Ella Fitzgerald - A 100th Birthday Celebration

Ella Fitzgerald was born on April 25th 1917 100 years ago. She is one of the greatest jazz vocalists in jazz history and she got her start singing with the big bands. It seems as if every jazz radio station or podcast is doing some sort of tribute to Ella so I thought I would get mine in. On today's show we will be listening to some of the many side she recorded with the Chick Webb orchestra as well as some of the sides she recorded with her own big band. In between numbers we'll also learn about the woman they called "The First Lady of Song."   Here is a short biography of Ella from Encyclopedia Brittanica:

American singer who became world famous for the wide range and rare sweetness of her voice. She became an international legend during a career that spanned some six decades.

Singing in a style influenced by the jazz vocalist Connee Boswell, Fitzgerald won amateur talent contests in New York City before she joined the Chick Webb orchestra in 1935; Webb became the teenaged Fitzgerald’s guardian when her mother died. She made her first recording, “Love and Kisses,” in 1935, and her first hit, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” followed in 1938. After Webb’s death in 1939, she led his band until it broke up in 1942. She then soloed in cabarets and theatres, toured internationally with such pop and jazz stars as Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, the Mills Brothers, the Ink Spots, and Dizzy Gillespie, and recorded prolifically.

During much of her early career she had been noted for singing and recording novelty songs. Her status rose dramatically in the 1950s when jazz impresario Norman Granz became her manager. From 1956 to 1964 she recorded a 19-volume series of “songbooks,” in which she interpreted nearly 250 outstanding songs by Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Johnny Mercer. This material, combined with the best jazz instrumental support, clearly demonstrated Fitzgerald’s remarkable interpretative skills. Although her diction was excellent, her rendition of lyrics was intuitive rather than studied. For many years the star attraction of Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic concert tours, she was also one of the best-selling jazz vocal recording artists in history. She appeared in films (notably Pete Kelly’s Blues in 1955), on television, and in concert halls throughout the world. She also recorded a number of live concert albums and produced a notable duet version of Porgy and Bess (1957) with Armstrong. During the 1970s she began to experience serious health problems, but she continued to perform periodically, even after heart surgery in 1986, until about 1993.

Fitzgerald’s clear tone and wide vocal range were complemented by her mastery of rhythm, harmony, intonation, and diction. She was an excellent ballad singer, conveying a winsome, ingenuous quality. Her infectious scat singing brought excitement to such concert recordings as Mack the Knife: Ella in Berlin and was widely imitated by others. She won 12 Grammy Awards and several other honours.