to live with Tempie's boyfriend Joseph Da Silva.

Ella's half-sister, Frances Fitzgerald, was born in 1923.

In 1932, Ella's mother died of injuries suffered in a car accident. Ella was only fifteen years old. After staying with Da Silva for a short time, Ella moved in with Tempie's sister Virginia. Shortly afterward, Da Silva suffered a fatal heart attack. Following Da Silva's death, Ella's sister Frances joined Ella and Virginia.

AS Ella struggled to deal with the loss of her mother, her grades dropped dramatically. She frequently skipped school. After getting into trouble with the police, she was sent to reform school. Eventually Ella escaped from the reformatory, and was homeless for a time.

She made her singing debut at age 17 on November 21, 1934 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Ella's name was pulled in a weekly drawing at the Apollo. She won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of the theatre's famous "Amateur Nights". She had originally intended to go on stage and dance, but was intimidated by the 'Edwards Sisters', a local dance duo. Ella opted to sing in the style of her idol, Connie Boswell of the Boswell Sisters. She sang Hoagy Carmichael's 'Judy', and 'The Object of My Affections', also by the Boswell Sisters, that night. The crowd applauded enthusiastically and Ella won the competition.

In January 1935 she won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw Band at the Harlem Opera House. Ella first met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb there. Webb had already hired male singer Charlie Linton to work with the band, but he offered Ella the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University. Despite the tough crowd, Ella's singing created quite a stir. Webb hired her to travel with the band for $12.50 a week.

She sang regularly with Webb's Orchestra through 1935, at Harlem's popular Savoy Ballroom. Fitzgerald recorded several hit songs with the orchestra, including "(If You Can't Sing It), You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)", and "Love and Kisses" (her first recording) but it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" that brought her wide public acclaim.

Chick Webb died on June 16, 1939. Ella assumed the role of bandleader. Webb's band became Fitzgerald's and was renamed "Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra".

File:Ellafitzgerald.jpeg

Ella Fitzgerald photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1940

Before long, World War II was underway. The draft and other factors dispersed the orchestra. Fitzgerald began her solo career. By 1941, she signed with Decca Records label, and had several popular hits. Ella recorded with artists such as the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and the Delta Rhythm Boys.

Decca's Milt Gabler was Ella's manager. She began working regularly for jazz impresario Norman Granz, appearing regularly in his "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concerts. Fitzgerald's relationship with Granz was further cemented when he became her manager, although it was nearly a decade before he could record her on one of his many record labels.

With the demise of the Swing era, and the decline of the great touring big bands, a major change in jazz music occurred. The advent of be-bop fostered a shift in Fitzgerald's vocal style, influenced by her work with Dizzy Gillespie's big band. This is when Fitzgerald started scat singing as a major part of her performance repertoire. Her 1947 recordings of "Oh, Lady be Good!" "How High the Moon" and "Flying Home" became popular, increasing her reputation as one of the leading jazz vocalists.

Under pressure from Granz, who felt Fitzgerald had been given unsuitable material to record, Fitzgerald recorded a series of duets with pianist Ellis Larkins, during her last years with Decca. These duets were released in 1950 as Ella Sings Gershwin.

Still performing at Granz's JATP concerts, by 1955, Fitzgerald left the Decca Record label. Granz created the jazz record company, Verve Records, with Ella as the centerpiece.

The mid-1950s saw Ella become the first African-American to perform at the Mocambo. Marilyn Monroe had lobbied the owner for the booking. The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career.

The eight 'Songbooks' that Fitzgerald recorded for Verve Records between 1956 and 1964 represent her most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work. This body of work was also likely her most significant contribution to American culture. The composers and lyricists for each album represent the best of the cultural canon known as the Great American Songbook.

The eight albums are as follows, with arrangers in parentheses:

• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook (1956) (Buddy Bregman)
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook (1956) (Bregman)
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook (1957) (Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn)
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook (1958) (Paul Weston)
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1959) (Nelson Riddle)
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook (1961) (Billy May)
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook (1963) (Riddle)
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Songbook (1964) (Riddle)

Some people have commented on the irony of Ella's romantic life. She sang about perfect romances, but never seemed to live the dreams she sang about. Ella's demanding tour and recording schedule from the mid 1930s until the early 1990s made sustaining any relationship difficult.

