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Swing-Era Dossier

Ella Fitzgerald

1917 – 1996

Born

April 25, 1917, Newport News, VA. Given name Ella Jane Fitzgerald. Daughter of William Ashland Fitzgerald (a transfer-wagon driver) and Temperance "Tempie" Henry. Her parents separated early; her mother moved with Ella and a new partner, Joseph Da Silva, to Yonkers, NY. Half-sister Frances born 1923.

Died

June 15, 1996, Beverly Hills, CA, age 79. A stroke, at home; she had endured years of diabetes that cost her both legs (amputated below the knee, 1993) and much of her sight. (Cause is variously given as a stroke or complications of diabetes.) Buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

Instruments

Voice — a clear, near-pitch-perfect instrument of roughly three octaves, prized for purity of tone, diction, and timing. The supreme scat singer, improvising "horn-like" lines like a bebop soloist. Originally wanted to be a dancer, not a singer.

Nicknames

  • "The First Lady of Song" — her enduring billing as the definitive American popular-song interpreter.
  • "Lady Ella" — affectionate name used by musicians and Duke Ellington's circle.
  • "The Queen of Jazz."

Bands / years

  • Chick Webb Orchestra (1935–1939) — Webb hired the gangly 17-year-old after the Apollo win; he and wife Sally became her informal guardians (the "legal adoption" story is a press myth).
  • Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra (1939–1942) — at 22 she took over and fronted Webb's band after his death, until it broke up in the wartime draft years.
  • Solo on Decca (1942–1955) — hits with the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, the Delta Rhythm Boys.
  • Toured with Dizzy Gillespie's big band (1946) — where she soaked up bebop and sharpened her scat.
  • Jazz at the Philharmonic (Norman Granz, from 1949) and Verve Records (1956–1966) — Granz built the label largely around her; the eight Song Book albums (1956–1964).
  • Later labels: Capitol, Reprise, then Granz's Pablo (1972–1991) until her final recordings.

Active

c. 1934–1993.

Signature tunes

"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" (1938), "Oh, Lady Be Good!" (1947), "How High the Moon," "Mack the Knife" (live, Berlin 1960), "Summertime," "Dream a Little Dream of Me" (1950), "Cheek to Cheek" (with Louis Armstrong), "Misty," "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)."

Famous compositions

Primarily an interpreter, not a writer; her composer credits are few and from the swing era:

  • "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" (1938) — co-written with arranger Van Alexander (born Al Feldman); Ella had the idea to build a song on the 19th-century nursery rhyme. A million-seller that made her a star at 21.
  • "You Showed Me the Way" (1937) — early co-credit shared with Chick Webb, Teddy McRae, and Bud Green (swing-era credits were loose).
  • NOT hers: essentially the entire Great American Songbook she defined — "How High the Moon" (Morgan Lewis/Nancy Hamilton), "Mack the Knife" (Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht), "Summertime" (George & Ira Gershwin/DuBose Heyward), the Porter/Berlin/Gershwin/Ellington/Kern/Arlen/Mercer/Rodgers&Hart songbooks.

Interesting facts

  • She went up to dance. At Apollo amateur night, Nov 21, 1934 (age 17), she meant to dance — then lost her nerve after the slick Edwards Sisters dance act and sang instead, doing Connee Boswell numbers ("The Object of My Affection," "Judy"). Won first prize. The greatest singer of the century became one by accident, on a dare to herself.
  • Ward of the state. Orphaned at 15 when her mother died (1932), she ran with numbers runners and was a lookout at a Harlem bordello, was placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum then the New York Training School for Girls reformatory in Hudson (where she was reportedly beaten), and was briefly homeless on the streets during the Depression — months before the Apollo.
  • The boss at 22. When Chick Webb died in June 1939 she inherited his band and led "Ella and Her Famous Orchestra" for three years — one of very few women fronting a major swing band.
  • "Mack the Knife," Berlin 1960. She forgot the lyrics mid-song and improvised brand-new ones on the spot ("…it's the one now I don't know / But it was a swing tune…"), name-checking Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong. The flub won a Grammy and became one of her best-loved records.
  • Norman Granz built Verve for her. Her manager from the early '50s founded Verve Records essentially as a vehicle for her Song Book series (1956–64), which canonized the Great American Songbook. Ira Gershwin: "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them."
  • The Marilyn assist. Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner of Hollywood's Mocambo to book Ella in 1955 and promised to sit front-row nightly. (Often retold as "Ella couldn't play there because she was Black" — in fact Black performers had appeared at the Mocambo before, and Monroe wasn't even in town; but she did stack the room with stars and the run was a smash.)
  • Ella and Louis. Her duet albums with Louis Armstrong (Ella and Louis, 1956; Porgy and Bess, 1957) pair the two defining voices of the music — her crystalline tone against his gravel.
  • The scat queen. "Oh, Lady Be Good!" (1947) and "How High the Moon" recast her as a bebop improviser whose voice worked like a horn — the gold standard every jazz singer is measured against.
  • Decorated like few musicians. 13 Grammy Awards (the first, in 1958, made her the first Black woman to win a Grammy), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992), the National Medal of Arts, Kennedy Center Honors, and honorary doctorates from Yale and Harvard.
  • "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" Her voice shattering a wine glass on tape powered the famous Memorex cassette ad campaign — proof a jazz singer could be a household pop-culture fixture.

Sources