ELLA FITZGERALD
(b. April 25, 1917--d. June 15, 1996)
(b. April 25, 1917--d. June 15, 1996)
All,
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) was one of the greatest and most influential singers of the 20th century, and a consummate master of the American popular song tradition. What follows is just a small sampling of the massive extraordinary discography of her stunning sixty year career as one of the premiere members of the original elite pantheon of legendary African American female singers (e.g. Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, Dinah Washington, and Abbey Lincoln) who creatively dominated American singing from 1920-1990 and laid the creative foundation for the many women singers in the American popular song tradition both in this country and abroad who followed in their glorious and massive footsteps (e.g. Anita O'Day, Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Jeri Southern, Julie London, Barbara Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Chaka Khan, Patti Austin, Natalie Cole, Donna Summer, Cassandra Wilson, and Whitney Houston etc.). Long live Ella and her incredible artistic legacy...
Kofi
Albums:
Ella Fitzgerald [ASV/Living Era] (ASV / Living Era 1935)
Ella and Her Fellas (Decca 1938)
75th Birthday Celebration (GRP 1938)
The Chick Webb Orchestra Directed by Ella...(Jazz Anthology 1939)
New York 1940 (Jazz Anthology 1940)
Ella Fitzgerald and Her Orchestra (Sunbeam 1940)
Sing Song Swing (Laserlight 1940)
Live from the Roseland Ballroom New York 1940 (Jazz Anthology 1940)
For Sentimental Reasons (Decca 1944)
Lullabies of Birdland (Decca 1945)
Ella & Ray (Jazz Live 1948)
Ella Fitzgerald Set (Verve 1949)
Miss Ella Fitzgerald and Mr. Nelson Riddle... (Decca 1949)
Gershwin Songs (Decca 1950)
Souvenir Album (Decca 1950)
Bluella: Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Blues (Pablo 1953)
Sweet and Hot (Decca 1953)
Songs in a Mellow Mood (Decca 1954)
Songs from 'Pete Kelly's Blues' (Decca 1955)
One O' Clock Jump (Verve 1956)
Sings Cole Porter (Verve 1956)
Sings More Cole Porter (Verve 1956)
A Tribute to Cole Porter (Verve 1956)
Sings the Cole Porter Song Book, Vol. 1 (Verve 1956)
Sings the Cole Porter Song Book, Vol. 2 (Verve 1956)
Ella and Louis Together [Laserlight] (Laserlight 1956)
Ella and Louis (Verve 1956)
Sings the Rodgers & Hart Song Book, Vols. 1-2 (Verve 1956)
Sings the Rodgers & Hart Song Book, Vol. 1 (Verve 1956)
Sings the Rodgers & Hart Song Book, Vol. 2 (Verve 1956)
Sings the Rodgers & Hart Song Book, Vol. 2 (Verve 1956)
Ella Fitzgerald Live (Verve 1956)
Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book, Vol. 2 (Verve 1956)
Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book, Vol. 1 (Verve 1956)
Ella Fitzgerald and Jazz at the... (Tax 1957)
Ella and Billie at Newport (Verve 1957)
Ella and Louis Again (Verve 1957)
Ella and Louis Again, (Verve 1957)
Ella and Louis Again, Vol. 2 (Verve 1957)
Hello, Love (Verve 1957)
Get Happy (Verve 1957)
At the Opera House (Verve 1957)
Ella Fitzgerald at the Opera House (Verve 1957)
Lady Be Good! (Verve 1957)
Like Someone in Love (Verve 1957)
Sings the Irving Berlin Song Book, Vol. 2 (Verve 1958)
Sings the Irving Berlin Song Book, Vol. 1 (Verve 1958)
Ella in Rome: The Birthday Concert [live] (Verve 1958)
Ella Swings Lightly (Verve 1958)
Sings Sweet Songs for Swingers (Verve 1958)
Ella Swings Brightly with Nelson (Verve 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book (Verve 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book,... (Verve 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book,... (Verve 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book,... (Verve 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book,... (Verve 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book,... (Verve 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book,... (Verve 1959)
Ella Sings Gershwin [MCA] (MCA 1959)
Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book (Verve 1959)
Ella in Berlin [live] (Verve 1960)
Ella Sings Songs from "Let No Man Write My... (Verve 1960)
The Intimate Ella (Verve 1960)
Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (Verve 1960)
Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book [Original... (Verve 1960)
Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book, Vol. 2 (Verve 1960)
Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book, Vol. 1 (Verve 1960)
Ella Returns to Berlin (Verve 1961)
Ella in Hollywood (Verve 1961)
Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie! (Verve 1961)
Ella Swings Gently with Nelson (Verve 1961)
Rhythm Is My Business (Verve 1962)
Ella Sings Broadway (Verve 1962)
Sings the Jerome Kern Song Book (Verve 1963)
Ella and Basie! (Verve 1963)
Ella and Basie (Verve 1963)
These Are the Blues (Verve 1963)
Hello Dolly (Verve 1964)
Ella at Juan Les Pins (Verve 1964)
Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Book (Verve 1964)
Stairway to the Stars (Decca 1965)
Ella in Hamburg (Verve 1965)
Ella Fitzgerald [MCA] (Metro 1965)
Ella at Duke's Place (Verve 1965)
The Stockholm Concert, 1966 [live] (Pablo 1966)
Whisper Not (Verve 1966)
Ella & Duke at the Cote D'azur (Verve 1966)
The World of Ella Fitzgerald (Metro 1966)
Misty Blue (Capitol 1967)
Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas (Capitol 1967)
Brighten the Corner (Capitol 1967)
Thirty by Ella (Capitol 1968)
Sunshine of Your Love (Prestige 1969)
Ella (Reprise 1969)
Ella Fitzgerald with the Tommy Flanagan Trio (Delta 1969)
Ella a Nice Original (Jazz 1971)
Loves Cole (Atlantic 1972)
Dream Dancing (Pablo 1972)
Carnegie Hall 1973, Vol. 1 [live] (Jazzotheque 1973)
Carnegie Hall 1973, Vol. 2 Jazzotheque 1973)
Newport Jazz Festival: Live at Carnegie Hall (Columbia 1973)
Take Love Easy (Pablo 1973)
Ella Fitzgerald Jams (Pablo 1974)
Fine and Mellow (Pablo 1974)
Ella in London (Pablo / OJC 1974)
Ella and Oscar (Pablo 1974)
Montreux '75 [live] (Pablo 1975)
Ella Fitzgerald at the Montreux Jazz... [live] (Pablo 1975)
At the Montreaux Festival (Original Jazz 1975)
Fitzgerald and Pass...Again (Pablo 1976)
Ella Fitzgerald [Pablo] (Pablo 1976)
Montreux '77 (Original Jazz 1977)
Lady Time (Pablo / OJC 1978)
A Classy Pair (Pablo 1979)
Live: Digital 3 at Montreux (Pablo 1979)
Perfect Match (Pablo 1979)
Ella Abraca Jobim (Pablo 1980)
The Best Is Yet to Come (Pablo 1982)
Speak Love (Pablo 1982)
Nice Work If You Can Get It (Pablo 1983)
Let's Call the Whole Thing Off (Pablo 1983)
Billie Holiday & Ella Fitzgerald (MCA 1986)
Easy Living (Pablo 1986)
Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (Polydor 1988)
All That Jazz (Pablo 1989)
Starlit Hour (Rounder 1989)
Ella: Things Ain't What They Used to Be (Reprise 1991)
Memories (MCA 1991)
Ella Sings, Chick Swings (Olympic 1991)
Ella with Her Savoy Eight (ASV / Living Era 1992)
Ella Fitzgerald ([Laserlight] Laserlight 1992)
Lady Is a Tramp (ITM 1994)
Sings the Cole Porter Song Book, Vol. 1 (Polygram 1994)
Roseland Dance City (Canby 1995)
Christmas with Ella Fitzgerald (Cema Special 1995)
My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Musketeer 1995)
Hallelujah (Smash 1995)
It's a Blue World (Drive 1995)
Hallelujah! (Hot Club de 1995)
My Happiness (Parrot 1995)
You'll Have to Swing It (Eclipse Music 1996)
A-Tisket A-Tasket ([Intercontinental] Intercontinent 1996)
Stockholm Concert [live] (Jazz World 1996)
Ella & Friends ([GRP] GRP 1996)
One Side of Me (Master Series 1996)
Fabulous (Musketeer 1996)
First Lady of Jazz (Leader Music 1996)
A-Tisket A-Tasket ([Hallmark] Hallmark 1996)
Together (Collector's 1996)
Rhythm & Romance ([ASV] Charly Budget 1997)
Sings Songs from Let No Man Write My Epitaph (Classic 1997)
Celebrated (Magnum America 1998)
In Budapest [live] (Pablo 1999)
The Enchanting Ella Fitzgerald: Live at... (Baldwin Street 2000)
The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald ([Pulse] Pulse 2000)
A Kiss Goodnight (2001)
Ella Fitzgerald & Friends at Birdland:... [live] (Jazz Band 2001)
2001 Lady Be Good: Live Just Jazz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information:
Birth name Ella Jane Fitzgerald
Born April 25, 1917
Newport News, Virginia, United States
Died June 15, 1996 (aged 79)
Beverly Hills, California, United States
Genres Swing, bebop, traditional pop, vocal jazz
Occupations Singer, actress
Instruments Vocals
Years active 1934–1993
Labels Capitol, Decca, Pablo, Reprise, Verve
Website ellafitzgerald.com
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American jazz vocalist with a vocal range spanning three octaves (D♭3 to D♭6).[1] Often referred to as the "First Lady of Song" and the "Queen of Jazz," she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
