Ella Fitzgerald

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• Born: 25 April 1918
• Birthplace: Newport News, Virginia
• Died: 15 June 1996 (Complications from diabetes)
• Best Known As: Jazz vocalist known for scat singing

Ella Fitzgerald was a pop and jazz singer who had her first hit record in 1938 with the Chick Webb Band's "A-Tisket, A-Tasket." Raised in New York City, she began recording with bands in 1935 and embarked on a solo career in 1942. Known primarily for her jazz-oriented approach in phrasing and rhythm -- she's easily the most famous woman scat singer in history -- Fitzgerald became a mainstream popular success on the strength of her Songbook recordings, a series of interpretations of American songwriters. Her first in the series was a 1956 release of Cole Porter songs; she went on to record songs by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and others. Around the same time she popped up on television and in the movies, most memorably in a highlight of the film Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). Later in her career she recorded and performed with orchestras as well as small combos, and by the time she retired in 1992 she had assumed the role of America's grande dame of popular jazz. In nearly sixty years of recording she was the recipient of just about every major award, including more than a dozen Grammys and a Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992, presented by George H.W. Bush).

• Born: April 25, 1917, Newport News, VA
• Died: June 15, 1996, Beverly Hills, CA
• Active: '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s
• Genres: Vocal Music
• Instrument: Vocals
• Representative Albums: "Ken Burns Jazz," "Something to Live For," "Sings the Rodgers and Hart Song Book"
• Representative Songs: "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," "How High the Moon," "My Heart Belongs to Daddy"

Biography

"The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was arguably the finest female jazz singer of all time (although some may vote for Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday). Blessed with a beautiful voice and a wide range, Fitzgerald could outswing anyone, was a brilliant scat singer, and had near-perfect elocution; one could always understand the words she sang. The one fault was that, since she always sounded so happy to be singing, Fitzgerald did not always dig below the surface of the lyrics she interpreted and she even made a downbeat song such as "Love for Sale" sound joyous. However, when one evaluates her career on a whole, there is simply no one else in her class.

One could never guess from her singing that Ella Fitzgerald's early days were as grim as Billie Holiday's. Growing up in poverty, Fitzgerald was literally homeless for the year before she got her big break. In 1934, she appeared at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, winning an amateur contest by singing "Judy" in the style of her idol, Connee Boswell. After a short stint with Tiny Bradshaw, Fitzgerald was brought to the attention of Chick Webb by Benny Carter (who was in the audience at the Apollo). Webb, who was not impressed by the 17-year-old's appearance, was reluctantly persuaded to let her sing with his orchestra on a one-nighter. She went over well and soon the drummer recognized her commercial potential. Starting in 1935, Fitzgerald began recording with Webb's Orchestra, and by 1937 over half of the band's selections featured her voice. "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" became a huge hit in 1938 and "Undecided" soon followed. During this era, Fitzgerald was essentially a pop/swing singer who was best on ballads while her medium-tempo performances were generally juvenile novelties. She already had a beautiful voice but did not improvise or scat much; that would develop later.

On June 16, 1939, Chick Webb died. It was decided that Fitzgerald would front the orchestra even though she had little to do with the repertoire or hiring or firing the musicians. She retained her popularity and when she broke up the band in 1941 and went solo; it was not long before her Decca recordings contained more than their share of hits. She was teamed with the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and the Delta Rhythm Boys for some best-sellers, and in 1946 began working regularly for Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. Granz became her manager although it would be nearly a decade before he could get her on his label. A major change occurred in Fitzgerald's singing around this period. She toured with Dizzy Gillespie's big band, adopted bop as part of her style, and started including exciting scat-filled romps in her set. Her recordings of "Lady Be Good," "How High the Moon," and "Flying Home" during 1945-1947 became popular and her stature as a major jazz singer rose as a result. For a time (December 10, 1947-August 28, 1953) she was married to bassist Ray Brown and used his trio as a backup group. Fitzgerald's series of duets with pianist Ellis Larkins in 1950 (a 1954 encore with Larkins was a successful follow-up) found her interpreting George Gershwin songs, predating her upcoming Songbooks series.

