Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as Lady Ella, was one of the most important jazz singers, and the winner of thirteen Grammy Awards. Gifted with a three-octave vocal range, she is noted for her purity of tone and "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

She was born in Newport News, Virginia, USA and raised in Yonkers, New York. She was left on her own as an orphan at age 14.

Her singing debut was at age 16 in 1934 at the Harlem Apollo Theater, New York, in one of the earliest of its famous "Amateur Nights", which she won, adding fame to both the Apollo and herself. She was noticed by Bardu Ali of Chick Webb's band, who persuaded Webb to hire her. She started singing with Webb's Orchestra in 1935, in Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. She recorded several hit songs with them, including "(If You Can't Sing It), You'll Have to Swing It", but it was her version of the nursery rhyme, "A Tisket A Tasket" that launched her to stardom.

When Chick Webb died in 1939, the band continued touring under the new name, "Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra."

She began her solo career in 1941. Beginning as a swing singer, she also encompassed bebop, scat, and performed blues, bossa nova, samba, gospel, calypso, and Christmas songs. Ella's later concerts were often enriched by some hilarious imitations of other singers: in particular, she was able to render quite perfectly Marilyn Monroe's voice and typical gestures, as well as Louis Armstrong's.

Leaving the Decca label in 1955, the jazz record company Verve was created around her by her manager, Norman Granz. Her best known, and the recordings that are held in highest critical regard, are a series produced by Granz of the songbooks of the great American popular composers, Harold Arlen (arranged by Billy May), George Gershwin (with Nelson Riddle's orchestra), Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer (the only songbook devoted soley to a lyricist) the Kern and Mrcer songbooks also scored by Riddle, and Duke Ellington, a later collection devoted to one composer occured during the Pablo years, Ella Abraca Jobim. With Ellington's band, Lady Ella (as she was now called by other singers) toured Europe and North America, classically opening their shows with the famous Ellington's hit "Take the 'A' train", of which she was one of the few to sing - in her unique way - the little known lyrics.

She performed concerts with the most important groups and soloists. Her role effectively was the "instrumentalist of voice". Aside of her many instrumental partners and/or band leaders, such as Oscar Peterson, Count Basie ("On the Sunny Side of the Street"), Joe Pass ("Speak love"), Dizzy Gillespie, and the Tommy Flanagan Trio, she also sang together with the "other voice" of jazz, Billie Holiday (1957).

Porgy and Bess is the most notable of her many recordings with jazz legend Louis Armstrong, but they also recorded the very popular "Ella and Louis" which was so successful that Granz's Verve records asked them for the equally successful "Ella and Louis again".

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

She married twice. In 1941 she married Benny Kornegay, but the marriage was later annulled. Her second husband was the famous bass player Ray Brown. Together they adopted a child, Ray Brown, Jr.

Already blinded because she suffered from diabetes, she lost her legs in 1993, and in 1996 she died in Beverly Hills, California, after having made some sad last TV appearances. She is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

Ella Fitzgerald is referred to on the 1980' s hit "Ella , elle l' a" by French singer France Gall.

Contents

1 Albums 2 Decca Albums 3 Verve Albums 4 No Fixed Label 5 Reprise Albums 6 Atlantic Albums 7 Columbia Albums 8 Pablo Albums 9 Samples 10 Awards 11 Quotations

Albums

note: Fitzgerald began releasing albums on the Decca Records label after years of releasing singles.

Decca Albums

• 1950 Ella Sings Gershwin
• 1954 Songs in a Mellow Mood
• 1955 Songs from Pete Kelly's Blues

Verve Albums

• 1956 Sings the Cole Porter Songbook
• 1956 Ella and Louis
• 1956 Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook
• 1957 Ella and Louis Again
• 1957 Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook
• 1957 Ella at the Opera House
• 1957 Like Someone in Love
• 1957 Porgy and Bess
• 1958 Ella and Billie at Newport
• 1958 Ella Swings Lightly
• 1958 Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook
• 1958 Ella in Rome: The Birthday Concert
• 1959 Get Happy!
• 1959 Sings Sweet Songs for Swingers
• 1959 Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook
• 1960 Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife
• 1960 Wishes You a Merry Christmas
• 1960 Hello, Love
• 1960 Sings Songs from Let No Man Write My Epitaph
• 1960 Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook
• 1961 Ella in Hollywood
• 1961 Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!
• 1961 Ella Returns to Berlin
• 1962 Rhythm Is My Business
• 1962 Ella Swings Brightly with Nelson
• 1962 Ella Swings Gently with Nelson
• 1963 Ella Sings Broadway
• 1963 Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook
• 1963 Ella and Basie!
• 1963 These Are the Blues
• 1964 Hello, Dolly!
• 1964 Sings the Johnny Mercer Songbook
• 1965 Ella at Duke's Place
• 1965 Ella in Hamburg
• 1966 Whisper Not
• 1966 Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur

No Fixed Label

• 1967 Brighten the Corner
• 1967 Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas
• 1968 30 by Ella
• 1969 Watch What Happens

Reprise Albums

• 1969 Ella
• 1970 Things Ain't What They Used to Be

Atlantic Albums

• 1972 Ella Loves Cole

Columbia Albums

• 1973 Newport Jazz Festival: Live at Carnegie Hall

Pablo Albums

• 1970 Ella in Budapest, Hungary
• 1971 Ella A Nice
• 1973 Take Love Easy
• 1974 Ella Fitzgerald Jams
• 1974 Ella in London
• 1975 Ella and Oscar
• 1975 Montreux '75
• 1976 Fitzgerald and Pass... Again
• 1977 Montreux '77
• 1978 Lady Time
• 1978 Dream Dancing
• 1979 Digital III at Montreux
• 1979 A Classy Pair
• 1979 A Perfect Match This Live Performance from the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival is also available on the DVD Ella and Basie - the Perfect Match, '79.
• 1981 Ella Abraca Jobim
• 1982 The Best Is Yet to Come
• 1983 Speak Love
• 1983 Nice Work If You Can Get It
• 1986 Easy Living
• 1989 All That Jazz

Samples

• Download sample of "How High the Moon"
• Download sample of "April in Paris" by Fitzgerald with Louis Armstrong

Awards

• Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Medal of Honor Award (1979)
• 13 Grammy awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement (1967)
• National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences' Lifetime Achievement Award
• Pied Piper Award
• American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers highest honor
• George and Ira Gershwin Award for Outstanding Achievement
• National Medal of Art awarded by President Ronald Reagan (1987)
• The first Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, named "Ella" in her honor (1989)
• Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year from Havard (1982)

Quotations

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