Fitzgerald was a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook.[2] Over the course of her 60-year recording career, she sold 40 million copies of her 70-plus albums, won 14 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Early career
3 Decca years
4 Verve years
5 Film and television
6 Collaborations
7 Later life and death
8 Personal life
9 Discography and collections
10 Awards, citations and honors
11 Tributes and legacy
12 References
13 Further reading
14 External links
Early life
Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, the daughter of William Fitzgerald and Temperance "Tempie" Fitzgerald.[3] Her parents were unmarried, and they had separated within a year of her birth.[3] With her mother's new partner, a Portuguese immigrant named Joseph Da Silva, Ella and her mother moved to the city of Yonkers, in Westchester County, New York, as part of the first Great Migration of African Americans.[3] Initially living in a single room, her mother and Da Silva soon found jobs and Ella's half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923.[4] By 1925, Fitzgerald and her family had moved to nearby School Street, then a predominantly poor Italian area.[4] At the age of six, Fitzgerald began her formal education, and moved through a variety of schools before attending Benjamin Franklin Junior High School from 1929.[5]
Fitzgerald had been passionate about dancing from third grade, being a fan of Earl "Snakehips" Tucker in particular, and would perform for her peers on the way to school and at lunchtime.[6] Fitzgerald and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday school.[6] The church would have provided Fitzgerald with her earliest experiences in formal music making, and she may have also had piano lessons during this period if her mother could afford it.[5]
In her youth, Fitzgerald wanted to be a dancer, although she loved listening to jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and The Boswell Sisters. She idolized the lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, "My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it....I tried so hard to sound just like her."[1]
In 1932, her mother died from a heart attack.[7] Following this trauma, Fitzgerald's grades dropped dramatically, and she frequently skipped school. Abused by her stepfather, she ran away to her aunt and,[8] at one point, worked as a lookout at a bordello and also with a Mafia-affiliated numbers runner.[9] When the authorities caught up with her, she was first placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, Bronx.[8] However, when the orphanage proved too crowded, she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, a state reformatory. Eventually she escaped and for a time she was homeless.[8]
Early career
She made her singing debut at 17 on November 21, 1934,[10] at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York.[11] She pulled in a weekly audience at the Apollo and won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of its famous "Amateur Nights". She had originally intended to go on stage and dance, but, intimidated by the Edwards Sisters, a local dance duo, she opted to sing instead in the style of Connee Boswell.[11][12] She sang Boswell's "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection," a song recorded by the Boswell Sisters, and won the first prize of US$25.00.[13]
In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House.[10] She met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb there. Webb had already hired singer Charlie Linton to work with the band and was, The New York Times later wrote, "reluctant to sign her....because she was gawky and unkempt, a diamond in the rough."[1] Webb offered her the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University.[10] She began singing regularly with Webb's Orchestra through 1935 at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom.[10] Fitzgerald recorded several hit songs with them, including "Love and Kisses" and "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)".[10] But it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", a song she co-wrote, that brought her wide public acclaim.
Chick Webb died on June 16, 1939,[14] and his band was renamed Ella and her Famous Orchestra with Ella taking on the role of nominal bandleader.[15] Fitzgerald recorded nearly 150 songs with the orchestra before it broke up in 1942, "the majority of them novelties and disposable pop fluff".[1]
Decca years
Fitzgerald performing with Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson and Timme Rosenkrantz in September 1947, New York
In 1942, Fitzgerald left the band to begin a solo career. Now signed to the Decca label, she had several popular hits while recording with such artists as Bill Kenny & The Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and The Delta Rhythm Boys.
With Decca's Milt Gabler as her manager, she began working regularly for the jazz impresario Norman Granz and appeared regularly in his Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts. Fitzgerald's relationship with Granz was further cemented when he became her manager, although it would be 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 bebop led to new developments in Fitzgerald's vocal style, influenced by her work with Dizzy Gillespie's big band. It was in this period that Fitzgerald started including scat singing as a major part of her performance repertoire. While singing with Gillespie, Fitzgerald recalled, "I just tried to do [with my voice] what I heard the horns in the band doing."[13]
Her 1945 scat recording of "Flying Home" arranged by Vic Schoen would later be described by The New York Times as "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade....Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness."[1] Her bebop recording of "Oh, Lady Be Good!" (1947) was similarly popular and increased her reputation as one of the leading jazz vocalists.
Verve years
Fitzgerald was still performing at Granz's JATP concerts by 1955. She left Decca and Granz, now her manager, created Verve Records around her. Fitzgerald later described the period as strategically crucial, saying, "I had gotten to the point where I was only singing be-bop. I thought be-bop was 'it', and that all I had to do was go some place and sing bop. But it finally got to the point where I had no place to sing. I realized then that there was more to music than bop. Norman ... felt that I should do other things, so he produced The Cole Porter Songbook with me. It was a turning point in my life."[1]
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, released in 1956, was the first of eight Songbook sets Fitzgerald would record for Verve at irregular intervals from 1956 to 1964. The composers and lyricists spotlighted on each set, taken together, represent the greatest part of the cultural canon known as the Great American Songbook. Her song selections ranged from standards to rarities and represented an attempt by Fitzgerald to cross over into a non-jazz audience. The sets are the most well-known items in her discography.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book was the only Songbook on which the composer she interpreted played with her. Duke Ellington and his longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn both appeared on exactly half the set's 38 tracks and wrote two new pieces of music for the album: "The E and D Blues" and a four-movement musical portrait of Fitzgerald (the only Songbook track on which Fitzgerald does not sing). The Songbook series ended up becoming the singer's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work, and probably her most significant offering to American culture. The New York Times wrote in 1996, "These albums were among the first pop records to devote such serious attention to individual songwriters, and they were instrumental in establishing the pop album as a vehicle for serious musical exploration."[1]
A few days after Fitzgerald's death, The New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that in the Songbook series Fitzgerald "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis' 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."[9] Frank Sinatra was moved out of respect for Fitzgerald to block Capitol Records from re-releasing his own recordings in a similar, single composer vein.