After appearing in the film Pete Kelly's Blues in 1955, Fitzgerald signed with Norman Granz's Verve label and over the next few years she would record extensive Songbooks of the music of Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer. Although (with the exception of the Ellington sets) those were not her most jazz-oriented projects (Fitzgerald stuck mostly to the melody and was generally accompanied by string orchestras), the prestigious projects did a great deal to uplift her stature. At the peak of her powers around 1960, Fitzgerald's hilarious live version of "Mack the Knife" (in which she forgot the words and made up her own) from Ella in Berlin is a classic and virtually all of her Verve recordings are worth getting.

Fitzgerald's Capitol and Reprise recordings of 1967-1970 are not on the same level as she attempted to "update" her singing by including pop songs such as "Sunny" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," sounding quite silly in the process. But Fitzgerald's later years were saved by Norman Granz's decision to form a new label, Pablo. Starting with a Santa Monica Civic concert in 1972 that is climaxed by Fitzgerald's incredible version of "C Jam Blues" (in which she trades off with and "battles" five classic jazzmen), Fitzgerald was showcased in jazz settings throughout the 1970s with the likes of Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, and Joe Pass, among others. Her voice began to fade during this era and by the 1980s her decline due to age was quite noticeable. Troubles with her eyes and heart knocked her out of action for periods of time, although her increasingly rare appearances found Fitzgerald still retaining her sense of swing and joyful style. By 1994, Ella Fitzgerald was in retirement and she passed away two years later, but she remains a household name and scores of her recordings are easily available on CD. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

Jukebox Ella: The Complete Verve Singles, Vol. 1 Buy this CD	Lady Ella Buy this CD	Ella Fitzgerald, Vol. 1 Buy this CD	Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas [2006] Buy this CD	Very Best Of Buy this CD
1935-1939 Buy this CD	Cote d'Azur Concerts on Verve Buy this CD	Ella & Basie The Perfect Match '79 Buy this CD	Best of the Songbooks Buy this CD	To Go: Stick it in Your Ear Buy this CD

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• Born: Apr 25, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia
• Died: Jun 15, 1996 in Hollywood
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '50s-'70s, '90s-2000s
• Major Genres: Music, Drama
• Career Highlights: St. Louis Blues, Amanti, Holiday Fire
• First Major Screen Credit: Norman Granz Presents: Improvisation - Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald and More (1944)

Biography

One of the world's all-time greatest jazz singers for over 50 years and the queen of scat singing, Ella Fitzgerald has been the subject of numerous documentaries and performance videos. During the '50s, '60s, and '70s, she often appeared on television variety shows, daytime programs, and in specials. During the '70s, her voice could be heard shattering glass on Memorex ("Is it live or is it Memorex?") commercials. Earlier in her career, Fitzgerald made the occasional feature film appearance beginning with Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For Buy this Movie	Oscar Peterson: The Life of a Legend Buy this Movie	Oscar Peterson: Music in the Key of Oscar Buy this Movie	Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing Buy this Movie
Listen Up!: The Lives of Quincy Jones Buy this Movie	The Incomparable Nat "King" Cole Buy this Movie	Nat "King" Cole: Unforgettable Buy this Movie	Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs Buy this Movie

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(b Newport News, va, 25 April 1918). American jazz and popular singer. Her career began in 1935 with Chick Webb's band, with which she recorded. She took it over on Webb's death (1939) and embarked on a solo career in 1942. In 1946 she began an association with the impresario Norman Granz, through his ‘Jazz at the Philharmonic’ tours. During the 1950s she recorded a series of LP ‘songbooks’, arrangements by Nelson Riddle of American songs. She continued to perform and record jazz with a variety of musicians. Her agile, girlish voice has remarkable range.

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Ella Fitzgerald (1918-1996) was one of the most exciting jazz singers of her time and, because of the naturalness of her style, had a popular appeal that extended far beyond the borders of jazz.

