Ella Fitzgerald: From Troubled Youth to the "First Lady of Song"

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 - June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella," was a transformative American singer, songwriter, and composer. Her journey to becoming a jazz legend was marked by both immense talent and significant hardship. While nearly everyone has heard of Ella Fitzgerald, few know of the remarkable path she took to become a legend of jazz and popular music whose influence resonates to this day.

Early Life and Childhood

Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, to Temperance (Tempie) Henry and William Fitzgerald. Both parents were described as mulatto in the 1920 census. Her father left the family when she was only three years old. Fitzgerald and her mother moved north to Yonkers, New York, to live with her mother’s new partner, Joseph da Silva, taking part in the Great Migration in search of a better life. In 1923, Fitzgerald’s half-sister, Frances, was born. The two women remained close for the rest of Fitzgerald’s life.

Initially, Ella thrived in school. She lived in a diverse neighborhood and made friends easily by playing games and sports in the street. She sang at church, took piano lessons, and learned to read music. Her primary exposure to music was through attending services with her family at the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church and by listening to the jazz records her mother brought home for her. Fitzgerald also loved dancing and singing, often catching shows at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She admired Earl Snakehips Tucker.

Hardship and Challenges

Her mother’s unexpected death in 1932 dramatically changed Fitzgerald’s life. She went to live with her aunt in Harlem. When da Silva died of a heart attack a short time later, Frances moved in too. As a result of abuse from her stepfather, Ella moved to Harlem with her aunt. She did not adjust well to her new reality and dropped out of school, “running numbers”-selling tickets for an illegal, Mafia-run lottery-to make money. Fitzgerald began skipping school, and her grades suffered. As a result of her truancy, she was sent to the New York State Training School for Girls, an institution for “wayward” or “incorrigible” young women in Hudson, New York. Two years later, a government investigation would expose that the black girls living at the school were housed in atrocious conditions and were routinely beaten. Understandably, Ella ran away. She escaped the reform school and found herself alone during the Great Depression.

The Apollo Theater and a Break

Despite these challenges, Ella was still singing and dancing. Fitzgerald began singing and performing on the streets of Harlem in order to make ends meet. She regularly performed on 125th street in Harlem, and on November 21, 1934, she took part in the amateur night contest at the Apollo Theater. Originally, she had planned to dance, but when she saw the beautiful costumes of the other dancers she was so ashamed of her shabby clothes that she decided to sing instead at the last minute. Although her intention was to dance, she decided to sing instead after seeing the dance competitors. She drew inspiration from Connee Boswell of The Boswell Sisters, one of her mother’s favorite groups, and sang the song “Judy” by Hoagy Carmichael. Despite her unkempt hair and worn out boots, the audience went wild. Fitzgerald felt at home on the stage and less self-conscious. She won first place in the competition, but the theater did not award her the full prize. The winner was supposed to have the chance to perform at the Apollo Theater for a week, but because they judged her appearance as untidy, she was not given this opportunity. This did not stop Fitzgerald from continuing to enter singing competitions across the city.

Read also: Remembering Ella French

Joining Chick Webb's Orchestra

Ella’s victory did not immediately translate into an improvement in her living conditions, however; it was only four months later that she got her big break from Chick Webb, a young, ambitious band leader who had gained a reputation as one of the best drummers in Harlem. In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform with the Tiny Bradshaw Band at the Harlem Opera House where she met Chick Webb, the drummer and band leader. Despite his chronic spinal tuberculosis, which gave him a hunch-backed appearance, Webb was, like Ella, determined to break through to the big time. Webb had hired a lead male singer for the band but he was still searching for a female singer. In 1935, he decided that maybe what his band needed was a female vocalist, and he tasked Charles Linton, his band’s handsome lead singer, with the task of finding him one. The singer Linton found, however, was not what Webb initially had in mind. On a tip from an acquaintance who knew of Ella’s win at the Apollo, Linton went to visit her and heard her sing. Despite her appearance, Linton knew she was something special. He brought her to Webb, who took one look at her and whispered, “You’re not puttin’ that on my bandstand. No, no, no. Out!” Undeterred, Linton turned to Webb’s manager Charlie Buchanan, and threatened to quit if he refused to listen to her. He offered Fitzgerald the chance to test with the band during their performance at Yale University. Met with approval by both audiences and her fellow musicians, Fitzgerald was asked to join Webb's orchestra and gained acclaim as part of the group's performances at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. The show was so successful that Webb offered to pay Fitzgerald to sing with the band at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.