Fitzgerald also recorded albums exclusively devoted to the songs of Porter and Gershwin in 1972 and 1983; the albums being, respectively, Ella Loves Cole and Nice Work If You Can Get It. A later collection devoted to a single composer was released during her time with Pablo Records, Ella Abraça Jobim, featuring the songs of Antônio Carlos Jobim.
While recording the Songbooks and the occasional studio album, Fitzgerald toured 40 to 45 weeks per year in the United States and internationally, under the tutelage of Norman Granz. Granz helped solidify her position as one of the leading live jazz performers.[1]
On March 15, 1955[16] Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood,[17] after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner for the booking.[18] The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career. The incident was turned into a play by Bonnie Greer in 2005. It has been widely reported that Fitzgerald was the first Black performer to play the Mocambo, following Monroe's intervention, but this is not true. African-American singers Herb Jefferies,[19] Eartha Kitt,[20] and Joyce Bryan[21] all played the Mocambo in 1952 and 1953, according to stories published at the time in Jet magazine and Billboard.
There are several live albums on Verve that are highly regarded by critics. Ella at the Opera House shows a typical JATP set from Fitzgerald. Ella in Rome and Twelve Nights in Hollywood display her vocal jazz canon. Ella in Berlin is still one of her best selling albums; it includes a Grammy-winning performance of "Mack the Knife" in which she forgets the lyrics, but improvises magnificently to compensate.
Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1963 for $3 million and in 1967 MGM failed to renew Fitzgerald's contract. Over the next five years she flitted between Atlantic, Capitol and Reprise. Her material at this time represented a departure from her typical jazz repertoire. For Capitol she recorded Brighten the Corner, an album of hymns, Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas, an album of traditional Christmas carols, Misty Blue, a country and western-influenced album, and 30 by Ella, a series of six medleys that fulfilled her obligations for the label. During this period, she had her last US chart single with a cover of Smokey Robinson's "Get Ready", previously a hit for The Temptations, and some months later a top-five hit for Rare Earth.
The surprise success of the 1972 album Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72 led Granz to found Pablo Records, his first record label since the sale of Verve. Fitzgerald recorded some 20 albums for the label. Ella in London recorded live in 1974 with pianist Tommy Flanagan, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Keter Betts and drummer Bobby Durham, was considered by many to be some of her best work. The following year she again performed with Joe Pass on German television station NDR in Hamburg. Her years with Pablo Records also documented the decline in her voice. "She frequently used shorter, stabbing phrases, and her voice was harder, with a wider vibrato", one biographer wrote.[22] Plagued by health problems, Fitzgerald made her last recording in 1991 and her last public performances in 1993.[23]
Film and television
Fitzgerald shakes hands with President Ronald Reagan after performing in the White House, 1981
In her most notable screen role, Fitzgerald played the part of singer Maggie Jackson in Jack Webb's 1955 jazz film Pete Kelly's Blues.[24] The film costarred Janet Leigh and singer Peggy Lee.[25] Even though she had already worked in the movies (she had sung briefly in the 1942 Abbott and Costello film Ride 'Em Cowboy),[26] she was "delighted" when Norman Granz negotiated the role for her, and, "at the time....considered her role in the Warner Brothers movie the biggest thing ever to have happened to her."[22] Amid The New York Times pan of the film when it opened in August 1955, the reviewer wrote, "About five minutes (out of ninety-five) suggest the picture this might have been. Take the ingenious prologue ... [or] take the fleeting scenes when the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald, allotted a few spoken lines, fills the screen and sound track with her strong mobile features and voice."[27] Fitzgerald's race precluded major big-screen success. After Pete Kelly's Blues, she appeared in sporadic movie cameos, in St. Louis Blues (1958),[28] and Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960).[29] Much later, she appeared in the 1980s television drama The White Shadow.
She made numerous guest appearances on television shows, singing on The Frank Sinatra Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, and alongside other greats Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Mel Tormé, and many others. She was also frequently featured on The Ed Sullivan Show. Perhaps her most unusual and intriguing performance was of the "Three Little Maids" song from Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operetta The Mikado alongside Joan Sutherland and Dinah Shore on Shore's weekly variety series in 1963. A performance at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London was filmed and shown on the BBC. Fitzgerald also made a one-off appearance alongside Sarah Vaughan and Pearl Bailey on a 1979 television special honoring Bailey. In 1980, she performed a medley of standards in a duet with Karen Carpenter on the Carpenters' television program Music, Music, Music.[30]
Fitzgerald also appeared in TV commercials, her most memorable being an ad for Memorex.[31] In the commercials, she sang a note that shattered a glass while being recorded on a Memorex cassette tape.[32] The tape was played back and the recording also broke the glass, asking: "Is it live, or is it Memorex?"[32] She also starred in a number of commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken, singing and scatting to the fast-food chain's longtime slogan, "We do chicken right!"[33] Her final commercial campaign was for American Express, in which she was photographed by Annie Leibovitz.[34]
Collaborations
Fitzgerald's most famous collaborations were with the vocal quartet Bill Kenny & The Ink Spots, trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the guitarist Joe Pass, and the bandleaders Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
From 1943 to 1950, Fitzgerald recorded seven songs with The Ink Spots featuring Bill Kenny. Out of all seven recordings, four reached the top of the pop charts including "I'm Making Believe" and "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" which both reached #1.
Fitzgerald recorded three Verve studio albums with Armstrong, two albums of standards (1956's Ella and Louis and 1957's Ella and Louis Again), 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, while her 1963 album Ella and Basie! is remembered as one of her greatest recordings. With the 'New Testament' Basie band in full swing, and arrangements written by a young Quincy Jones, this album proved a respite from the 'Songbook' recordings and constant touring that Fitzgerald was engaged in during this period. Fitzgerald and Basie also collaborated 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.
Possibly Fitzgerald's greatest unrealized collaboration (in terms of popular music) was a studio or live album with Frank Sinatra. The two appeared on the same stage only periodically over the years, in television specials in 1958 and 1959, and again on 1967's A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim, a show that also featured Antônio Carlos Jobim. Pianist Paul Smith has said, "Ella loved working with [Frank]. Sinatra gave her his dressing-room on A Man and His Music and couldn't do enough for her." When asked, Norman Granz would cite "complex contractual reasons" for the fact that the two artists never recorded together.[22] Fitzgerald's appearance with Sinatra and Count Basie in June 1974 for a series of concerts at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, was seen as an important incentive for Sinatra to return from his self-imposed retirement of the early 1970s. The shows were a great success, and September 1975 saw them gross $1,000,000 in two weeks on Broadway, in a triumvirate with the Count Basie Orchestra.