Ella Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1918, in Newport News, Virginia, but spent her formative years in Yonkers, New York, and received her musical education in its public schools. When only 16, she received her first big break at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, when she won an amateur night contest and impressed saxophonistbandleader Benny Carter. He recommended her to drummer-bandleader Chick Webb, who hired her in 1935. She soon became a recording star with the band, and her own composition "A-tisket, A-tasket"(1938) was such a smash hit that the song became her trademark for many years thereafter. When Webb died in 1939, Fitzgerald assumed leadership of the band for the next year.

By 1940 Fitzgerald was recognized throughout the music world as a vocal marvel - a singer with clarity of tone, flexibility of range, fluency of rhythm, and, above all, a talent for improvisation that was equally effective on ballads and up-tempo tunes. Although for a long time her reputation with musicians and other singers outstripped that with the general public, she corrected the imbalance soon after joining Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) in 1946. She made annual tours with the group and was invariably the concert favorite. Three of her unfailing show-stoppers were "Oh, Lady Be Good," "Stomping at the Savoy," and "How High the Moon." Each would begin at a medium tempo and then turn into a rhythmic excursion as Fitzgerald moved up-tempo and "scatted"(that is, sang harmonic variations of the melody in nonsense syllables). The huge JATP crowds always responded tumultuously.

By the early 1950s Fitzgerald's domination of fans' and critics' polls was absolute. In fact, she won the Down Beat readers' poll every year from 1953 to 1970 and became known as "The First Lady of Song." In 1955 she terminated her 20-year recording affiliation with Decca in order to record for Norman Granz's Verve label and proceeded to produce a series of superlative "Songbook" albums, each devoted to the compositions of a great songwriter or song-writing team (Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer; George and Ira Gershwin; Cole Porter; Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; Irving Berlin; Duke Ellington). The lush orchestrations induced Fitzgerald to display the classy pop-singer side of herself; even in the two-volume Ellington set her jazzier side deferred to the melodist in her.

Under Granz's personal management Fitzgerald also began to play choice hotel jobs and made her first featured film appearance, in "Pete Kelly's Blues"(1955). In 1957 she worked at the Copacabana in New York City and gave concerts at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1958, in the company of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, she gave a concert at Carnegie Hall as part of an extended European and United States tour with the band. In the early 1960s she continued to work the big hotel circuit - the Flamingo in Las Vegas, the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, and the Americana in New York City - and to tour Europe, Latin America, and Japan with the Oscar Peterson trio, which was three-fourths of Granz's JATP house rhythm section. In 1965 and 1966 she was reunited with Ellington for another tour and record date.

Fitzgerald was always blessed with superb accompanists, from the full orchestral support of Chick Webb and Duke Ellington to the smaller JATP ensembles. In 1968 she teamed up with yet another, the magnificent pianist Tommy Flanagan, who headed a trio that served her into the mid-1970s. In 1971 Fitzgerald had serious eye surgery, but within a year she was performing again. Her singing, however, began to show evidence of decline: the voice that was once an instrument of natural luster and effortless grace became a trifle thin and strained. Nevertheless, so great was her artistry that she continued to excite concert audiences and to record effectively. She appeared after the mid-1960s with over 50 symphonic orchestras in the United States.

A large, pleasant-looking woman with a surprisingly girlish speaking voice, Ella Fitzgerald had a propensity for forgetting lyrics. This endeared her to audiences, who delighted in her ability to work her way out of these selfpainted corners. Unlike some other great jazz singers (Billie Holiday, Anita O'Day), Fitzgerald had a private life devoid of drug-related notoriety. She was twice married: the first marriage, to Bernie Kornegay in 1941, was annulled two years later; the second, to bassist Ray Brown in 1948, ended in divorce in 1952 (they had one son).

