You may have heard her referred to as “The First Lady of Song”, or as “The Queen of Jazz” or perhaps as “Lady Ella.” All of those monikers have been used to refer to the great singer, songwriter and bandleader Ella Fitzgerald, born on April 25, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia. Fitzgerald was noted over her long career for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation and her horn-like improvisational ability.

Fitzgerald lived in Virginia for the first few years of her life, but she and her mother moved to Yonkers, New York in the early 1920s. She was a good student in school, but she endured a difficult childhood. After her mother was killed in an automobile accident when in 1932, the 15-year-old Ella ended up living with an aunt in Harlem. She began skipping school and eventually was sent to the New York Training School for Girls, essentially a reformatory upriver from New York City. During 1933 and 1934 Ella survived, at least in part, by singing for tips from passers-by on the streets.

On November 21, 1934 Ella Fitzgerald sang at one of the first Amateur Nights at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Fitzgerald sang Judy and The Object of My Affection and won first prize. She won the chance to perform at the Apollo for a week but, seemingly because of her disheveled appearance, the theater never gave her that part of her prize. A year later, she was introduced to drummer and bandleader Chick Webb. Although initially “reluctant to sign her...because she was gawky and unkempt,” after some convincing Webb offered Fitzgerald the opportunity to test with his band. An immediate hit with audiences, she was signed and she and the Chick Webb Orchestra, house band at the Savoy Ballroom in New York City.

Fitzgerald recorded nearly 150 songs with Webb's orchestra between 1935 and 1942 (which she led after Webb’s death in 1939), but it was Fitzgerald's 1938 version of A-Tisket A-Tasket, a song she co-wrote, that brought Fitzgerald public acclaim. It became a major hit on the radio and was one of the biggest-selling records of the decade.

Fitzgerald left the big band behind in 1942 and began her solo career. Fitzgerald's turned the rest of her career over to Norman Granz, founder on Verve Records. With that label, Fitzgerald recorded some of her more widely noted works, particularly her interpretations of the Great American Songbook. Fitzgerald was also a regular on Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic tours from the 1940s on.

After a career spanning nearly 60 years, Ella Fitzgerald gave her last public performance in 1993. Three years later she passed away at age 79 after years of declining health. During her lifetime she was awarded fourteen Grammy’s, the National Medal of Arts, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Here is a link to Fitzgerald singing in an Abbot and Costello movie:

"A-TISKET A-TASKET"