Later life and death
In 1985, Fitzgerald was hospitalized briefly for respiratory problems,[35] in 1986 for congestive heart failure,[36] and in 1990 for exhaustion.[37] In 1993, she had to have both of her legs amputated below the knee due to the effects of diabetes.[38] Her eyesight was affected as well.[1]
In 1996, tired of being in the hospital, she wished to spend her last days at home. Confined to a wheelchair, she spent her final days in her backyard of her Beverly Hills mansion on Whittier, with her son Ray and 12 year old granddaughter Alice. "I just want to smell the air, listen to the birds and hear Alice laugh," she reportedly said. On her last day, she was wheeled outside one last time, and sat there for about an hour. When she was taken back in, she looked up with a soft smile on her face and said, "I'm ready to go now." She died in her home on June 15, 1996 at the age of 79.[1] A few hours after her death, the Playboy Jazz Festival was launched at the Hollywood Bowl. In tribute, the marquee read: "Ella We Will Miss You."[39] Her funeral was private,[39] and she was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Personal life
Fitzgerald married at least twice, and there is evidence that she may have married a third time. In 1941, she married Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer and local dockworker. The marriage was annulled after two years.
Her second marriage, in December 1947, was to the famous bass player Ray Brown, whom she had met while on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band a year earlier. Together they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances, whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. With Fitzgerald and Brown often busy touring and recording, the child was largely raised by her aunt, Virginia. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1953, bowing to the various career pressures both were experiencing at the time, though they would continue to perform together.[1]
In July 1957, Reuters reported that Fitzgerald had secretly married Thor Einar Larsen, a young Norwegian, in Oslo. She had even gone as far as furnishing an apartment in Oslo, but the affair was quickly forgotten when Larsen was sentenced to five months hard labor in Sweden for stealing money from a young woman to whom he had previously been engaged.[22]
Fitzgerald was also notoriously shy. Trumpet player Mario Bauzá, who played behind Fitzgerald in her early years with Chick Webb, remembered that "she didn't hang out much. When she got into the band, she was dedicated to her music....She was a lonely girl around New York, just kept herself to herself, for the gig."[22] When, later in her career, the Society of Singers named an award after her, Fitzgerald explained, "I don't want to say the wrong thing, which I always do but I think I do better when I sing."[13]
Fitzgerald was a quiet but ardent supporter of many charities and non-profit organizations, including the American Heart Association and the City of Hope Medical Center. In 1993, she established the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation.[40]
Discography and collections[edit]
Further information: Ella Fitzgerald discography
The primary collections of Fitzgerald's media and memorabilia reside at and are shared between the Smithsonian Institution and the US Library of Congress [41]
Awards, citations and honors
Further information: List of awards received by Ella Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald won thirteen Grammy Awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 1967.
Other major awards and honors she received during her career were the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Medal of Honor Award, National Medal of Art, first Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, named "Ella" in her honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.[42] Across town at the University of Southern California, she received the USC "Magnum Opus" Award which hangs in the office of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation. In 1990, she received an honorary doctorate of Music from Harvard University.[43]
Tributes and legacy
The career history and archival material from Ella's long career are housed in the Archives Center at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, while her personal music arrangements are at the Library of Congress. Her extensive cookbook collection was donated to the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, and her extensive collection of published sheet music was donated to UCLA.
In 1997, Newport News, Virginia created a music festival with Christopher Newport University to honor Ella Fitzgerald in her birth city. The Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival is designed to teach the region's youth of the musical legacy of Fitzgerald and jazz. Past performers at the week-long festival include: Diana Krall, Arturo Sandoval, Jean Carne, Phil Woods, Aretha Franklin, Freda Payne, Cassandra Wilson, Ethel Ennis, David Sanborn, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ramsey Lewis, Patti Austin, and Ann Hampton Callaway.
Callaway, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Patti Austin have all recorded albums in tribute to Fitzgerald. Callaway's album To Ella with Love (1996) features fourteen jazz standards made popular by Fitzgerald, and the album also features the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Bridgewater's album Dear Ella (1997) 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, double bassist Ray Brown. Bridgewater's following album, Live at Yoshi's, was recorded live on April 25, 1998, what would have been Fitzgerald's 81st birthday.
Austin's album, For Ella (2002) features 11 songs most immediately associated with Fitzgerald, and a twelfth song, "Hearing Ella Sing" is Austin's tribute to Fitzgerald. The album was nominated for a Grammy. In 2007, We All Love Ella, was released, a tribute album recorded for the 90th anniversary of Fitzgerald's birth. It featured artists such as Michael Bublé, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall, k.d. lang, Queen Latifah, Ledisi, Dianne Reeves, Linda Ronstadt, and Lizz Wright, collating songs most readily associated with the "First Lady of Song". Folk singer Odetta's album To Ella (1998) is dedicated to Fitzgerald, but features no songs associated with her. Her accompanist Tommy Flanagan affectionately remembered Fitzgerald on his album Lady be Good ... For Ella (1994).
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. Sinatra's 1986 recording of "Mack the Knife" from his album L.A. Is My Lady (1984) includes a homage to some of the song's previous performers, including 'Lady Ella' herself. She is also honored in the song "First Lady" by Canadian artist Nikki Yanofsky.
In 2008, the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News named its brand new 276-seat theater the Ella Fitzgerald Theater. The theater is located several blocks away from her birthplace on Marshall Avenue. The Grand Opening performers (October 11 and 12, 2008) were Roberta Flack and Queen Esther Marrow.
In 2012, Rod Stewart performed a "virtual duet" with Ella Fitzgerald on his Christmas album Merry Christmas, Baby, and his television special of the same name.[44]
In 2013, Google paid tribute to Ella by celebrating her 96th birthday with a Google Doodle on its US homepage.[45]
There is a bronze sculpture of Fitzgerald in Yonkers, the city in which she grew up, created by American artist Vinnie Bagwell. It is located southeast of the main entrance to the Amtrak/Metro-North Railroad station in front of the city's old trolley barn. A bust of Fitzgerald is on the campus of Chapman University in Orange, California. On January 9, 2007, the United States Postal Service announced that Fitzgerald would be honored with her own postage stamp.[31] The stamp was released in April 2007 as part of the Postal Service's Black Heritage series.[46]
References
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k Holden, Stephen (June 16, 1996). "Ella Fitzgerald, the Voice of Jazz, Dies at 79". The New York Times. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ Vickie Smith, Jazz Vocalist. "Dedicated To Ella". VickieSmith.com. Retrieved March 16, 2007.[dead link]
^ Jump up to: a b c Nicholson 1996a, p. 4.
^ Jump up to: a b Nicholson 1996a, p. 5.
^ Jump up to: a b Nicholson 1996a, p. 7.
^ Jump up to: a b Nicholson 1996a, p. 6.
Jump up ^ Nicholson 1996a, p. 14.
^ Jump up to: a b c Bernstein, Nina (June 23, 1996). "Ward of the State; The Gap in Ella Fitzgerald's Life". The New York Times. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Rich, Frank (June 19, 1996). "Journal; How High the Moon". The New York Times. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Fritts, Ron; Vail, Ken (January 1, 2003). Ella Fitzgerald: The Chick Webb Years & Beyond. Scarecrow Press. p. 4–6. ISBN 978-0-8108-4881-8. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Horton, James Oliver (March 24, 2005). Landmarks of African American History. Oxford University Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-19-514118-4. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Hemming, Roy (December 1, 1992). Discovering Great Singers of Classic Pop: A New Listener's Guide to the Sounds and Lives of the Top Performers. Newmarket Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-55704-148-7. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c Moret, Jim (June 15, 1996). "'First Lady of Song' passes peacefully, surrounded by family". CNN. Archived from the original on November 29, 2006. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
Jump up ^ Otfinoski, Steven (2010). African Americans in the Performing Arts. Infobase Publishing. p. 251. ISBN 978-1-4381-2855-9. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ James, Edward T.; James, Janet Wilson; Boyer, Paul S. Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-674-01488-6. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (March 12, 1955). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 24. ISSN 00062510. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
Jump up ^ Johnson Publishing Company (April 7, 1955). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
Jump up ^ Nicholson, Stuart (1993). Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz. Da Capo Press. p. 149. ISBN 0-306-80642-8.