Early Success and Recognition

Within months of being homeless, the 18-year-old singer would become one of the most sought after artists in Harlem, and by 1938 she had her first chart-topping hit. Her first recordings already reveal the remarkable vocal qualities that would make her “The First Lady of Song.” Her intonation and diction were flawless; she had an innate feeling for rhythm and could swing effortlessly; she could memorize the words and melodies of new songs at an astonishing speed; she had a range of three octaves and a gift for improvisation and scat singing; and her voice had a disarmingly lovely, youthful tone. At 21 years old, she recorded hits that made her famous such as “Love and Kisses”, and “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” (1938), which remained on the pop charts for seventeen weeks. By 1937, only three years after beginning her career, Fitzgerald won her first Down Beat Magazine award for most popular girl vocalist. But it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", a song she co-wrote, that brought her public acclaim. She recorded nearly 150 songs with Webb's orchestra between 1935 and 1942.

Solo Career and Musical Evolution

After Webb died in 1939, the band was renamed Ella and Her Famous Orchestra. Fitzgerald took on the role of bandleader and recorded over 150 songs between 1935 and 1942. After Webb’s death in 1939, she led his band until it broke up in 1942, beginning her solo career. After financial struggles for Fitzgerald and her band, she began working as lead singer for The Three Keys at Decca Records. During this time, she married Benny Kornegay, a local dockworker, but annulled the marriage two years later. She performed with influential singers like Bill Kenny & the Ink Spots and Louis Jordan. In 1946 she began an enduring relationship with producer Norman Granz, becoming part of his Jazz at the Philharmonic concert tours.

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. The 1940’s ushered in the bebop style of jazz; Fitzgerald adopted it and excelled. Drawing influence from touring with Dizzy Gillespie, Fitzgerald gained major acclaim in the world of jazz with her scat singing and unique style that inspired singers like Louis Armstrong. It was in this period that Fitzgerald started including scat singing as a major part of her performance repertoire. Her ability to scat with the most skilled instrumentalists served her well on such notable voice-as-instrument hits as "Lady Be Good," "Flying Home," and "How High The Moon." Each became enduring parts of her repertoire.

Her regular trio leader was bassist Ray Brown, to whom she was married from 1947 to 1953. While on tour, Fitzgerald fell in love with bassist, Ray Brown; the two eventually married, adopted a son, and named him Ray Jr. However, Fitzgerald and Brown’s busy schedules took a toll on their relationship with their son and their marriage. They divorced in 1952. However, they stayed friends for the rest of their lives.

Read also: A Guide to Cantor Fitzgerald

Jazz at the Philharmonic and Verve Records

Fitzgerald was still performing at Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts by 1955. From 1943 to 1950, Fitzgerald recorded seven songs with the Ink Spots featuring Bill Kenny. Of the seven, four reached the top of the pop charts, including "I'm Making Believe" and "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall", which both reached No. She left Decca, and Granz, now her manager, created Verve Records around her. She 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 Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book with me.

The Songbook Series and International Stardom

In 1955, Granz created Verve Records for Fitzgerald to expand her repertoire from bebop to other genres of music. On March 15, 1955, Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood, after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner for the booking. The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career. Bonnie Greer dramatized the incident as the musical drama, Marilyn and Ella, in 2008. It had previously been widely reported that Fitzgerald was the first black performer to play the Mocambo, following Monroe's intervention, but this is not true. Fitzgerald then published her first of eight song books, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book (1956). She credited the book for helping her to break through with non-jazz audiences.

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book, released in 1956, was the first of eight "Song Book" 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. Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book was the only Song Book 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 Song Book series ended up becoming Fitzgerald's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work, and probably her most significant offering to American culture. Days after Fitzgerald's death, The New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that in the Song Book series Fitzgerald "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis' contemporaneous integration of white and African-American soul. 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.

Fitzgerald became an international star. While recording the Song Books 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. In 1961, Fitzgerald bought a house in the Klampenborg district of Copenhagen, Denmark, after she began a relationship with a Danish man. Though the relationship ended after a year, Fitzgerald regularly returned to Denmark over the next three years and even considered buying a jazz club there. There are several live albums on Verve that are highly regarded by critics. At the Opera House shows a typical Jazz at the Philharmonic set from Fitzgerald. Ella in Rome and Twelve Nights in Hollywood display her vocal jazz canon. Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1960 for $3 million and in 1967 MGM failed to renew Fitzgerald's contract.

