Ella Fitzgerald

History

Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, USA in April, 1917^[1].

Her father, William Fitzgerald, and mother, Temperance (Tempie) Fitzgerald separated soon after her birth. Ella and her mother, moved to Yonkers, New York, moving in with Tempie's boyfriend Joseph Da Silva.

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

In 1932, Ella's mother died from serious injuries received in a car accident. After staying with Da Silva for a short time, Tempie's sister Virginia took Ella in. Shortly afterward, Da Silva suffered a heart attack and died, and her sister Frances joined Ella with Virginia.

Following these dramatic events, Ella's academic grades dropped dramatically, and she frequently skipped school. After getting into trouble with the police, she was taken into custody and sent to a reform school.

Eventually Ella escaped from the reformatory, and for a time was homeless.

She made her singing debut at age 16 on November 21, 1934 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. Ella's name was pulled in a weekly drawing at the Apollo and she 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, in the style of her idol, Connie Boswell. She sang Hoagy Carmichael's 'Judy', and 'The Object of My Affections', another song by the Boswell Sisters, that night.

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

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

Chick Webb died on June 16, 1939, and his band was renamed "Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra" with Ella taking the role of bandleader.

Ella Fitzgerald photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1940

Fitzgerald did not pursue this new role for very long, and she began her solo career in 1941. From 1941-1955, her manager was Decca's Milt Gabler. The jazz impresario Norman Granz felt that Fitzgerald was given unsuitable material to record during this period, many were novelty songs which painted her as more of a 'pop' singer than a jazz artist.

Ella sang at Granz'z JATP concerts for several years, and by 1955, after Fitzgerald left the Decca label, her new manager, Norman Granz, created the jazz record company, Verve, around her.

The mid 1950s saw Ella become the first African-American to perform at the Mocambo, after Marilyn Monroe had lobbied the owner for the booking. The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career. The incident was turned into a play by Bonnie Greer in 2005.

The eight 'Songbooks' that Fitzgerald recorded for Verve at irregular intervals from 1956 to 1964 represent her most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work, and probably her most significant offering to American culture. The composers and lyricists for each album represent the greatest part of the cultural canon known as the Great American Songbook.

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

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

The arrangers for each album are in brackets.

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's contemporaneous integration of white and African-American soul. Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians." Frank Sinatra was moved out of respect for Fitzgerald to block Capitol from re-releasing his own albums in a similar, single composer vein.

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

Ella Fitzgerald also recorded albums exclusively devoted to the songs of Porter and Gershwin in 1972 and 1983, the albums being Ella Loves Cole and Nice Work If You Can Get It respectively. A later collection devoted to a single composer occurred during the Pablo years, Ella Abraça Jobim, featuring the songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

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

There are several live albums on Verve that are highly regarded by critics, Ella at the Opera House, shows a typical JATP set from Ella, Ella in Rome is a verifiable 1950s jazz vocal masterclass, whilst Ella in Berlin is still one of Ella's biggest selling albums. 1964's Ella at Juan-Les-Pins, and 1966's Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur both find a confident Ella accompanied by a stellar array of musicians.

Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1963, for $3,000,000, and in 1967, MGM failed to renew Ella's contract with them. Over the next 5 years, she flitted between several labels, namely Atlantic, Capitol and Reprise. A selection of Ella's material at this time represent a curious departure away from her typical jazz repertoire; Brighten the Corner, an album of Christian hymns, Misty Blue, a country and western influenced album, and 30 by Ella, a series of six medleys that neatly fulfilled Ella's obligations for the label.

The surprise success of the 1972 album Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72 led Norman Granz to found his first record label since the sale of Verve, Pablo Records. Ella recorded some 20 albums for the label, her years on Pablo documenting the decline in her voice, but with the occasional flash of brilliance.

Collaborations with other Jazz artists

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

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

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

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

Film and television appearances

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

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

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

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

Personal life

Some people have commented upon the irony of Ella's romantic life, that she sang about perfect romances, but then never seemed to live the dreams that she sang about. Ella's almost constant touring and recording from the mid 1930s till the early 1990s made sustaining any relationship difficult.

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

Fitzgerald married for the second time in 1947 to the famous bass player Ray Brown, whom she had met whilst on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band in 1946. Together they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister, Francis Fitzgerald, whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1952, most likely due to the various career pressures they were both experiencing at the time.

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

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 once Larsen was sentenced to five months hard labour in Sweden for stealing money from a young woman he had previously been engaged to.

Already blinded by the effects of diabetes, both her legs were amputated in 1993. In 1996 she died of the disease in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 79. She is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. Several of Fitzgerald's awards, significant personal possessions and documents were donated to the Smithsonian Institution, the library of Boston University, and the Library of Congress.

Cultural references

In the American sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, Sally Solomon orders a pizza with extra 'Mozzarella Fitzgerald'.

In the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will's grandmother is mistaken for Ella Fitzgerald by an over-eager photographer.

In the cartoon comedy Family Guy, "Ella Fitzgerald Griffin" (an African-American, female version of the show's main character, Peter Griffin) appears in a short scene where she sings accompanied by a young, sighted Ray Charles. As "Ella" sings, a wine glass sitting on the piano shatters, and pieces of glass are projected into Ray Charles's eyes (as if this incident caused his blindness). The shattering of the wine glass references Fitzgerald's own attempts at this in a commercial for Memorex.

In the The Simpsons episode "Simple Simpson", Lisa Simpsons enters a place setting competition at the Springfield county fair. Her concept is related to music, featuring tuning forks, champagne flutes, chopsticks, and, for dessert, "Ella Fitzgello".

Tribute albums

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discography

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

Vocal Samples

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