Fitzgerald married twice, though there is evidence that she may have married a third time. In 1941 she married Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer and hustler. The marriage was quickly annulled.

Fitzgerald married for the second time in 1947 to the famous double bass player Ray Brown. She met him while on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band in 1946. They adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister, Francis Fitzgerald. The new parents christened their son, Ray Brown, Jr. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1952, most likely due to the ongoing strain and demands of their respective careers.

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A despondent Ella on the cover of her 1959 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings Sweet Songs for Swingers

In July 1957, Reuters reported that Fitzgerald had secretly married Thor Einar Larsen, a young Norwegian in Oslo. But the affair was quickly forgotten when Larsen was sentenced to five months hard labour in Sweden for stealing money from a young woman to whom he had previously been engaged.

Already blinded by the effects of diabetes, both her legs were amputated in 1993. In 1996, at the age of 79, she died of the disease in Beverly Hills, California. She is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

Several of Fitzgerald's awards, significant personal possessions and documents were donated to the Smithsonian Institution, the library of Boston University, and the Library of Congress.

A few days after Fitzgerald's death, The New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that in the American Songbook series, Fitzgerald "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis Presley's contemporaneous integration of white and African-American soul. Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians." Out of respect for Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra was moved to block Capitol Records from re-releasing his own albums in a similar, single composer vein.

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Fitzgerald on the cover of her 1962 album Ella Swings Gently with Nelson

Ella Fitzgerald also recorded albums exclusively devoted to the songs of Porter and Gershwin in 1972 and 1983. The albums were Ella Loves Cole and Nice Work If You Can Get It. A later collection devoted to a single composer was produced at Pablo Records titled, Ella Abraça Jobim, featuring the songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

While recording the 'Songbooks' (and the occasional studio album), Ella toured extensively, both in the United States and internationally. Norman Granz tutored Ella and helped solidify her position as one of the leading live jazz performers.

Several live albums on Verve Records are highly regarded by critics. Ella at the Opera House shows a typical JATP set from Ella. Ella in Rome: The Birthday Concert is a verifiable 1950s jazz vocal masterclass. Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife is still one of Ella's best selling albums. 1964's Ella at Juan-Les-Pins and 1966's Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur both find a confident Ella accompanied by a stellar array of musicians.

Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1963. In 1967, MGM failed to renew Ella's contract. Over the next 5 years, she flitted between several labels; Atlantic Records, Capitol Records and Reprise Records. Some of Ella's material during this period represents a curious departure from her typical jazz repertoire. Brighten the Corner is an album of Christian hymns. Misty Blue is a country and western influenced album. 30 by Ella is a series of six medleys that neatly fulfilled Ella's obligations to the record label.

The surprise success of the 1972 album Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72 led Norman Granz to found his first record label since the sale of Verve, Pablo Records. Ella recorded some 20 albums for the label. Her years on Pablo documented the decline of her voice. Plagued by health problems, Fitzgerald made her last recording in 1989 and her last public performances in 1991.

Collaborations with other Jazz artists

Fitzgerald's most famous collaborations were with the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the guitarist Joe Pass, and bandleaders Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

