Ella Fitzgerald (1918-1996)

Quotation

I know I'm no glamor girl, and it's not easy for me to get up in front of a crowd of people. It used to bother me a lot, but now I've got it figured out that God gave me this talent to use, so I just stand there and sing.

Books

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Research

Sheet music: Ella Fitzgerald
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Biographical

Jazz singer and winner of thirteen Grammy Awards. She is noted for her purity of tone and "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. She first came to fame as a teenager in 1935, singing with Chick Webb's Orchestra in Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. She recorded several hit songs with them, including "If You Can't Sing It, You'll Have to Swing It," but it was her version of the nursery rhyme, "A Tisket A Tasket" that really launched her to stardom. When Chick Webb died in 1939, the band continued touring under the new name, "Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra."

She began her solo career in 1941. Among her best known recordings was a series produced by Norman Granz of the songbooks of the great American popular composers, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Duke Ellington, and Johnny Mercer. Porgy and Bess is the most notable of her many recordings with jazz legend Louis Armstrong. Ella Fitzgerald also appeared alongside Peggy Lee as an actress and singer in Jack Webb's Jazz film Pete Kelly's Blues. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Ella Fitzgerald.]