Jun 15, 2024
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A Great Singer and Story: Ella Fitzgerald
by Karl F. Cohen
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The inimitable Ella Fitzgerald does the Cotton Club, circa 1958. photo: courtesy Leslie WoodheadFOR A DELIGHTFUL ESCAPE FROM THE
duress of pandemics, discover Ella Fitzgerald’s rich career in music and why they called her The Queen of Jazz, The First Lady of Song, and Lady Ella. The new feature documentary, “Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things” does an outstanding job presenting a heart-warming rags to riches story that goes from the turbulent years following the death of her mother, when she as 15, to her international recognition as a star of major concert halls, movies, TV and radio.
It was directed by Leslie Woodhead known for “Srebrenica: A Cry from the Grave” (1999) and “The Day Kennedy Died” (2013) among many others.
Ella grew up experiencing poverty with an abusive step-father and other tragic moments. She ran away from home to live life as a penny-less street waif included dancing on the street for spare change. She fell in with low-life criminals and was sent to a state reform school in Hudson, New York, from which she escaped.
Then, almost overnight, Ella’s luck changed when she was 17. On November 21, 1934 she stepped onto the stage of the Apollo Theatre as a contestant in their amateur night. She was billed as a dancer, but a legend says she was intimidated by a dancing duo she was going to follow. Instead she opted to sing two songs in the style of the Boswell Sisters. She won first prize.
The Apollo’s prize included a week’s engagement, but a biography of her says that didn’t happen. Instead, in January, 1935, she was invited to sing for a week with Tiny Bradshaw and his Orchestra at the Harlem Opera House. That engagement was followed by Chick Webb, who needed a singer for his orchestra, asking Bradshaw for a recommendation. Ella not only got the job, but she stayed with Webb until he died in 1939.
By the time of Webb’s death, she was a well-known radio star who had recorded several hit records. Indeed, she was successful enough to hire Webb’s orchestra and rename it Ella and Her Famous Orchestra. She also was taking gigs performing and recording sessions with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, plus she formed Ella and Her Savoy Eight.
Ella’s strength was a remarkable clear voice and that she could sing many kinds of music. When big band swing lost popularity in the early 1940s, she became a celebrated scat singer with Dizzy Gillespie’s band. Her approach to the new kind of jazz known as Be Bop was summed up when she said, “I just tried to do what I heard the horns in the band doing.”
One of the wonderful segments of the film for me was a long selection of scat solos that is edited together into an amazing demonstration of her vocal and mental abilities. A 1945 review of one of her recordings by a New York Times critic called one of her scat discs “one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade” and he praised her “dazzling inventiveness.”
Ella went on to work in other forms of music and to graduate from playing in clubs to singing in major concert halls around the world. The film shows her with many who admired her including Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Tony Bennet.
There is a nice sequence on her in this 90-minute feature with Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was a great fan who went to bat for her and got her a booking at the Mocambo in LA when they rarely hired non-white stars.
When I was in my late teens I fell under the spell of her voice. I have fond memories of playing her music at parties along with a few late night romantic evenings with my girlfriend listening to her sing the love songs of Cole Porter and duets with Louis Armstrong.
Thanks to many interesting brief interviews with people who knew her (musicians, friends, her son) we learn about the many hardships she experienced in a segregated world, her brief marriage to Be Bop bassist Ray Brown, her fight for civil rights, the charity she founded for Black kids, and other aspects of her active life.
Her last public performance was in 1993. She would have gone on if her health had allowed her to do so. She passed away in 1996.
Check out the film’s trailer here, or watch the movie here. The film is shown on the internet thanks to the Roxie Theater, Smith Rafael Film Center and the Rialto Cinemas.
Karl F. Cohen—who decided to add his middle initial to distinguish himself from the Russian Karl Cohen, who tried to assassinate the Czar in the mid-19th century—is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached . Posted on Jun 28, 2020 - 06:48 PM
by Karl F. Cohen
Please support our stories by liking articles—thanks!
The inimitable Ella Fitzgerald does the Cotton Club, circa 1958. photo: courtesy Leslie Woodheadduress of pandemics, discover Ella Fitzgerald’s rich career in music and why they called her The Queen of Jazz, The First Lady of Song, and Lady Ella. The new feature documentary, “Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things” does an outstanding job presenting a heart-warming rags to riches story that goes from the turbulent years following the death of her mother, when she as 15, to her international recognition as a star of major concert halls, movies, TV and radio.
It was directed by Leslie Woodhead known for “Srebrenica: A Cry from the Grave” (1999) and “The Day Kennedy Died” (2013) among many others.
Ella grew up experiencing poverty with an abusive step-father and other tragic moments. She ran away from home to live life as a penny-less street waif included dancing on the street for spare change. She fell in with low-life criminals and was sent to a state reform school in Hudson, New York, from which she escaped.
Then, almost overnight, Ella’s luck changed when she was 17. On November 21, 1934 she stepped onto the stage of the Apollo Theatre as a contestant in their amateur night. She was billed as a dancer, but a legend says she was intimidated by a dancing duo she was going to follow. Instead she opted to sing two songs in the style of the Boswell Sisters. She won first prize.
The Apollo’s prize included a week’s engagement, but a biography of her says that didn’t happen. Instead, in January, 1935, she was invited to sing for a week with Tiny Bradshaw and his Orchestra at the Harlem Opera House. That engagement was followed by Chick Webb, who needed a singer for his orchestra, asking Bradshaw for a recommendation. Ella not only got the job, but she stayed with Webb until he died in 1939.
By the time of Webb’s death, she was a well-known radio star who had recorded several hit records. Indeed, she was successful enough to hire Webb’s orchestra and rename it Ella and Her Famous Orchestra. She also was taking gigs performing and recording sessions with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, plus she formed Ella and Her Savoy Eight.
Ella’s strength was a remarkable clear voice and that she could sing many kinds of music. When big band swing lost popularity in the early 1940s, she became a celebrated scat singer with Dizzy Gillespie’s band. Her approach to the new kind of jazz known as Be Bop was summed up when she said, “I just tried to do what I heard the horns in the band doing.”
One of the wonderful segments of the film for me was a long selection of scat solos that is edited together into an amazing demonstration of her vocal and mental abilities. A 1945 review of one of her recordings by a New York Times critic called one of her scat discs “one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade” and he praised her “dazzling inventiveness.”
Ella went on to work in other forms of music and to graduate from playing in clubs to singing in major concert halls around the world. The film shows her with many who admired her including Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Tony Bennet.
There is a nice sequence on her in this 90-minute feature with Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was a great fan who went to bat for her and got her a booking at the Mocambo in LA when they rarely hired non-white stars.
When I was in my late teens I fell under the spell of her voice. I have fond memories of playing her music at parties along with a few late night romantic evenings with my girlfriend listening to her sing the love songs of Cole Porter and duets with Louis Armstrong.
Thanks to many interesting brief interviews with people who knew her (musicians, friends, her son) we learn about the many hardships she experienced in a segregated world, her brief marriage to Be Bop bassist Ray Brown, her fight for civil rights, the charity she founded for Black kids, and other aspects of her active life.
Her last public performance was in 1993. She would have gone on if her health had allowed her to do so. She passed away in 1996.
Check out the film’s trailer here, or watch the movie here. The film is shown on the internet thanks to the Roxie Theater, Smith Rafael Film Center and the Rialto Cinemas.
Karl F. Cohen—who decided to add his middle initial to distinguish himself from the Russian Karl Cohen, who tried to assassinate the Czar in the mid-19th century—is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached . Posted on Jun 28, 2020 - 06:48 PM