Later Career and Health Challenges

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. 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.

Despite her declining health, she continued performing, sometimes two shows a day in different cities. Fitzgerald spent two weeks performing in New York with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie in 1974 and was inducted into the Downbeat Magazine Hall of Fame in 1979.

Collaborations and Performances in Film and Television

Fitzgerald played the part of singer Maggie Jackson in Jack Webb's 1955 jazz film Pete Kelly's Blues. The film costarred Janet Leigh and singer Peggy Lee. Even though she had already worked in the movies (she sang two songs in the 1942 Abbott and Costello film Ride 'Em Cowboy), 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." 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 … After Pete Kelly's Blues, she appeared in sporadic movie cameos, in St.

She made numerous guest appearances on television shows, singing on The Frank Sinatra Show, The Carol Burnett 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. Ella Fitzgerald Just One of Those Things is a film about her life including interviews with many famous singers and musicians who worked with her and her son. It was directed by Leslie Woodhead and produced by Reggie Nadelson.

Fitzgerald recorded three Verve studio albums with Louis 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 opera Porgy and Bess. 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 'Song Book' recordings and constant touring that Fitzgerald was engaged in during this period. 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… Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington recorded two live albums and two studio albums. Her Duke Ellington Song Book 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.

Personal Life and Activism

Fitzgerald had a number of famous jazz musicians and soloists as sidemen over her long career. Fitzgerald married at least twice, and there is evidence that suggests that she may have married a third time. Her first marriage was in 1941, to Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer and local dockworker. The marriage was annulled in 1942. Her second marriage was in December 1947, 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 his mother's aunt, Virginia. In July 1957, Reuters reported that Fitzgerald had secretly married Thor Einar Larsen, a young Norwegian, in Oslo. Fitzgerald was 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. From 1949 to 1956, Fitzgerald resided in the St.

Fitzgerald was a civil rights activist. She was awarded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Equal Justice Award and the American Black Achievement Award. In 1949, Norman Granz recruited Fitzgerald for the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour. The Jazz at the Philharmonic tour would specifically target segregated venues. Granz required promoters to ensure that there was no "colored" or "white" seating. He ensured Fitzgerald was to receive equal pay and accommodations regardless of her sex and race.

Philanthropy and Legacy

Aside from music, Fitzgerald was a child welfare advocate and regularly made donations to help disadvantaged youth. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Ronald Reagan in 1987. She received many other awards, including honorary doctorates from Yale, Dartmouth, and several other universities. In 1993, Fitzgerald established the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation focusing on charitable grants for four major categories: academic opportunities for children, music education, basic care needs for the less fortunate, medical research revolving around diabetes, heart disease, and vision impairment. Her goals were to give back and provide opportunities for those "at risk" and less fortunate.

After her heart surgery and a diabetes diagnosis in 1986, Fitzgerald exceeded expectations by continuing to perform. Her last performance was at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1991. When her diabetes forced her to have both of her legs amputated, she traded the stage for sitting in her backyard with her son and granddaughter, Alice.

Death and Honors

On June 15, 1996, Fitzgerald passed away at her home from a stroke at the age of 79. A few hours after her death, the Playboy Jazz Festival was launched at the Hollywood Bowl. By the end of her career, she had recorded 2,000 songs, earned fourteen Grammy awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992). 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, and the UCLA Medal (1987). 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. The career history and archival material from Fitzgerald'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 sheet music is housed at the University of California, Los Angeles.

It is quite apropos that Ella Fitzgerald was the first vocalist recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, as she is considered by most people to be the quintessential jazz singer. The purity of her range and intonation, along with her peerless sense of pitch, made her a signature singer. In addition, her scat singing, using the technique of a master instrumental improviser, was her hallmark.

Even at 18 she sang with joy and an emotional maturity beyond her years. She knew how to take life, with all its adversity, and turn it into something beautiful. Ella’s nearly 60-year career would set records and break boundaries, and in honor of her extraordinary accomplishments the Houston Symphony has gathered together some of her most talented admirers for a program of her signature songs. Featuring classics by George Gershwin, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Richard Rodgers and more, these concerts showcase the romance and jazzy vocal fireworks of Ella’s repertoire. “She is my personal favorite ‘girl singer’ of all time,” Steven said. “Not only was she one of the greatest jazz singers, male or female, but her repertoire is full of extraordinary songs. Don’t miss The Ella Fitzgerald Songbook February 15, 16 & 17, 2019!

tags: #Ella #Fitzgerald #educational #background