Jump up ^ Johnson Publishing Company (August 13, 1953). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. p. 60. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
Jump up ^ Johnson Publishing Company (December 10, 1953). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
Jump up ^ Johnson Publishing Company (November 12, 1953). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Nicholson, Stuart (1993). Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-575-40032-3. "For many years Fitzgerald's birthdate was thought to be on the same date one year later in 1918 – and it is still listed as such in some sources – but research by Nicholson and another biographer, Tanya Lee Stone, established 1917 as the correct year of birth."
Jump up ^ Davies, Hugh (December 31, 2005). "Sir Johnny up there with the Count and the Duke". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved March 16, 2007.
Jump up ^ "Movie of the week: Pete Kelly's Blues". Jet: 62. August 25, 1955. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ Capua, Michelangelo (March 8, 2013). Janet Leigh: A Biography. McFarland. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-7864-7022-8. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Furia, Philip; Patterson, Laurie (March 10, 2010). The Songs of Hollywood. Oxford University Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-19-979266-5. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Dargis, Manohla (August 19, 1955). "Webb Plays the Blues". The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2007.
Jump up ^ Storb, Ilse (2000). Jazz Meets the World – The World Meets Jazz (in German). LIT Verlag Münster. p. 61. ISBN 978-3-8258-3748-8. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Croix, St. Sukie de la (July 11, 2012). Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-299-28693-4. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella on Special 1980 Duet with Karen Carpenter". YouTube. December 25, 2008. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
^ Jump up to: a b "New stamp honors first lady of song". USA Today. AP. 9 January 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Rosen, Larry (July 18, 2013). "Is It Live or Is It Memorex?". Psychology Today. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald For Kentucky Fried Chicken". Rerojunk.com. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
Jump up ^ "She puts the famous in focus". St. Petersburg Times. November 22, 2005. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Hospitalized". The Lewiston Journal. AP. August 13, 1985. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Hospitalized". AP News Archive. AP. July 27, 1986. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "WORLD: Ella Fitzgerald Hospitalized". Los Angeles Times. July 10, 1990. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Had Both Legs Amputated". Daily News (Kingsport, Tennessee). Reuters. April 13, 1994. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Weinstein, Henry; Brazil, Jeff (June 16, 1996). "Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz's First Lady of Song, Dies". Los Angeles Times. pp. 1–3. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation". Ellafitzgeraldfoundation.org. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
Jump up ^ Wong, Hannah. "'First Lady of Song' LC Collection Tells Ella Fitzgerald Story". LOC. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
Jump up ^ "Calendar & Events: Spring Sing: Gershwin Award". UCLA.[dead link]
Jump up ^ "Partial List of Harvard Honorary Degrees". Harvard University. Retrieved May 30, 2013.
Jump up ^ Graff, Gary (October 30, 2012). "Rod Stewart: I Thought Christmas Album Was 'Beneath Me'". Billboard. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ "Google Doodle celebrates birthday of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald". The Independent. April 25, 2013. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
Jump up ^ "New Stamp Honors First Lady of Song". WHSV News 3. January 9, 2007. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
General
Gourse, Leslie (1998). The Ella Fitzgerald Companion. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-6916-7.
Johnson, J. Wilfred (2001). Ella Fitzgerald: An Annotated Discography. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0906-1.
Nicholson, Stuart (1996). Ella Fitzgerald: 1917-1996. London: Indigo. ISBN 978-0-575-40032-0.
Further reading[edit]
Library resources about
Ella Fitzgerald
Resources in your library
Resources in other libraries
By Ella Fitzgerald
Resources in your library
Resources in other libraries
Nicholson, Stuart. (1996) Ella Fitzgerald. Gollancz; ISBN 0-575-40032-3
Gourse, Leslie. (1998) The Ella Fitzgerald Companion: Seven Decades of Commentary. Music Sales Ltd.; ISBN 0-02-864625-8
Johnson, J. Wilfred. (2001) Ella Fitzgerald: A Complete Annotated Discography. McFarland & Co Inc.; ISBN 0-7864-0906-1
External links[edit]
Biography portal
Music portal
Book: Ella Fitzgerald
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ella Fitzgerald.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald at the Internet Movie Database
Ella Fitzgerald at the Internet Broadway Database
Ella Fitzgerald at Find a Grave
Ella Fitzgerald at the Library of Congress
'Remembering Ella' by Phillip D. Atteberry
Listen to Big Band Serenade podcast, episode 6 Includes complete NBC remote broadcast of "Ella Fitzgerald & her Orchestra" from the Roseland Ballroom (or download)
Ella Fitzgerald
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information:
Birth name Ella Jane Fitzgerald
Born April 25, 1917
Newport News, Virginia, United States
Died June 15, 1996 (aged 79)
Beverly Hills, California, United States
Genres Swing, bebop, traditional pop, vocal jazz
Occupations Singer, actress
Instruments Vocals
Years active 1934–1993
Labels Capitol, Decca, Pablo, Reprise, Verve
Website ellafitzgerald.com
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American jazz vocalist with a vocal range spanning three octaves (D♭3 to D♭6).[1] Often referred to as the "First Lady of Song" and the "Queen of Jazz," she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
Fitzgerald was a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook.[2] Over the course of her 60-year recording career, she sold 40 million copies of her 70-plus albums, won 14 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Early career
3 Decca years
4 Verve years
5 Film and television
6 Collaborations
7 Later life and death
8 Personal life
9 Discography and collections
10 Awards, citations and honors
11 Tributes and legacy
12 References
13 Further reading
14 External links
Early life
Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, the daughter of William Fitzgerald and Temperance "Tempie" Fitzgerald.[3] Her parents were unmarried, and they had separated within a year of her birth.[3] With her mother's new partner, a Portuguese immigrant named Joseph Da Silva, Ella and her mother moved to the city of Yonkers, in Westchester County, New York, as part of the first Great Migration of African Americans.[3] Initially living in a single room, her mother and Da Silva soon found jobs and Ella's half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923.[4] By 1925, Fitzgerald and her family had moved to nearby School Street, then a predominantly poor Italian area.[4] At the age of six, Fitzgerald began her formal education, and moved through a variety of schools before attending Benjamin Franklin Junior High School from 1929.[5]
Fitzgerald had been passionate about dancing from third grade, being a fan of Earl "Snakehips" Tucker in particular, and would perform for her peers on the way to school and at lunchtime.[6] Fitzgerald and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday school.[6] The church would have provided Fitzgerald with her earliest experiences in formal music making, and she may have also had piano lessons during this period if her mother could afford it.[5]
In her youth, Fitzgerald wanted to be a dancer, although she loved listening to jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and The Boswell Sisters. She idolized the lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, "My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it....I tried so hard to sound just like her."[1]
In 1932, her mother died from a heart attack.[7] Following this trauma, Fitzgerald's grades dropped dramatically, and she frequently skipped school. Abused by her stepfather, she ran away to her aunt and,[8] at one point, worked as a lookout at a bordello and also with a Mafia-affiliated numbers runner.[9] When the authorities caught up with her, she was first placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, Bronx.[8] However, when the orphanage proved too crowded, she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, a state reformatory. Eventually she escaped and for a time she was homeless.[8]
Early career
She made her singing debut at 17 on November 21, 1934,[10] at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York.[11] She pulled in a weekly audience at the Apollo and won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of its famous "Amateur Nights". She had originally intended to go on stage and dance, but, intimidated by the Edwards Sisters, a local dance duo, she opted to sing instead in the style of Connee Boswell.[11][12] She sang Boswell's "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection," a song recorded by the Boswell Sisters, and won the first prize of US$25.00.[13]
In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House.[10] She met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb there. Webb had already hired singer Charlie Linton to work with the band and was, The New York Times later wrote, "reluctant to sign her....because she was gawky and unkempt, a diamond in the rough."[1] Webb offered her the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University.[10] She began singing regularly with Webb's Orchestra through 1935 at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom.[10] Fitzgerald recorded several hit songs with them, including "Love and Kisses" and "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)".[10] But it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", a song she co-wrote, that brought her wide public acclaim.
