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Ella Fitzgerald
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The most celebrated jazz singer of her generation, Ella Fitzgerald was known as the First Lady of Jazz (or Song), for her ability to perform with virtuosity rivaling that of the greatest instrumentalists. She was born to unmarried parents, and before Ella was a year old her father William Fitzgerald, a wagon driver left the family. Ella Fitzgerald loved to sing and dance. She learned to sing by imitating the vocal stylings she heard on the radio and records, especially those of Louis Armstrong and Connee Boswell of the Boswell Sisters. Her mother Temperence "Tempie" Williams died in 1932, and soon afterwards Ella moved out of her stepfather's home and went to live with her mother's sister in Harlem. Before long she dropped out of school, became involved with the numbers racket, and worked as a lookout at a brothel.
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Ella Fitzgerald was a well-known jazz singer. She was called "The First Lady of Song." She has sold over 40 million albums and has won 13 Grammy awards! She was born in Virginia in 1917, shortly after her parents had parted ways. In 1934, Ella's name was pulled in a drawing at the Apollo. That is where her career quickly took off. At the Apollo she was going to get the chance to perform at Amateur Night.
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By 1958, when Ella Fitzgerald paid Irving Berlin the tribute you now hold, the songwriter, like Fitzgerald, had lived an incomparable rags-to-riches success story. Throughout a fifty-year career, this Russian-Jewish immigrant had penned the soundtrack to much of American life. Al Jolson sang Blue Skies in the first-ever musical talkie, The Jazz Singer; God Bless America helped fortify the country in the darkest days of World War II. White Christmas and Easter Parade were synonymous with the holidays they celebrated. These and other triumphs made Berlin one of the richest men in New York, his adopted hometown. It was in 1934 that Fitzgerald a homely teenager from Newport News, Virginia got her start by winning an Apollo Theater amateur contest.
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Ella Fitzgerald remains a glowing icon of American jazz culture, modern entertainment and irrestible musicality. Dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. The jazz great was born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25, 1917. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy® Awards and sold over 40 million albums. Her audiences were as diverse as her vocal range. They were rich and poor, all races, religions and nationalities.
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Ella Fitzgerald was orphaned in early childhood and moved to New York to attend an orphanage school in Yonkers. In 1934, she was discovered in an amateur contest sponsored by the Apollo Theatre in New York City. This led to an engagement with Chick Webb's band, and she soon became a celebrity of the swing era with performances such as A-tisket, A-tasket (1938) and Undecided (1939). When Webb died in 1939, Fitzgerald took over the direction of the band, which she led for three years. She then embarked on a solo career, issuing commercial and jazz recordings, and in 1946 began an association with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic, which eventually brought her a large international following.
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Ella Fitzgerald was called the “first lady of song,†a title that still holds true today through her recordings. Born in 1918, Fitzgerald’s break took place at the legendary Apollo Theatre, where in 1934 she won an amateur singing contest. This led directly to a one-night gig with Chick Webb’s orchestra, which in turn led to her first long-term musical relationship. By 1937, half of Webb’s recordings featured Fitzgerald. In 1938, the song “A-Tisket, A-Tasket†brought Webb and Fitzgerald their first hit record. When Webb died in 1939, Fitzgerald became manager of the orchestra until 1941, when she disbanded the group, and began a solo career.
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Ella Fitzgerald