Was Ella Fitzgerald essentially a jazz singer or a pop singer? Jazz purists say that she lacked the emotional depth of Billie Holiday, the imagination of Sarah Vaughan or Anita O'Day, and the blues-based power of Dinah Washington and that she was often facile, glossy, and predictable. The criticisms sprang partly from her "crossover" popularity and ignored her obvious strengths and contributions: Fitzgerald was not only one of the pioneers of scatsinging, but, beyond that, she was an unpretentious singer whose harmonic variations were always unforced and a supreme melodist who never let her ego get in the way of any song she sang.

Fitzgerald died on June 15, 1996 at the age of 78. She left a legacy that won't soon be forgotten. In her lifetime she was honored with no less than 12 Grammys, the Kennedy Center Award, as well as an honorary doctorate in music from Yale University. In 1992 she was honored by President George Bush with the National Medal of Freedom. Fitzgerald's impressive financial estate was left in a trust, including the $2.5 million in proceeds from the sale of her Beverly Hills home.

Further Reading

There is no biography of Ella Fitzgerald, but there are excellent chapters on her in Leonard Feather's From Satchmo to Miles (1972) and Henry Pleasants' The Great American Popular Singers (1974). Also see Jet (December 28, 1992).

jazz singer

Personal Information

Born April 25, 1918, in Newport News, VA; died June 15, 1996; married Benny Kornegay (a shipyard worker), 1941 (divorced); married Ray Brown (a jazz bassist), 1948 (divorced); children: Ray Brown, Jr. (adopted).
Memberships: American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).

Career

Sang with Chick Webb Orchestra, beginning 1935, then took over band as Famous Orchestra, 1939-41; joined Jazz at the Philharmonic tours, 1946; performed at first Newport Jazz Festival, 1954; signed with Verve Records, 1955. Film appearances in Ride 'Em Cowboy, 1940; Pete Kelly's Blues, 1955; St. Louis Blues, 1958; and Let No Man Write My Epitaph, 1960.

Life's Work

"The First Lady of Song" is the title Ella Fitzgerald was given by critics and fans, and it was well-deserved. With a career spanning 60 years, with hundreds of recordings to her credit, and with accolades that included the Kennedy Center honors, 14 Grammy awards, and a school of performing arts in her name, Fitzgerald was perhaps the world's most celebrated and accomplished female vocalist. She was so loved by her many fans that they simply referred to her as "Ella."

Fitzgerald was a versatile performer who was comfortable with several different musical styles. In upbeat jazz arrangements, her lively "scat" singing--in which she embellished a melody with rapid nonsense syllables--was often featured. She was also a lyrical interpreter of the classic love ballads of Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, and others. Although at her best with popular standards of the 1930s to 1950s, Fitzgerald recorded more contemporary tunes like Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" a standard part of her repertoire. Her recordings are continually reissued, bringing her music to new audiences and broadening her circle of admirers.

Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25, 1918. Her parents, William Fitzgerald and Temperance Williams Fitzgerald, separated their common-law marriage within a year of Ella's birth; shortly thereafter, she moved north with her mother, settling in Yonkers, near New York City. At first, young Ella aspired to be a dancer. However, after winning a talent competition at Harlem's Apollo Theater in 1935, it became clear that singing would be her vocation; Ella won the contest with her rendition of "The Object of My Affection," a tune made popular by singer Connee Boswell, her idol and chief influence. In the Apollo audience that night was jazzman Benny Carter; he was so taken with Fitzgerald's performance that he introduced her to bandleader Fletcher Henderson as a possible singer for his band. Henderson, however, was unimpressed, and nothing came of the audition.

Fitzgerald's first professional engagement came, soon after, at the Harlem Opera House, where she performed for a week. Tiny Bradshaw's band was in the show, and, as Fitzgerald recalled in a 1965 Down Beat interview with Leonard Feather, "Everyone had their coats on, and was ready to leave when Tiny introduced me. He said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, here's the young girl that's been winning all the contests,' and they all came back and took off their coats and sat down again."

