Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) was born in Newport News, Virginia, and grew up in Yonkers, New York. She loved to dance, and to sing along with the records of Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and the Boswell Sisters; she said she tried so hard to sound just like Connee Boswell. After her mother died in 1932 she went to live with an aunt in Harlem.

On 21 November 1934, at seventeen, she went on stage at the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night, meaning to dance, and sang instead. She won. In 1935 the drummer and bandleader Chick Webb took her into his orchestra, and at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem she sang for the dancers. In 1938 her own version of a children’s rhyme, A-Tisket, A-Tasket, made her and the band famous.

When Webb died in 1939 she led the orchestra for three years. In the 1940s, singing with Dizzy Gillespie’s band and on the tours of the producer Norman Granz, she made scat singing her own: she sang what she heard the horns play, and made up the words as she went.

In the mid-1950s Granz started Verve Records around her, and she began the Song Books, an album for each great American songwriter, Cole Porter first, then Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin and the Gershwins. In Berlin in 1960 she forgot the words to Mack the Knife and made up new ones on the spot; the record won her two Grammys. She won thirteen in all, and in 1993 set up a foundation for music education and for children in need. She died in Beverly Hills on 15 June 1996.

This is a demo site, a tribute built to show a TJP site for a singer who teaches: workshops, family shows and a private pack for schools. Its dates are the demo’s own.

Recordings

Calendar

21OCTWed
Scat class: copy a trumpet
Jazz Museum in Harlem, New York
Tickets
28OCTWed
Amateur Night, a family show
Apollo Theater, New York
Tickets
8NOVSun
A-Tisket, A-Tasket, a children’s concert
Hudson River Museum, Yonkers
22NOVSun
The Cole Porter Song Book night
Jamboree Jazz Club, Barcelona
Tickets
9DECWed
Choir day: Mack the Knife, with the wrong words
Conservatori del Liceu, Barcelona

On Film

Reviews

Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness.

Stephen Holden, The New York Times, obituary, 16 June 1996, on Flying Home

I just tried to do [with my voice] what I heard the horns in the band doing.

Ella Fitzgerald, CNN, 15 June 1996, on singing with Dizzy Gillespie’s band

My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it... I tried so hard to sound just like her.

Ella Fitzgerald, The New York Times, obituary, 16 June 1996, on Connee Boswell

I had gotten to the point where I was only singing be-bop. [...] Norman felt that I should do other things, so he produced the Cole Porter Song Book with me. It was a turning point in my life.

Ella Fitzgerald, The New York Times, obituary, 16 June 1996, on Norman Granz

Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians.

Frank Rich, The New York Times, “Journal; How High the Moon”, 19 June 1996, on the Song Books

Projects

Chick Webb and the Savoy
In 1935 the drummer Chick Webb took a gawky teenager into his orchestra. At the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem she sang for the dancers, and in 1938 her version of a nursery rhyme, A-Tisket, A-Tasket, made the band famous. She led it herself after he died in 1939.
The Song Books
Eight albums, from 1956 to 1964, each given to one great American songwriter: Cole Porter first, then Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer.
Verve and Jazz at the Philharmonic
The producer Norman Granz took her on tour with his Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, became her manager, and started Verve Records around her in the mid-1950s. Photo: William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress, public domain.
Berlin, 1960
At the Deutschlandhalle she forgot the words to Mack the Knife, made up new ones on the spot, and the record won her two Grammys. A good story for any class that is afraid of getting it wrong.
Scat: a singing class
Scat is singing without words, the voice played like a horn. Her 1945 Flying Home is where many start; she said she just tried to do what she heard the horns in the band doing. Our workshops begin by copying a trumpet.