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Ella Fitzgerald Biography

(1917–1996)

Related Works

Singles
1938 A-tisket A-tasket
1946 Stone Cold Dead In the Market

Albums
1956 Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook
1957 Rodgers And Hart Songbook
1958/9 George And Ira Gershwin Song Books
Duke Ellington Songbook
1956 Ella And Louis (with Louis Armstrong)
1960s
Porgy And Bess (with Armstrong)
Mack The Knife
Ella In Berlin
Ella In Hollywood
Ella And Basie!
Hello, Dolly!
Like Someone In Love
Swings Brightly With Nelson (with Nelson Riddle)
Songs In A Mellow Mood
Ella At Duke's Place, Côte d'Azur
1961 Rhythm Is My Business
1961 In Hollywood
1963 On The Sunny Side Of The Street (with Count Basie)
1965 Whisper Not (with Marty Paich)
1967 Brighten The Corner
1969 Ella
1973 Live At Carnegie Hall
1974 Dream Dancing
1974 Ella Fitzgerald & Oscar Peterson
1974 A Classy Pair (with Basie)
1974 Fine And Mellow
1975 Montreux '75
1976 Montreux '76
1978 Lady Time
1982 With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
1983 Take Love Easy
1983 Nice Work If You Can Get It
1983 Again
1983 Speak Love
1987 Easy Living

» More

Related People

Related Sites

Ella Fitzgerald's Official Website

Singer. Born Ella Jane Fitzgerald on April 25, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia. After a troubled childhood, including the death of her mother in 1932, Fitzgerald turned to singing and debuted at the Apollo Theater in 1934 at age 17. She was discovered in an amateur contest in Harlem and joined Chick Webb's band and recorded several hits, notably "A-tisket A-tasket" (1938).

After Webb died in 1939, his band was renamed Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra. Two years later, she began her solo career and by the mid-1950s, she had become the first African-American to perform at the Mocambo. Her lucid intonation and broad range made her a top jazz singer. Her series of recordings for Verve (1955-9) in multi-volume "songbooks" are among the treasures of American popular song. Fitzgerald is known as "The First Lady of Song," and was the most popular American female jazz singer for over fifty years. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.

With the exception of Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72, her latter recordings marked a decline in her voice due to complications from diabetes. The disease left her blind, and she had both legs amputated in 1994. She made her last recording in 1989 and her last public performance in 1991 at New York's Carnegie Hall. Ella Fitzgerald died on June 15, 1996 in her Beverly Hills home.

Fitzgerald was briefly married to Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer and hustler, in 1941. She was married to bass player Ray Brown from 1947 to 1952; they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. Fitzgerald.