Chick Webb died on June 16, 1939,[14] and his band was renamed Ella and her Famous Orchestra with Ella taking on the role of nominal bandleader.[15] Fitzgerald recorded nearly 150 songs with the orchestra before it broke up in 1942, "the majority of them novelties and disposable pop fluff".[1]
Decca years
Fitzgerald performing with Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson and Timme Rosenkrantz in September 1947, New York
In 1942, Fitzgerald left the band to begin a solo career. Now signed to the Decca label, she had several popular hits while recording with such artists as Bill Kenny & The Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and The Delta Rhythm Boys.
With Decca's Milt Gabler as her manager, she began working regularly for the jazz impresario Norman Granz and appeared regularly in his Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts. Fitzgerald's relationship with Granz was further cemented when he became her manager, although it would be 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 bebop led to new developments in Fitzgerald's vocal style, influenced by her work with Dizzy Gillespie's big band. It was in this period that Fitzgerald started including scat singing as a major part of her performance repertoire. While singing with Gillespie, Fitzgerald recalled, "I just tried to do [with my voice] what I heard the horns in the band doing."[13]
Her 1945 scat recording of "Flying Home" arranged by Vic Schoen would later be described by The New York Times as "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade....Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness."[1] Her bebop recording of "Oh, Lady Be Good!" (1947) was similarly popular and increased her reputation as one of the leading jazz vocalists.
Verve years
Fitzgerald was still performing at Granz's JATP concerts by 1955. She left Decca and Granz, now her manager, created Verve Records around her. Fitzgerald later described the period as strategically crucial, saying, "I had gotten to the point where I was only singing be-bop. I thought be-bop was 'it', and that all I had to do was go some place and sing bop. But it finally got to the point where I had no place to sing. I realized then that there was more to music than bop. Norman ... felt that I should do other things, so he produced The Cole Porter Songbook with me. It was a turning point in my life."[1]
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, released in 1956, was the first of eight Songbook sets Fitzgerald would record for Verve at irregular intervals from 1956 to 1964. The composers and lyricists spotlighted on each set, taken together, represent the greatest part of the cultural canon known as the Great American Songbook. Her song selections ranged from standards to rarities and represented an attempt by Fitzgerald to cross over into a non-jazz audience. The sets are the most well-known items in her discography.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book was the only Songbook on which the composer she interpreted played with her. Duke Ellington and his longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn both appeared on exactly half the set's 38 tracks and wrote two new pieces of music for the album: "The E and D Blues" and a four-movement musical portrait of Fitzgerald (the only Songbook track on which Fitzgerald does not sing). The Songbook series ended up becoming the singer's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work, and probably her most significant offering to American culture. The New York Times wrote in 1996, "These albums were among the first pop records to devote such serious attention to individual songwriters, and they were instrumental in establishing the pop album as a vehicle for serious musical exploration."[1]
A few days after Fitzgerald's death, The New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that in the Songbook series Fitzgerald "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis' 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."[9] Frank Sinatra was moved out of respect for Fitzgerald to block Capitol Records from re-releasing his own recordings in a similar, single composer vein.
Fitzgerald also recorded albums exclusively devoted to the songs of Porter and Gershwin in 1972 and 1983; the albums being, respectively, Ella Loves Cole and Nice Work If You Can Get It. A later collection devoted to a single composer was released during her time with Pablo Records, Ella Abraça Jobim, featuring the songs of Antônio Carlos Jobim.
While recording the Songbooks and the occasional studio album, Fitzgerald toured 40 to 45 weeks per year in the United States and internationally, under the tutelage of Norman Granz. Granz helped solidify her position as one of the leading live jazz performers.[1]
On March 15, 1955[16] Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood,[17] after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner for the booking.[18] The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career. The incident was turned into a play by Bonnie Greer in 2005. It has been widely reported that Fitzgerald was the first Black performer to play the Mocambo, following Monroe's intervention, but this is not true. African-American singers Herb Jefferies,[19] Eartha Kitt,[20] and Joyce Bryan[21] all played the Mocambo in 1952 and 1953, according to stories published at the time in Jet magazine and Billboard.
There are several live albums on Verve that are highly regarded by critics. Ella at the Opera House shows a typical JATP set from Fitzgerald. Ella in Rome and Twelve Nights in Hollywood display her vocal jazz canon. Ella in Berlin is still one of her best selling albums; it includes a Grammy-winning performance of "Mack the Knife" in which she forgets the lyrics, but improvises magnificently to compensate.
Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1963 for $3 million and in 1967 MGM failed to renew Fitzgerald's contract. Over the next five years she flitted between Atlantic, Capitol and Reprise. Her material at this time represented a departure from her typical jazz repertoire. For Capitol she recorded Brighten the Corner, an album of hymns, Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas, an album of traditional Christmas carols, Misty Blue, a country and western-influenced album, and 30 by Ella, a series of six medleys that fulfilled her obligations for the label. During this period, she had her last US chart single with a cover of Smokey Robinson's "Get Ready", previously a hit for The Temptations, and some months later a top-five hit for Rare Earth.
The surprise success of the 1972 album Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72 led Granz to found Pablo Records, his first record label since the sale of Verve. Fitzgerald recorded some 20 albums for the label. Ella in London recorded live in 1974 with pianist Tommy Flanagan, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Keter Betts and drummer Bobby Durham, was considered by many to be some of her best work. The following year she again performed with Joe Pass on German television station NDR in Hamburg. Her years with Pablo Records also documented the decline in her voice. "She frequently used shorter, stabbing phrases, and her voice was harder, with a wider vibrato", one biographer wrote.[22] Plagued by health problems, Fitzgerald made her last recording in 1991 and her last public performances in 1993.[23]
Film and television
Fitzgerald shakes hands with President Ronald Reagan after performing in the White House, 1981
In her most notable screen role, Fitzgerald played the part of singer Maggie Jackson in Jack Webb's 1955 jazz film Pete Kelly's Blues.[24] The film costarred Janet Leigh and singer Peggy Lee.[25] Even though she had already worked in the movies (she had sung briefly in the 1942 Abbott and Costello film Ride 'Em Cowboy),[26] she was "delighted" when Norman Granz negotiated the role for her, and, "at the time....considered her role in the Warner Brothers movie the biggest thing ever to have happened to her."[22] Amid The New York Times pan of the film when it opened in August 1955, the reviewer wrote, "About five minutes (out of ninety-five) suggest the picture this might have been. Take the ingenious prologue ... [or] take the fleeting scenes when the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald, allotted a few spoken lines, fills the screen and sound track with her strong mobile features and voice."[27] Fitzgerald's race precluded major big-screen success. After Pete Kelly's Blues, she appeared in sporadic movie cameos, in St. Louis Blues (1958),[28] and Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960).[29] Much later, she appeared in the 1980s television drama The White Shadow.