Following Fitzgerald on the Opera House program was drummer Chick Webb, with his band fronted by Bardu Ali. Ali agreed with Carter that Fitzgerald could be an asset to Webb's group, but Webb was not interested in auditioning a singer. As Fitzgerald recalled in Down Beat, "He just didn't want a girl singer, so finally they hid me in his dressing room and forced him to listen. I only knew three songs, all the things I'd heard Connee Boswell do: 'Judy,' 'The Object of My Affection,' and 'Believe It, Beloved.' Chick didn't seem sold, but he agreed to take me on a one-nighter to Yale the next day.... The following week we opened at the Savoy, and I guess you know the rest."

"The rest" was that Fitzgerald became a sensation with Webb's band, appearing as its featured singer. Her 1938 recording of "A-tisket, A-tasket" with the band was a tremendous hit for the 20-year-old vocalist, and remains one of her classic performances. After Webb's death in 1939, she took over the band and the group was renamed "Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra." She led the band until 1941, when the wartime draft dissolved it.

Fitzgerald's career took off after World War II, when she joined impresario Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts and toured internationally with prominent jazz instrumentalists. In Sid Colin's biography, Ella, Granz praised Fitzgerald's energy and enthusiasm: "I'll say I want her to sing eight tunes, and she'll say, 'Don't you think that's too many? Let's make it six.' And she'll go out there and do six, and then if the audience wants fifty, she'll stay for forty-four more. It's part of her whole approach to life. She just loves to sing."

Even though Fitzgerald was performing extensively on the JATP tours, her recording contract was with Decca, not with Granz's own label, Verve. She made a number of unmemorable recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, singing popular songs and novelty tunes with other Decca artists--material that was beneath her capabilities and that contrasted strongly with the work she was doing with JATP. When Granz bought out her Decca contract in 1955, things began to change.

The pinnacle of Fitzgerald's career was her series of "songbook" recordings on the Verve label from 1956 to 1964. Accompanied by the orchestras of Nelson Riddle, Buddy Bregman, Billy May, and others, Fitzgerald sang dozens of tunes by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern, and Harold Arlen--some of the best composers and lyricists in American music.

These recordings brought Fitzgerald admiration from mainstream audiences, and for many enthusiasts they are the last word in American popular song. In Henry Pleasants's The Great American Popular Singers, lyricist Ira Gershwin comments of his and brother George's compositions, "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them." And John McDonough wrote in Down Beat that the songbooks "would help change the way we think about popular music."

Fitzgerald's clear, resonant voice was always note-perfect. She did not convey painful or bitter emotions well--a sunniness shone through her interpretations of even the most somber songs--but she more than made up for this with her innovative and facile approach to rhythm. Jazz critic Whitney Balliett observed in the New Yorker that "what had happened in the Webb days was that the drummer had, through the sheer hypnotic power of his playing, unwittingly and permanently shaped her style: she still loves rhythm singing. For that reason, her lyrics, though carefully articulated, convey rhythm, not meaning and emotion."

Critics and others who knew Fitzgerald personally have commented on her capacity for self-doubt. Even with all of the acclaim that was lavished upon her, she was still prone to worry about how others felt about her singing. In her 1965 Down Beat interview, Fitzgerald attributed this to the fragile quality of fame: "The music business is so funny. You hear somebody this year, and next year nothing happens.... {W}hen you start out it's a pleasure, but later on it becomes your livelihood. For anyone who loves music as much as I do, it's a part of you, and you don't want to ever feel defeated."

In contrast to her active career as a performer, Fitzgerald led a quiet personal life. Her marriage to Bernie Kornegay in 1941 was annulled two years later. In 1948, she married jazz bassist Ray Brown, and in 1951, the couple adopted a baby boy, whom they named Raymond Brown, Jr. They were divorced a year later, and Fitzgerald raised the child on her own.

The list of musicians with whom Fitzgerald performed and recorded reads like a who's who of jazz: Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Teddy Wilson, Roy Eldridge, Louis Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Clark Terry, and Joe Pass, among other luminaries. She was universally admired by her colleagues for her outstanding musicality. The jazz singer Mel Torme spoke glowingly of her in his autobiography It Wasn't All Velvet: "A horn player or a pianist presses the valves or the keys or slides the slide and what he puts into his instrument usually comes out very well in tune.... A singer has to work doubly hard to emit those random notes in scat singing with perfect intonation. Well, I should say, all singers except Ella. Her notes float out in perfect pitch, effortless and, most important of all, swinging."

