Artist Profile: Jazz Vocalist Ella Fitzgerald

Born:

August 25th, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia

Died:

June 15th, 1996 in Beverly Hills, California

Nicknames:

• The First Lady of Song
• The First Lady of Jazz

Awards:

• 13 Grammy Awards between 1959 and 1995
• American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) highest honor (1965)
• Bing Crosby Lifetime Achievement Award (1967)
• Honorary Doctorates from Harvard University, Yale University, Dartmouth, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Howard University and Princeton

Jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald is considered one of the best singers in the history of jazz. She sang with a buoyancy and energy that is yet unmatched. From slow, lamenting ballads to up-tempo bebop tunes, she inhabited the songs she sang, conveying subtle moods with a wide-ranging, virtuosic voice. Fitzgerald’s childhood was riddled with the loss of loved ones, but after endearing herself to a tough theater crowd when she was 17, she learned that from her audiences, she would receive nothing but adoration and support in her 57 years of performing.

Rough Childhood:

Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia to William and Tempie Fitzgerald, who split up when Ella was an infant. Tempie moved to Yonkers, New York to be with her boyfriend, Joe Da Silva, who treated Ella as a daughter. Joe and Tempie worked menial jobs to support Ella and her half-sister Frances, and often Ella would help. She is said to have worked as a lookout in brothels and as an assistant for bookies, which eventually got her in trouble with the police.

When she was 15 years old, in 1932, her mother died in a car accident, and shortly afterward, Joe Da Silva succumbed to a heart attack. The teenaged Fitzgerald spent the next few years getting into trouble, and was either under the care of abusive reform school teachers or simply without a home whatsoever.

Breakthrough at the Apollo:

On November 21st, 1934, at age 17, Fitzgerald entered a dancing contest at Harlem’s famous Apollo Theater. Once she got on stage, however, she grew paralyzed, too nervous to dance. In front of a jeering and impatient audience, she decided to sing instead. She performed Hoagy Carmichael’s “Judy,” and the crowd was uproarious. After several encores she was awarded the $25.00 prize and had begun her career as a jazz vocalist.

The following year, Fitzgerald attracted the attention of drummer and big band leader Chick Webb. He gave the awkward young singer a chance to prove herself, and once she showed she could consistently rile up crowds, Webb hired her to tour with his group. Throughout the late 1930s, she performed at some of the most famous venues of the swing era, including Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom. In 1936 she was signed by Decca Records, for which she recorded “A-Tisket A-Tasket” in 1938. With this rendition of a children’s song, she leapt to the top of the pop charts, and became a star.

A Vocal “Instrumentalist”:

Aside from delighting popular audiences, Fitzgerald also won the admiration of musicians. By the late 1930s and early ‘40s, the swing era was coming to a close. In 1939, after Chick Webb’s death, Ella took over his band, leaving to begin a solo career in 1942. At that point, bebop was beginning to make its mark, and Fitzgerald adapted to the new style.

In 1946, Fitzgerald began to sing with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. Inspired by Gillespie, one of the most influential bebop musicians, Fitzgerald began to sing the way saxophonists and trumpeters played. She developed a style of scat singing that could rival some of the most technically proficient instrumentalists. Not only could she mimic some of her scatting predecessors, such as Louis Armstrong, but she could also imitate instruments. On a famous 1960 recording, Live in Berlin, she imitates the sound of a bass bowing a solo on “How High the Moon.”

Beyond Bebop:

In the late 1940s and ‘50s, Fitzgerald was well established. In 1946, she fell in love with bassist Ray Brown, who was also a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. The two married in 1947, but divorced six years later because of their demanding touring schedules. Norman Granz, the producer and promoter who was responsible for the concert series Jazz at the Philharmonic, befriended Fitzgerald and became her manager. He convinced her that she was capable of more than just bebop.In 1955 Granz created Verve Records, and signed Fitzgerald right away. With Verve, Granz produced several multi-album recordings on which Fitzgerald sang the best-known song of some of the greatest American pop and jazz composers. Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook and Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook are perhaps the two best known of this series. Fitzgerald’s Songbook recordings earned her critical acclaim and spread her popular appeal wide and far, beyond the jazz audience.

Ella Fitzgerald continued performing and recording into the early 1990s, until health problems began to mount. Already suffering from cataracts, in the 1980s she developed diabetes, and had open-heart surgery. In 1993 both of her legs were amputated due to complications with her diabetes. And, in 1996, at the age of 79, she died in her home in Beverly Hills, ending a remarkable career built around a voice that continues to resonate today.