• Fitzgerald recorded three Verve Records studio albums with Armstrong, two albums of standards Ella and Louis (1956) and Ella and Louis Again (1957), and a third album featured music from the Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess. Fitzgerald also recorded a number of sides with Armstrong for Decca in the early 1950s.
• Fitzgerald is sometimes referred to as the quintessential swing singer, and her meetings with Count Basie are highly regarded by critics. Fitzgerald features on one track on Basie's 1957 album One o'Clock Jump, but it is her 1963 album Ella and Basie! that is remembered as one of Fitzgerald's greatest recordings. With the 'New Testament' Basie band in full swing, and arrangements written by a youthful Quincy Jones, this album proved a useful respite from the 'Songbook' recordings and constant touring that Fitzgerald was engaged in during this period. Fitzgerald and Basie also met on the 1972 album Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72, and on the 1979 albums Digital III at Montreux, A Classy Pair and A Perfect Match.
• Fitzgerald and Joe Pass recorded four albums together toward the end of Fitzgerald's career. She recorded several albums with piano accompaniment, but a guitar proved the perfect melodic foil for her. Fitzgerald and Pass appeared together on the albums Take Love Easy (1973), Easy Living (1986), Speak Love (1983) and Fitzgerald and Pass... Again (1976).
• Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington recorded two live albums, and two studio albums. Her Duke Ellington Songbook placed Ellington firmly in the canon known as the Great American Songbook, and the 1960s saw Fitzgerald and the 'Duke' meet on the Côte d'Azur for the 1966 album Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur, and in Sweden for The Stockholm Concert, 1966. Their 1965 album Ella at Duke's Place is also extremely well received.

Fitzgerald had a number of famous jazz musicians and soloists as 'sidemen' over her long career. The trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie, the guitarist Herb Ellis, and the pianists Tommy Flanagan, Oscar Peterson, Lou Levy, Paul Smith, Jimmy Rowles, and Ellis Larkins all worked with Ella mostly in live, small group settings.

Perhaps Fitzgerald's greatest collaboration, (in terms of popular music) would have been a studio or live album with Frank Sinatra. Unfortunately, Ella and Frank were to appear on the same stage only periodically over the years, in television specials in 1958 and 1959, and again in 1967, a show that also featured Antonio Carlos Jobim. Fitzgerald's appearance with Sinatra and Count Basie in June 1974 for a series of concerts at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas was seen as an important impetus upon Sinatra returning from his self-imposed retirement of the early 1970's. The shows were a great success, and September of that year saw them gross $1,000,000 in two weeks on Broadway, in a triumvirate with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Film and television appearances

Fitzgerald appeared alongside Peggy Lee as an actress and singer in Jack Webb's jazz film Pete Kelly's Blues. She also appeared in the Abbot and Costello film Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942), St. Louis Blues (1958), and Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960).

She made a cameo appearance in the 1980's television drama The White Shadow.

Fitzgerald made numerous guest appearances on television shows, singing alongside Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Mel Torme and many others.

Perhaps her most unusual and intriguing performance was of the 'Three Little Maids' song from Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operetta The Mikado alongside Dame Joan Sutherland and Dinah Shore for a 1968 TV special.

Fitzgerald starred in a number of television commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken, singing and scatting to the fast-food chain's longtime slogan, "We do chicken right!" Co-starring and singing with her in one 1983 commercial was future R&B star Shanice.

Tribute albums

The female jazz singers Dee Dee Bridgewater, Patti Austin and Ann Hampton Callaway have all recorded albums in tribute to Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald is also referred to on the 1987 song "Ella, elle l'a" by French singer France Gall, the 1976 Stevie Wonder hit, Sir Duke from his album Songs in the Key of Life, and the song 'I Love Being Here With You', written by Peggy Lee and Bill Schluger. Additionally, when Frank Sinatra finally recorded Mack the Knife on his 1984 album L.A. Is My Lady, he included a homage to some of the song's previous performers, along the lines dreamt up on by Ella on her 1960 album Ella in Berlin, he naturally included 'Lady Ella' herself.

Ann Hampton Callaway's 1996 album To Ella with Love features 14 jazz standards made popular by Fitzgerald, and the album also features the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

Bridgewater's 1997 album, Dear Ella featured many musicians that were closely associated with Fitzgerald during her career, including the pianist Lou Levy, the trumpeter Benny Powell, and Fitzgerald's second husband, the bassist Ray Brown. Bridgewater's next album, Live at Yoshi's was recorded live on April 25th 1998, Fitzgerald's 81st birthday.

The folk singer Odetta's 1998 album To Ella is dedicated to Fitzgerald, but features no songs associated with her, and Fitzgerald's long serving accompanist Tommy Flanagan affectionately remembered Fitzgerald on his 1994 album Lady be Good...For Ella.

