Everything started with Ella Fitzgerald’s voice. Everyone who heard it was captivated as soon as they did. Her sultry, crystalline tones would float up and down the scale in dance halls.
As a singer, Ella Fitzgerald infused feminine charm with a certain amount of innocent naiveté and playfulness. She first won over New York audiences with her special gift before sweeping the globe. She is one of the all-time great jazz singers and will never die.
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, on April 25, 1917, and this is where it all started out rather humbly. Ella’s mother Tempie raised her alone when her father abruptly left the family shortly after her birth.
It seems that music was continually playing inside the home. Little Ella quickly developed a love of pop music, particularly the work of the Boswell Sisters and Arthur “The Street Singer” Tracy.
Tempie fostered Ella’s musical ability by enrolling her in a few piano lessons despite her inability to pay for them. Ella Fitzgerald, however, never received a formal music education.
How did Ella Fitzgerald change the world?
One of the jazz genre’s outstanding singers was Ella Fitzgerald. She recorded more than 100 records throughout the course of her nearly five-decade career, helping to define many genres like swing and bebop. She won a Grammy Award first for an African-American performer.
Ella Fitzgerald temporarily took up the leadership of Chick Webb’s ensemble after his passing in 1939. In 1941, she subsequently launched a solo career. She collaborated on multiple recordings with artists during World War II, including the Ink Spots.
In a series of eight studio albums, the Great American Song Books, which Fitzgerald recorded through the middle of the 1960s, she interpreted songs by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and the Gershwin brothers among other American musical greats.
This is where Fitzgerald made music history. As a result, Ella Fitzgerald promoted cross-cultural dialogue during the Civil Rights movement.
