
Ella Fitzgerald
the queen of jazz
Celebrated by many as the best female jazz vocalist of all time, Ella Fitzgerald actually began her career aspiring to become a dancer. After discovering she had an incomparable talent for singing, Ella's vocal career took off, recording about 70 LPs + more than 2,000 different songs in her lifetime.
With a career spanning over 60 years, Ella sold over 40 million records, won 14 Grammy Awards, was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Ronald Reagan + The Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H.W. Bush. Besides her many accolades, Ella collaborated with many equally iconic artists in both music and film.
60-year recording career | had a vocal range that spanned 3 octaves
scat | popularized bop beat and jazz with her vocal style
shyness | Ella struggled with stage fright her entire life, and was charmingly self effacing and humble ~ often surprised when she'd send admiring notes to celebrities, only to have them come say they were her fans
compassion | frequently visited special-needs children in hospitals ~ started the Ella Fitzgerald Foundation to help underprivileged families with basic needs and medical care + fund music education for children like the young girl she once was
three big moments {plus one}
1934 | switched her act from dancing to singing at the last moment before her debut at the Apollo Theater in New York + ended up winning first place on "Amateur Night"
1945 | released her scat recording of "Flying Home", helping to innovate a new style of music called bebop
1955 | barred from singing at one of the most popular venues in Hollywood, until her famous biggest fan {Marilyn Monroe} lobbied for her to perform, changing the course of her career. In 1954, she and 3 others sued PanAm for discrimination for not allowing them to sit in the first-class seats they'd purchased for a flight to Australia.
1967 | first woman to win the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
from | to
15-year-old orphan with a passion for dance | the most notable female jazz vocalist of the century
born on
April 25, 1917
born in
Newport News, Virginia
birth name
Ella Jane Fitzgerald
nickname | also known as
First Lady of Song + Queen of Jazz | Lady Ella
citizen of
United States of America
daughter of
William Fitzgerald + Temperance Fitzgerald
Joseph Da Silva
~ step father ~
sister of
Frances Da Silva
~ half sister ~
grew up in
Yonkers, New York
educated at
New York Training School for Girls | Hudson, New York
loved studying
dance + music
separated from | divorced from
Benny Kornegay + Thor Einar Larsen | Ray Brown ~ famous bass player ~
mother of
Raymond Brown Jr.
~ adopted from Ella's half sister ~
grandmother of
Alice Brown
advocate for | influenced by | worked alongside
American Heart Association | Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby + Connee Boswell | Bill Kenny + The Ink Spots, Louis Armstrong + Duke Ellington
in her spare time
cooking
~ her cookbook collection was donated to the Schlessinger Library at Harvard ~
died on
June 15, 1996
image credits
Ella Fitzgerald | Guy MacPherson | CC A 2.0
Hans Bernhard | Wikimedia Commons | CC A-SA 3.0
collapse bio bits"I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns."
The Official Site of the First Lady of Song | unknown
"A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside... I'm going to try to find out the new ideas before the others do."
The Official Site of the First Lady of Song | unknown
"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."
The Official Site of the First Lady of Song | unknown
"We've swung it, and yes, we've sung it. You won't recognize it...it's a surprise hit!"
improvised song lyric | 1960
"I call it 'the other side of Ella.' I've got more cookbooks than the library."
Ella Fitzgerald Communicates | december 1972
"I spilled a salad down my front at the Universal commissary when Cary Grant was introduced to me."
Ella Fitzgerald Communicates | december 1972
"I sang because I was too nervous to dance."
Evening Independent {Knight-Ridder wire service} | december 1979
"You never know how a room feels, what a crowd is going to react to. You have to find out when you're standing out there singing the first time."
Evening Independent {Knight-Ridder wire service} | december 1979
"What's the sense of going home and just sitting down and doing nothing?"
Ella Fitzgerald's goal—just keep on singing | june 1983
for further reading about Ella Fitzgerald:
curated with care by Angela Willard {september 2014}
A-Tisket, A-Tasket
In 1987, Ella's 1938 recording of A-Tisket, A-Tasket entered the Grammy Hall of Fame. She first wrote the song while improvising on the children's rhyme to cheer up her bandleader and mentor, Chick Webb, while he was very sick.
Hallmark UK
© all rights reserved
Complaint, Ella Fitzgerald et al v. Pan American
Although she was a beloved and renowned artist by the 1950s, with many No. 1 hits to her name and regular appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Ella fought the racism so entrenched in the country. She was arrested ~ along with fellow performer Dizzy Gillespie ~ in Dallas by police who waited until they arrived at the station to ask for autographs. It was the white star Marilyn Monroe who forced the owners of the Hollywood nightclub the Mocambo to allow Ella to perform in 1954 ~ the same year Ella and her manager Norman Granz filed a lawsuit against PanAm for refusing to allow them and their traveling companions to sit in the first class seats they'd paid for. By 1958, she'd won a Grammy ~ the first year of the awards ~ and by her death had been lauded with Kennedy Center Honors and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
National Archives and Records Administration
Ella sings "Mack the Knife" in Berlin
Mack the Knife is a song of German origins, first popularized by Louis Armstrong. In this particular recording, she is on tour at a concert in Berlin. So lost in the song, Ella forgets the lyrics and seamlessly improvises the lyrics. This surprises the audience, her band, as well as herself!
City Sounds on Vimeo
Ella Fitzgerald in 1962
Around this time in her career, Ella made many guest appearances on television shows, such as The Frank Sinatra Show and The Andy Williams Show.
Lewin/Kaufman/Schwartz Public Relations | PD-US