Ella Fitzgerald

1917–1996 · 79 years Tier II

She went on at the Apollo to dance and sang instead

Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald — Carl Van Vechten — 1940-01-19 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Her mother died of injuries from a car accident in 1932, when Ella was 15, and the household in Yonkers came apart. She had been an outstanding student. Now she stopped going to school, worked as a lookout for a bordello and ran numbers for a Mafia-connected operation, and when the authorities found her they sent her to the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale and then to the state reformatory for girls at Hudson, New York. She never talked about any of it in public. In 1933 and 1934 she survived partly by singing on the streets of Harlem. On November 21, 1934, at 17, she went on at one of the Apollo Theater's first Amateur Nights, intending to dance, saw the act ahead of her, and sang instead.

She won first prize, and the theater withheld the week's booking that came with it, apparently because of her disheveled appearance. Chick Webb took her into his band anyway in 1935. Her 1938 "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", a nursery rhyme she co-wrote, was one of the biggest sellers of the decade, and when Webb died in 1939 the orchestra took her name. Bebop taught her to scat — she said she was trying to do with her voice what the horns in Dizzy Gillespie's band were doing — and "Flying Home" in 1945 showed what that meant. Then Norman Granz built Verve Records around her, and between 1956 and 1964 she recorded eight Song Books, one composer at a time, that fixed the Great American Songbook as a canon.

In July 1954, on the way to her first Australian tour, Pan American Airlines ordered her, her pianist John Lewis, her cousin and assistant Georgiana Henry, and Norman Granz off a Honolulu flight after they had boarded with first-class tickets, and refused to let them back on for their luggage. They were stuck three days and missed two Sydney concerts. They sued and won on appeal in January 1956. She toured 40 to 45 weeks a year for decades. The son she and Ray Brown adopted was raised largely by an aunt. Diabetes eventually damaged her eyes, and in 1993 surgeons amputated both her legs below the knee. She sang in public for the last time that year.

She died of a stroke at her home in Beverly Hills on June 15, 1996, at 79, and was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery. Her papers scattered: the career archive to the Smithsonian, her music arrangements to the Library of Congress, her sheet music to UCLA, her cookbooks to Harvard. The Song Books did the durable work. Frank Rich wrote days after her death that in them a Black woman had carried songs largely written by immigrant Jews to a mostly white Christian audience. She won 13 Grammys, was the first African American woman to win one at the first ceremony in 1959, and has a stamp, a theater in Newport News and a statue in Yonkers.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Ella Fitzgerald's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

A-Tisket, A-Tasket song
A nursery rhyme she co-wrote — one of the decade's biggest sellers 1938
Flying Home song
The scat record that changed what a jazz singer could attempt 1945
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book album
The first of eight Song Books for Verve 1956
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book album
The only Song Book on which the composer played 1957
Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife album
She forgets the lyrics and improvises through it 1960
Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation company
Set up the year her legs were amputated 1993

Life in brief

with age at each point

1932 aged ~15 Her mother dies of injuries from a car accident Ella was 15. Within a year she was living with an aunt in Harlem.
1933 aged ~16 Sent to the Colored Orphan Asylum and then the reformatory at Hudson She never discussed the period publicly.
November 21, 1934 aged 17 Wins Amateur Night at the Apollo at 17 She had gone on to dance and changed her mind on stage.
1935 aged ~18 Joins Chick Webb's orchestra at the Savoy Ballroom
June 16, 1939 aged 22 Webb dies and the band is renamed for her She was 22 and leading an orchestra.
July 1954 aged 37 Pan American removes her party from a flight to Australia They sued for racial discrimination and won on appeal in January 1956.
1956 aged ~39 Norman Granz builds Verve around her and the Song Books begin
1959 aged ~42 First African American woman to win a Grammy It was the inaugural ceremony.
1993 aged ~76 Surgeons amputate both her legs below the knee Diabetes had also damaged her sight. She stopped performing that year.