Ella Fitzgerald was one of the greatest jazz singers along with Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, but stands out for her ability to excite but also entertain through his voice, a real rush of adrenaline.
Who was Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (Newport News, April 25, 1917 – Beverly Hills, June 15, 1996) was an American singer. She grows up with her parents until she is 14 when she is orphaned and starts moving from one orphanage to another among the difficult neighborhoods from New York. Fortunately, he always accompanied her there passion for music and the arts that he manifested before an audience in 1934 while performing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
In this place they take place singing competitions among young amateurs that Ella wins. The truth is that Ella wanted to present herself as a dancer but struck by a very strong anxiety she realizes that she cannot move.
He can’t even leave the audience without a performance, so he starts singing.
He manages to get noticed by Bardu Ali, a member of the Chick Webb, who offers her to join the band. So he began to sing with them to record some songs the following year that achieved tremendous success. It stands out for one lively style which allows her to excel in the swing. In 1939 Webb dies but the orchestra and Ella continue to collaborate with the name “Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra”.
The great success and the collaborations
Despite the excellent relationship with the band, Ella lends her voice in different contexts to several groups and collaborations with other interpreters. He also follows the styles in vogue at the moment performing with swing, blues, gospel and jazz pieces. He also remembers this sentence, useful for understanding the character:
“Some guys in Italy call me Mamma Jazz. I think it’s really tender. As long as they don’t call me Nonna Jazz. “
Her charisma and her talent lead her to be loved by all to the point of carrying out a tour in Europe and North America in the 1950s. It also collaborates with great colleagues including Duke Ellington, but above all the great Louis Armstrong with whom he recorded three discs: “Porgy and Bess”, “Ella and Louis” and “Ella and Louis Again”.
The last years of glory and the end of his career
With the advent of the sixties continue to affect and devotes himself to the “Songbooks” series where he works on the repertoire of American classics. It also wins a Grammy Award for a performance in Berlin in 1960. During the concert he forgets the words of the text and begins to improvise with great support from the audience.
Continue to perform and record by participating in live events such as “An Evening with Ella Fitzgerald” at Lewisohn Stadium in New York for the Metropolitan Opera House, but also at television events. Continues to be protagonist of the entertainment world often invited by friends and colleagues such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Around the 90s, the slow decline; Diabetes mellitus caused her blindness and subsequently led to having to amputate her legs and then extinguished completely in 1996.