Patti Austin's 2002 album, For Ella features 11 songs most immediately associated with Fitzgerald, and a 12th song, 'Hearing Ella Sing' is Austin's tribute to Fitzgerald. The album was nominated for a Grammy.

Although not necessarily a tribute, after Fitzgerald's original single of the 1969 Burt Bacharach/Hal David song "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" failed to chart, Dionne Warwick covered it. Warwick's version became a Top 10 hit.

Tribute statue

There is a statue of Ella Fitzgerald in Yonkers, the city in which she grew up. It is located south of the main entrance to the Amtrak/Metro-North Railroad station.

Discography

For a listing of Fitzgerald's albums and singles, see Ella Fitzgerald discography.

Vocal Samples

• Download sample of "How High the Moon"
• Download sample of "April in Paris" by Fitzgerald with Louis Armstrong, from their 1956 album Ella and Louis

Awards, Citations and Honors

For a listing of Fitzgerald's awards and accolades, please see List of Ella Fitzgerald's awards and accolades.

Quotations

• "I call her the High Priestess of Song." - Mel Torme
• "I didn't realize our songs were so good until Ella sang them." - Ira Gershwin
• "She had a vocal range so wide you needed an elevator to go from the top to the bottom. There's nobody to take her place." - David Brinkley
• "Her artistry brings to mind the words of the maestro, Mr. Toscanini, who said concerning singers, 'Either you're a good musician or you're not.' In terms of musicianship, Ella Fitzgerald was beyond category." - Duke Ellington
• "She was the best there ever was. Amongst all of us who sing, she was the best." - Johnny Mathis
• "She made the mark for all female singers, especially black female singers, in our industry." - Dionne Warwick
• "Her recordings will live forever... she'll sound as modern 200 years from now." - Tony Bennett
• "Play an Ella ballad with a cat in the room, and the animal will invariably go up to the speaker, lie down and purr." - Geoffrey Fidelman (author of the Ella Fitzgerald biography, First Lady of Song)

Quotes

• "I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns."
• "It isn't where you came from, it's where you're going that counts."
• "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."
• "The only thing better than singing is more singing."
• "Some kids in Italy call me 'Mama Jazz'; I thought that was so cute. As long as they don't call me 'Grandma Jazz.'"
• "Oh, I have gobs and gobs of ideas, but... well, you dream things like that, and that's what these are, you know—my day dreams."
• "I sing like I feel."
• "A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside... I'm going to try to find out the new ideas before the others do."
• "I know I'm no glamour girl, and it's not easy for me to get up in front of a crowd of people. It used to bother me a lot, but now I've got it figured out that God gave me this talent to use, so I just stand there and sing."
• "Coming through the years, and finding that I not only have just the fans of my day, but the young ones of today—that's what it means, it means it was worth all of it."
• "Once, when we were playing at the Apollo, Holiday was working a block away at the Harlem Opera House. Some of us went over between shows to catch her, and afterwards we went backstage. I did something then, and I still don't know if it was the right thing to do—I asked her for her autograph."
• "I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don't have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you'll understand."
• "I like music"

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Additionally, two useful reference works on Ella Fitzgerald are :

1. Johnson, J. Wilfred (2001). Ella Fitzgerald : An Annotated Discography : Including a Complete Discography of Chick Webb. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0906-1. 
2. Gourse, Leslie (1998). The Ella Fitzgerald Companion. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-6916-7. 

External links

• Ella Fitzgerald Fan Page
• Ella Fitzgerald Complete Discography
• 1996 Obituary from CNN
• Ella Fitzgerald at the Library of Congress
• Ella Fitzgerald's FBI record
• Ella Fitzgerald Forum
• Ella Fitzgerald's Gravesite
• Official Web Site of Ella Fitzgerald
• Redsugar's Ella page
• 'Remembering Ella' by Phillip D. Atteberry
• Todd's Ella Fitzgerald Lyrics Page
• Ella Swings Gently - The Ella Fitzgerald Pages

Great American Songbook 

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