Since her early years with Chick Webb's band, Fitzgerald received recognition from many sources. She was named Best Female Singer in Down Beat magazine's Reader's Poll 21 times, including a record 18- consecutive-year run from 1953 to 1970. In 1984, she was presented with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Person's Whitney Young Award, and she received the Medal of Freedom Award from President George Bush in 1992. She held honorary degrees from several universities, and in 1974 the University of Maryland named its Ella Fitzgerald School of Performing Arts in her honor.

Health problems slowed Fitzgerald down in her later years--she underwent cataract surgery in 1971 and open-heart surgery in 1986-- but she continued to perform and record, albeit sporadically. In 1993, the vocalist celebrated her 75th birthday, and in tribute, the complete "songbooks" collections, as well as all her recordings with Chick Webb, were reissued on CD. In the same year, Fitzgerald had both legs amputated below the knee due to complications from diabetes, although this information was not released to the public until the following year. When disclosing the news in April of 1994, spokeswoman Mary Jane Outwater said that Fitzgerald was "in really good shape and good spirits." Both professionally and personally, Ella was a survivor.

On June 15, 1996, Ella Fitzgerald died quietly at her Beverly Hills home. Shy and quiet until the end, she seemed slightly surprised and always delighted that people liked her music so much. She will be fondly remembered as one of America's finest female vocalists.

Awards

Elected to International Committee of the Foster Parents' Plan for World Children, 1945; 14 Grammy awards; University of Maryland's Ella Fitzgerald School of Performing Arts named, 1974; Kennedy Center Honors, 1979; named Woman of the Year, Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Club, 1982; Whitney Young Award, National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons, 1984; National Medal of Arts, 1987; Commander of Arts and Letters award (France), 1990; Cole Porter Centennial Award, 1991; Medal of Freedom Award, 1992; honorary degrees from Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, Talladega College, University of Southern California, and Yale University.

Works

Selective Discography

• All That Jazz, Pablo, 1989.
• The Best Is Yet To Come, Pablo, 1982.
• The Best of Ella Fitzgerald, Pablo, 1988.
• Compact Jazz: Ella Fitzgerald Live, Verve, 1956-66.
• Ella and Basie, Verve, 1963.
• Ella and Oscar {with Oscar Peterson}, Pablo, 1965.
• Ella in London, Pablo, 1974.
• The Songbooks {Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart}, Verve, 1956-64, reissued as The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books, 1994.
• Ella Fitzgerald First Lady of Song, Verve, 1993.

Further Reading

Books

• Colin, Sid, Ella: The Life and Times of Ella Fitzgerald, Elm Tree, 1986.
• Gourse, Leslie, Louis' Children: American Jazz Singers, Morrow, 1984.
• Kliment, Bud, Ella Fitzgerald, Chelsea House, 1988.
• Newsmakers 96, Cumulation, Gale, 1996.
• Nicholson, Stuart, Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography, Scribner's, 1994.
• Pleasants, Henry, The Great American Popular Singers, Simon & Schuster, 1974.
• Simon, George T., The Big Bands, fourth edition, Schirmer, 1981.
• Torme, Mel, It Wasn't All Velvet, Viking, 1988.

Periodicals

• Down Beat, November 18, 1965; June 1993, pp. 22-25.
• Ebony, November 1961, pp. 131-39.
• Esquire, November 1985, pp. 97-105.
• Jet, May 6, 1991, p. 33; December 28, 1992, p. 64.
• National Review, March 25, 1961, p. 194.
• New York Times, April 25, 1993, p. H-31; November 28, 1993, H-32; April 12, 1994, p. B-3.
• New Yorker, April 26, 1993, pp. 105-06.
• Saturday Review, November 28, 1961, p. 51.
• Time, November 27, 1964, pp. 86-88.
• Additional material was obtained from liner notes by Chris Albertson, The Cole Porter Songbook, 1976.

