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Ella Fitzgerald

Personal Profile

Ella Fitzgerald
  • Birth Name:
    Ella Jane Fitzgerald
  • Nickname:
    First Lady Of Song
    The First Lady of Jazz
  • Date of Birth:
    April 25, 1917
  • Zodiac Sign:
    Taurus
  • Place of Birth:
    Newport News, Virginia, USA
  • Place of Death:
    Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Date of Death:
    June 15, 1996
  • Cause of Death:
    Diabetes
  • Sex:
    Female
  • Nationality:
    American

Family

Ella Fitzgerald
  • Spouse:
    Benjamin Kornegay - Annulled
    Ray Brown - Divorced
  • Son:
    Ray Brown Jr.

Career

Ella Fitzgerald

Trivia

Ella Fitzgerald
  • In the early 1960s she continued to work the big hotel circuit—the Flamingo in Las Vegas, the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, and the Americana in New York City.
  • Ella Fitzgerald also continued to tour Europe, Latin America, and Japan with the Oscar Peterson (1925–) trio, which was three-fourths of Granz's JATP house rhythm section.
  • In 1965 and 1966 she was reunited with Ellington for another tour and record date.
  • Fitzgerald was always blessed with superb musicians accompanying her, from the full orchestral support of Chick Webb and Duke Ellington to the smaller JATP ensembles.
  • In 1968 she teamed up with yet another, the magnificent pianist Tommy Flanagan, who headed a trio that served her into the mid-1970s.
  • In 1971 Fitzgerald had serious eye surgery, but within a year she was performing again.
  • Her singing, however, began to show evidence of decline: the voice that was once an instrument of natural beauty and effortless grace became a bit thin and strained.
  • Nevertheless, so great was her talent that she continued to excite concert audiences and to record effectively.
  • She appeared after the mid-1960s with over fifty symphonic orchestras in the United States.
  • A large, pleasant-looking woman with a surprisingly girlish speaking voice, Ella Fitzgerald sometimes forgot lyrics. But the audiences loved it and delighted in her ability to work her way out of these potentially embarrassing moments on stage.

Quotes

Ella Fitzgerald
  • "The only thing better than singing is more singing."
  • "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."
  • "It isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts."
  • "I stole everything that I heard, but mostly I stole from the horns."
  • "I know I'm no glamour girl, and it's noteasy 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."
View all Quotes: Ella Fitzgerald

Biography

Ella Fitzgerald
Last Updated: Friday, October 09, 2009

Ella Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, but she spent her youth just outside New York City in Yonkers, New York, and received her musical education in public schools. During elementary school she began singing at her local church, the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church. At fifteen her mother died and she was cared for by her aunt in Harlem, a black neighborhood in New York that was rich with jazz music.When only sixteen, she received her first big break at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, when she won an amateur-night contest and impressed saxophonist-bandleader Benny Carter (1907–).

 He recommended her to drummer-bandleader Chick Webb (c. 1900–1939), who hired her in 1935. Ella Fitzgerald soon became a recording star with the band, and her own composition "A-tisket, A-tasket" (1938) was such a smash hit that the song became her trademark for many years thereafter. When Webb died in 1939,Ella Fitzgerald assumed leadership of the band for the next year. Ella Fitzgerald was married twice. The first marriage, to Bernie Kornegay in 1941, was annulled (made invalid) two years later. The second, to bassist Ray Brown (1926–) in 1948, ended in divorce in 1952 (they had one son).

Filmography

Ella Fitzgerald

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