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and publicist Virginia Wicks said of the singer’s shyness, “She knew there were many intelligent people coming to interview her [and] she didn’t think she had the vocabulary or knowledge to deal with them… She didn’t do a lot of talking. Ella kept a lot inside her head.” “She leads no public life at all, not from any burning desire for privacy, but from a sense of modesty”: an assessment by The Times Herald of Port Huron Michigan in 1972. “I break my neck reading about famous people,” she confessed to them. “I spilled a salad down my front at the Universal commissary when Cary Grant was introduced to me. I saw Charles Bronson on a plane and gave the stewardess a fan note to deliver to him – I was astounded when he walked up in person to thank me for it. It just never occurs to me that some people might want to read about me.” The proper thing to do is speak of the most significant LPs under an artist’s belt, but best of luck attempting that with Fitzgerald, such is her prolific album output. From her first pressing right through to her final studio hurrah on the Quincy Jonesproduced record Back On The Block in 1989, she spread her voice across approximately 80 albums. Flying Home is pointed to as her seminal record in terms of popularising scat, bop beat and jazz. Stuart Nicholson penned in the book Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography Of The First Lady Of Jazz, “For Ella, whose remarkable ear intuitively reacted to the subtle chord voicings, bop represented a challenge that linked her vocal technique to her powerful, propulsive rhythmic gift… Such a stylistic Rubicon was too wide for the swing musicians to cross; [and some] almost succeeded in adapting to bop, but only one – Ella Fitzgerald – successfully made the transition. In a music dominated by males, this was no mean achievement.” “She made ‘scat singing’ a household term… [and was] one of the few singers who had both sufficient technical knowledge of harmony to make sense of bebop chord changes and sufficient vocal dexterity to incorporate its odd intervals into melodic statements,” wrote Eric Porter in What Is This Thing Called Jazz? “Her legions of loyal fans and critics were impressed by the instrumental 60
Her remarkable ear intuitively reacted to the subtle chord voicings, and bop represented a challenge that linked her vocal technique to her powerful, propulsive rhythmic gift qualities of her voice, even when they worried that she was leaving jazz when she began her series of ‘songbook’ recordings for Verve in 1956.” Signing with Verve was a turning point in a sense – the label was formed by iconoclastic jazz passionado Norman Granz, who became her manager. “I was interested in how I could enhance Ella’s position, to make her a singer with more than just a cult following among jazz fans,” he told biographer Tad Hershorn. “When I recorded Ella I always put her out front, not a blend. The reason was that I frankly didn’t care about what happened to the music. It was there to support her. I’ve had conductors tell me that in bar 23 the trumpet player hit a wrong note. Well, I don’t care. I wasn’t making perfect records. If they came out perfectly, fine. But I wanted to make records in which Ella sounded best.” The move paid off, and the 1956 release Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Song Book remains one of the biggestselling jazz albums of all time, selling 100,000 copies in its first week. Fitzgerald’s timeless voice means she continues to attract new generations
of fans; when alive, she said, “One of the most thrilling things after all these years of singing, people still want to come and hear me. I see young people still want to come and hear me… I cannot describe the feeling I get when I look out to an audience and see young people watching, listening and deep in concentration.” The caring songstress also assigned all royalties from her recordings to benefit the charitable foundation that bears her name, in order to help families and children in need. It’s fitting, because Ella Fitzgerald had a childlike innocence to her own craft. “The only thing better than singing is more singing,” she said, memorably, to the New York Sunday News. “I sing the way I feel.” Ella at 100: The Centennial Celebration is a series of independent events, held at venues from across the US (such as the Smithsonian in Washington) to as far afield as Austria, Finland and even Wales. Some are grand gala nights and concerts, others are smaller scale, but each is intended to commemorate her influence on music. For a complete schedule, visit ellafitzgeraldfoundation.org