— Joyce Harrison

For more information on Ella Fitzgerald, visit Britannica.com.

(1918- 1996), singer. Born in Newport News, Virginia, and raised in Yonkers, New York, Fitzgerald was discovered in 1934 when she won an amateur night contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She made her professional debut in 1935 with Tiny Bradshaw's band at the Harlem Opera House and later that year became the vocalist with drummer Chick Webb's orchestra.

Fitzgerald's appearances with Webb brought the singer widespread exposure through remote radio broadcasts and such recordings as A-tisket, A-tasket (1938) and Undecided (1939). She also made records with Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, and groups under her own nominal leadership. When Webb died in 1939, Fitzgerald continued to front the band until 1942 when she launched a solo career.

In the late forties Fitzgerald became associated with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, touring widely in this context both in the States and abroad and building an international reputation as one of the preeminent vocalists in jazz. A series of Great American Songbook recording projects in the late fifties and early sixties established her also as a superior interpreter of standards; these records, made for Granz's Verve label and often featuring arrangements by Nelson Riddle, revealed Fitzgerald's artistry of phrasing and delivery, with improvisatory excursions often taking a backseat to straightforward lyrical statements. They also exhibited a broader emotional range and deepening tone quality, as on albums devoted to George and Ira Gershwin (1959) and Jerome Kern (1964). Other records--like the Harold Arlen songbook (1960-1961) featuring arrangements by Billy May--displayed Fitzgerald's buoyant rhythmic sense and unfailing swing that characterized her first recordings with Webb in the 1930s.

After the 1950s Fitzgerald maintained a steady schedule of touring, often appearing with an accompanying trio but also taking part in festivals where she might perform with ensembles of varying sizes. Recordings from live performances show her unparalleled mastery of scat singing, as she constructs long, inventive improvisations that steadily mount in intensity and that often take considerable musical risks (especially large leaps and rapid-fire runs). A good example can be heard in her extended scat solo on St. Louis Blues from a concert in Rome recorded April 25, 1958 (first issued in 1988).

Fitzgerald's main achievements as a singer lay in her consistently high performing standards sustained over a fifty-year period, her authority as an interpreter of American popular song, and her outstanding abilities as a jazz improviser.

Bibliography:

Sid Colin, Ella: The Life and Times of Ella Fitzgerald (1986); Henry Pleasants, The Great American Popular Singers (1974).

Author:

Mark Tucker

See also Jazz; Music.

Fitzgerald, Ella, 1917–96, American jazz singer, b. Newport News, Va. Probably the most celebrated jazz vocalist of her generation, Fitzgerald was reared in Yonkers, N.Y., moving after her mother's death (1932) to Harlem, where two years later she won an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater. Thereafter she performed with Chick Webb's band. After he died in 1939 she managed the band herself until 1942, when she began to make solo appearances in supper clubs and theaters. Principally a jazz and blues singer of remarkably sweet and effortless style, Fitzgerald was noted for her sophisticated interpretation of songs by George Gershwin and Cole Porter and for her scat singing, an extremely inventive form of vocal jazz improvisation.

Fitzgerald, whose superb voice, wide repertoire, and accessible singing style appealed to both jazz and pop audiences, scored her first recording hit with “A-Tisket A-Tasket” (1938) and went on to become a perennially popular artist with such performances as the million-selling “I'm Making Believe” (1944, with the Ink Spots), the historic scat “Flying Home” (1945), the be-bop “Lady Be Good” (1947), and many hundreds more. She also wrote a number of songs and made numerous concert tours of the United States, Europe, and Asia. She appeared in several films, including Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) and St. Louis Blues (1958). Despite ill health, Fitzgerald continued performing into the early 1990s.

Bibliography

See biography by S. Nicholson (1994); C. Zwerin, dir., Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For (documentary film, 1999).