She made numerous guest appearances on television shows, singing on The Frank Sinatra Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, and alongside other greats Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Mel Tormé, and many others. She was also frequently featured on The Ed Sullivan Show. Perhaps her most unusual and intriguing performance was of the "Three Little Maids" song from Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operetta The Mikado alongside Joan Sutherland and Dinah Shore on Shore's weekly variety series in 1963. A performance at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London was filmed and shown on the BBC. Fitzgerald also made a one-off appearance alongside Sarah Vaughan and Pearl Bailey on a 1979 television special honoring Bailey. In 1980, she performed a medley of standards in a duet with Karen Carpenter on the Carpenters' television program Music, Music, Music.[30]
Fitzgerald also appeared in TV commercials, her most memorable being an ad for Memorex.[31] In the commercials, she sang a note that shattered a glass while being recorded on a Memorex cassette tape.[32] The tape was played back and the recording also broke the glass, asking: "Is it live, or is it Memorex?"[32] She also starred in a number of commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken, singing and scatting to the fast-food chain's longtime slogan, "We do chicken right!"[33] Her final commercial campaign was for American Express, in which she was photographed by Annie Leibovitz.[34]
Collaborations
Fitzgerald's most famous collaborations were with the vocal quartet Bill Kenny & The Ink Spots, trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the guitarist Joe Pass, and the bandleaders Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
From 1943 to 1950, Fitzgerald recorded seven songs with The Ink Spots featuring Bill Kenny. Out of all seven recordings, four reached the top of the pop charts including "I'm Making Believe" and "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" which both reached #1.
Fitzgerald recorded three Verve studio albums with Armstrong, two albums of standards (1956's Ella and Louis and 1957's Ella and Louis Again), 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, while her 1963 album Ella and Basie! is remembered as one of her greatest recordings. With the 'New Testament' Basie band in full swing, and arrangements written by a young Quincy Jones, this album proved a respite from the 'Songbook' recordings and constant touring that Fitzgerald was engaged in during this period. Fitzgerald and Basie also collaborated 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.
Possibly Fitzgerald's greatest unrealized collaboration (in terms of popular music) was a studio or live album with Frank Sinatra. The two appeared on the same stage only periodically over the years, in television specials in 1958 and 1959, and again on 1967's A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim, a show that also featured Antônio Carlos Jobim. Pianist Paul Smith has said, "Ella loved working with [Frank]. Sinatra gave her his dressing-room on A Man and His Music and couldn't do enough for her." When asked, Norman Granz would cite "complex contractual reasons" for the fact that the two artists never recorded together.[22] Fitzgerald's appearance with Sinatra and Count Basie in June 1974 for a series of concerts at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, was seen as an important incentive for Sinatra to return from his self-imposed retirement of the early 1970s. The shows were a great success, and September 1975 saw them gross $1,000,000 in two weeks on Broadway, in a triumvirate with the Count Basie Orchestra.
Later life and death
In 1985, Fitzgerald was hospitalized briefly for respiratory problems,[35] in 1986 for congestive heart failure,[36] and in 1990 for exhaustion.[37] In 1993, she had to have both of her legs amputated below the knee due to the effects of diabetes.[38] Her eyesight was affected as well.[1]
In 1996, tired of being in the hospital, she wished to spend her last days at home. Confined to a wheelchair, she spent her final days in her backyard of her Beverly Hills mansion on Whittier, with her son Ray and 12 year old granddaughter Alice. "I just want to smell the air, listen to the birds and hear Alice laugh," she reportedly said. On her last day, she was wheeled outside one last time, and sat there for about an hour. When she was taken back in, she looked up with a soft smile on her face and said, "I'm ready to go now." She died in her home on June 15, 1996 at the age of 79.[1] A few hours after her death, the Playboy Jazz Festival was launched at the Hollywood Bowl. In tribute, the marquee read: "Ella We Will Miss You."[39] Her funeral was private,[39] and she was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Personal life
Fitzgerald married at least twice, and there is evidence that she may have married a third time. In 1941, she married Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer and local dockworker. The marriage was annulled after two years.
Her second marriage, in December 1947, was to the famous bass player Ray Brown, whom she had met while on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band a year earlier. Together they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances, whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. With Fitzgerald and Brown often busy touring and recording, the child was largely raised by her aunt, Virginia. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1953, bowing to the various career pressures both were experiencing at the time, though they would continue to perform together.[1]
In July 1957, Reuters reported that Fitzgerald had secretly married Thor Einar Larsen, a young Norwegian, in Oslo. She had even gone as far as furnishing an apartment in Oslo, but the affair was quickly forgotten when Larsen was sentenced to five months hard labor in Sweden for stealing money from a young woman to whom he had previously been engaged.[22]
Fitzgerald was also notoriously shy. Trumpet player Mario Bauzá, who played behind Fitzgerald in her early years with Chick Webb, remembered that "she didn't hang out much. When she got into the band, she was dedicated to her music....She was a lonely girl around New York, just kept herself to herself, for the gig."[22] When, later in her career, the Society of Singers named an award after her, Fitzgerald explained, "I don't want to say the wrong thing, which I always do but I think I do better when I sing."[13]
Fitzgerald was a quiet but ardent supporter of many charities and non-profit organizations, including the American Heart Association and the City of Hope Medical Center. In 1993, she established the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation.[40]
Discography and collections[edit]
Further information: Ella Fitzgerald discography
The primary collections of Fitzgerald's media and memorabilia reside at and are shared between the Smithsonian Institution and the US Library of Congress [41]
Awards, citations and honors
Further information: List of awards received by Ella Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald won thirteen Grammy Awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 1967.
Other major awards and honors she received during her career were the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Medal of Honor Award, National Medal of Art, first Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, named "Ella" in her honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.[42] Across town at the University of Southern California, she received the USC "Magnum Opus" Award which hangs in the office of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation. In 1990, she received an honorary doctorate of Music from Harvard University.[43]
Tributes and legacy
The career history and archival material from Ella's long career are housed in the Archives Center at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, while her personal music arrangements are at the Library of Congress. Her extensive cookbook collection was donated to the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, and her extensive collection of published sheet music was donated to UCLA.
In 1997, Newport News, Virginia created a music festival with Christopher Newport University to honor Ella Fitzgerald in her birth city. The Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival is designed to teach the region's youth of the musical legacy of Fitzgerald and jazz. Past performers at the week-long festival include: Diana Krall, Arturo Sandoval, Jean Carne, Phil Woods, Aretha Franklin, Freda Payne, Cassandra Wilson, Ethel Ennis, David Sanborn, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ramsey Lewis, Patti Austin, and Ann Hampton Callaway.
Callaway, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Patti Austin have all recorded albums in tribute to Fitzgerald. Callaway's album To Ella with Love (1996) features fourteen jazz standards made popular by Fitzgerald, and the album also features the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Bridgewater's album Dear Ella (1997) 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, double bassist Ray Brown. Bridgewater's following album, Live at Yoshi's, was recorded live on April 25, 1998, what would have been Fitzgerald's 81st birthday.
Austin's album, For Ella (2002) features 11 songs most immediately associated with Fitzgerald, and a twelfth song, "Hearing Ella Sing" is Austin's tribute to Fitzgerald. The album was nominated for a Grammy. In 2007, We All Love Ella, was released, a tribute album recorded for the 90th anniversary of Fitzgerald's birth. It featured artists such as Michael Bublé, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall, k.d. lang, Queen Latifah, Ledisi, Dianne Reeves, Linda Ronstadt, and Lizz Wright, collating songs most readily associated with the "First Lady of Song". Folk singer Odetta's album To Ella (1998) is dedicated to Fitzgerald, but features no songs associated with her. Her accompanist Tommy Flanagan affectionately remembered Fitzgerald on his album Lady be Good ... For Ella (1994).
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. Sinatra's 1986 recording of "Mack the Knife" from his album L.A. Is My Lady (1984) includes a homage to some of the song's previous performers, including 'Lady Ella' herself. She is also honored in the song "First Lady" by Canadian artist Nikki Yanofsky.
In 2008, the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News named its brand new 276-seat theater the Ella Fitzgerald Theater. The theater is located several blocks away from her birthplace on Marshall Avenue. The Grand Opening performers (October 11 and 12, 2008) were Roberta Flack and Queen Esther Marrow.
In 2012, Rod Stewart performed a "virtual duet" with Ella Fitzgerald on his Christmas album Merry Christmas, Baby, and his television special of the same name.[44]
In 2013, Google paid tribute to Ella by celebrating her 96th birthday with a Google Doodle on its US homepage.[45]
There is a bronze sculpture of Fitzgerald in Yonkers, the city in which she grew up, created by American artist Vinnie Bagwell. It is located southeast of the main entrance to the Amtrak/Metro-North Railroad station in front of the city's old trolley barn. A bust of Fitzgerald is on the campus of Chapman University in Orange, California. On January 9, 2007, the United States Postal Service announced that Fitzgerald would be honored with her own postage stamp.[31] The stamp was released in April 2007 as part of the Postal Service's Black Heritage series.[46]
References
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Jump up ^ Vickie Smith, Jazz Vocalist. "Dedicated To Ella". VickieSmith.com. Retrieved March 16, 2007.[dead link]
^ Jump up to: a b c Nicholson 1996a, p. 4.
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^ Jump up to: a b Nicholson 1996a, p. 6.
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^ Jump up to: a b c Bernstein, Nina (June 23, 1996). "Ward of the State; The Gap in Ella Fitzgerald's Life". The New York Times. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Rich, Frank (June 19, 1996). "Journal; How High the Moon". The New York Times. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Fritts, Ron; Vail, Ken (January 1, 2003). Ella Fitzgerald: The Chick Webb Years & Beyond. Scarecrow Press. p. 4–6. ISBN 978-0-8108-4881-8. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Horton, James Oliver (March 24, 2005). Landmarks of African American History. Oxford University Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-19-514118-4. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Hemming, Roy (December 1, 1992). Discovering Great Singers of Classic Pop: A New Listener's Guide to the Sounds and Lives of the Top Performers. Newmarket Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-55704-148-7. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c Moret, Jim (June 15, 1996). "'First Lady of Song' passes peacefully, surrounded by family". CNN. Archived from the original on November 29, 2006. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
Jump up ^ Otfinoski, Steven (2010). African Americans in the Performing Arts. Infobase Publishing. p. 251. ISBN 978-1-4381-2855-9. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ James, Edward T.; James, Janet Wilson; Boyer, Paul S. Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-674-01488-6. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (March 12, 1955). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 24. ISSN 00062510. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
Jump up ^ Johnson Publishing Company (April 7, 1955). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
Jump up ^ Nicholson, Stuart (1993). Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz. Da Capo Press. p. 149. ISBN 0-306-80642-8.
Jump up ^ Johnson Publishing Company (August 13, 1953). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. p. 60. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
Jump up ^ Johnson Publishing Company (December 10, 1953). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
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^ Jump up to: a b c d e Nicholson, Stuart (1993). Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-575-40032-3. "For many years Fitzgerald's birthdate was thought to be on the same date one year later in 1918 – and it is still listed as such in some sources – but research by Nicholson and another biographer, Tanya Lee Stone, established 1917 as the correct year of birth."
Jump up ^ Davies, Hugh (December 31, 2005). "Sir Johnny up there with the Count and the Duke". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved March 16, 2007.
Jump up ^ "Movie of the week: Pete Kelly's Blues". Jet: 62. August 25, 1955. ISSN 00215996. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ Capua, Michelangelo (March 8, 2013). Janet Leigh: A Biography. McFarland. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-7864-7022-8. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Furia, Philip; Patterson, Laurie (March 10, 2010). The Songs of Hollywood. Oxford University Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-19-979266-5. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
Jump up ^ Dargis, Manohla (August 19, 1955). "Webb Plays the Blues". The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2007.
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Jump up ^ Croix, St. Sukie de la (July 11, 2012). Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-299-28693-4. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
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^ Jump up to: a b "New stamp honors first lady of song". USA Today. AP. 9 January 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Rosen, Larry (July 18, 2013). "Is It Live or Is It Memorex?". Psychology Today. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald For Kentucky Fried Chicken". Rerojunk.com. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
Jump up ^ "She puts the famous in focus". St. Petersburg Times. November 22, 2005. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Hospitalized". The Lewiston Journal. AP. August 13, 1985. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Hospitalized". AP News Archive. AP. July 27, 1986. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "WORLD: Ella Fitzgerald Hospitalized". Los Angeles Times. July 10, 1990. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Had Both Legs Amputated". Daily News (Kingsport, Tennessee). Reuters. April 13, 1994. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Weinstein, Henry; Brazil, Jeff (June 16, 1996). "Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz's First Lady of Song, Dies". Los Angeles Times. pp. 1–3. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation". Ellafitzgeraldfoundation.org. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
Jump up ^ Wong, Hannah. "'First Lady of Song' LC Collection Tells Ella Fitzgerald Story". LOC. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
Jump up ^ "Calendar & Events: Spring Sing: Gershwin Award". UCLA.[dead link]
Jump up ^ "Partial List of Harvard Honorary Degrees". Harvard University. Retrieved May 30, 2013.
Jump up ^ Graff, Gary (October 30, 2012). "Rod Stewart: I Thought Christmas Album Was 'Beneath Me'". Billboard. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
Jump up ^ "Google Doodle celebrates birthday of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald". The Independent. April 25, 2013. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
Jump up ^ "New Stamp Honors First Lady of Song". WHSV News 3. January 9, 2007. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
General
Gourse, Leslie (1998). The Ella Fitzgerald Companion. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-6916-7.
Johnson, J. Wilfred (2001). Ella Fitzgerald: An Annotated Discography. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0906-1.
Nicholson, Stuart (1996). Ella Fitzgerald: 1917-1996. London: Indigo. ISBN 978-0-575-40032-0.
Further reading[edit]
Library resources about
Ella Fitzgerald
Resources in your library
Resources in other libraries
By Ella Fitzgerald
Resources in your library
Resources in other libraries
Nicholson, Stuart. (1996) Ella Fitzgerald. Gollancz; ISBN 0-575-40032-3
Gourse, Leslie. (1998) The Ella Fitzgerald Companion: Seven Decades of Commentary. Music Sales Ltd.; ISBN 0-02-864625-8
Johnson, J. Wilfred. (2001) Ella Fitzgerald: A Complete Annotated Discography. McFarland & Co Inc.; ISBN 0-7864-0906-1
External links[edit]
Biography portal
Music portal
Book: Ella Fitzgerald
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ella Fitzgerald.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald at the Internet Movie Database
Ella Fitzgerald at the Internet Broadway Database
Ella Fitzgerald at Find a Grave
Ella Fitzgerald at the Library of Congress
'Remembering Ella' by Phillip D. Atteberry
Listen to Big Band Serenade podcast, episode 6 Includes complete NBC remote broadcast of "Ella Fitzgerald & her Orchestra" from the Roseland Ballroom (or download)
