Ella Fitzgerald: one of the greatest singers of all
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The effect was sensational, with the audience rising to their feet to applaud the 16-year-old. She obliged with an encore, singing 'The Object of my Affection', a song featured by Fitzgerald's favourite singer, Connee Boswell, who was part of the New Orleans white vocal trio, The Boswell Sisters.
Fitzgerald easily won the contest and the prize money of 25 dollars. From that moment, she resolved to be a singer.
In March 1935, she did a few gigs with Tiny Bradshaw's Orchestra. Then, to show that her contest win was no fluke, she won another competition at the world famous Apollo Theatre. The master of ceremonies was Bardu Ali, a talent scout for the bandleader and drummer Webb (1905-1939). Webb was a great favourite at New York's Savoy Ballroom. He had to contend with appalling physical problems, which had stunted his growth and hunched his spine. Nevertheless, he became one of the leading drummers of the swing era.
Bardu Ali urged Webb to sign the young female singer but Webb was not sure he needed another girl singer to join his then vocalist Charlie Linton. Webb's wife Sally and agent Moe Galewski urged him to reconsider and he signed Fitzgerald. They later legally adopted Fitzgerald, who was still a teenager.
Life with Webb was full of do's and dont's. He initially kept Fitzgerald from performing slow numbers but happily soon rescinded the ban. Webb was strict with her, though. He barred her from dating any of the band's musicians (and told the band not to try to date her) but the first to ignore this was alto saxophone player Louis Jordan (later to enjoy such success with his own Tympany Five). Jordan's scheme was to woo Fitzgerald into joining his own band but a falling-out scuppered the plan. Jordan gave her the gift of a manicure set, which she threw back at him. They slapped each other in the face. Webb publicly reprimanded them both. Fitzgerald and Jordan made up and became close friends, sharing many duets and Jordan even recorded her composition 'Oh Boy, I'm in the Groove'.
One of Webb's first promises had been to feature Fitzgerald on record. He got her to sing two medium-paced love songs 'I'll Chase the Blues Away' and 'Love and Kisses'. Both were recorded on June 12, 1935, and both are on the marvellous new 10-disc box set Ella Fitzgerald: The Voice of Jazz, issued by Verve Records. The 1935 combination of the A and B side was not a contender for top honours but it showed Fitzgerald to be a very promising vocalist whose intonation, diction and rhythmic phrasing were first class. She no longer sounded nervous.
Pianist Teddy Wilson must have heard the recording, because he asked to have Fitzgerald (working as a freelancer) on his session of March 1936. In those days, Fitzgerald did not make any effort to keep up with fashion in the way she dressed. Trumpeter Frank Newton was not impressed by her outfit and said, in a stage whisper to trombonist Benny Marton, "Good God, what have they sent us today?" He changed his attitude the moment she started to sing. Gradually, as she earned more money and with advice from Sally Webb, she became more glamorous.
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In the Thirties, true success was gained only by having hit records so Fitzgerald and her bandleader were always listening for possible chart contenders. For a while, it seemed the answer might be for her to record with vocal singing groups such as the Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots and the Delta Rhythm Boys. Some fine music was recorded with these groups but the hook that brings a real chart winner was missing.
When the band were playing a residency in Boston in 1938, the principal arranger, Van Alexander, heard Fitzgerald picking out a catchy melody on the piano. It was an old nursery rhyme (later traced back to 1879) called 'A-tisket, A-tisket', which has a strong tune and charming lyrics. Alexander spotted the commercial possibilities and wrote a neat arrangement. The subsequent recording, in May 1938, climbed swiftly to the top of the Billboard hit parade and stayed there for 19 weeks.
Fitzgerald had already been called "the nation's number one stylist" and now she was billed as "Ella – the first lady of song", a title that produced a snort from Billie Holiday. The two divas did not socialise!
Moe Gale decided it would be wise to give Fitzgerald top billing above Webb, who reluctantly agreed. Bookings came flooding in and offers came from the West Coast, which led to Fitzgerald appearing at the Californian Civic Auditorium. Bing Crosby, a local resident, decided he would join a standing-room-only audience to hear what she was all about. He emerged from the concert a lifelong fan and later said: "Man, woman and child, Ella is the greatest of them all".
Peggy Lee was just as effusive, describing her as "the greatest jazz singer of our time. The standard by which each of us is measured".
Everything changed with a decline in Chick Webb's health and, following major surgery, he died in his home city of Baltimore on June 16, 1939. After his death, many remarked on his Jekyl and Hyde personality, although Van Alexander, now 98, said: "Chick Webb was a pussy cat, very likable. A very nice guy. I lost a boss, a friend and a real nice guy." It is estimated that 40,000 people lined the streets on the day of his funeral. By prior agreement, Fitzgerald took over leading the band, assisted by tenor saxophonist Ted McRae.
Ella Fitzgerald Feat. Chick Webb Orchestra - T'aint What You Do (It's the Way That Cha Do It) on MUZU.TV.
Fitzgerald was keen on bebop (the hip term of the time for modern jazz) and she was encouraged to develop her scat singing by Dizzy Gillespie, who was nicknamed 'The High Priest of Bop'. The scat he favoured was a wordless vocal style consisting of up-tempo improvised phrases that matched the accompanying chord sequences.
She worked with Gillespie in 1943 and again on a six-week tour in 1947, all the while listening to his advice. She was soon including at least one scat number in each show, much to the audience's delight. 'Oh Lady Be Good' was a favourite vehicle for the scat treatment and the style gradually became more prevalent on numbers such as 'How High the Moon' and 'Mack the Knife'. After her epic version of that song was recorded in Berlin, it became a regular performance tune for Fitzgerald.
Her tour with Gillespie brought her into regular contact with his bass player, Ray Brown. Although Brown was nine years younger than Fitzgerald, a romance developed and they were married in late 1947. Two years later, she adopted Ray Brown Junior. An earlier marriage in the Forties to Benjamin Kornegay (a dancer and photographer of ill repute) had been quickly annulled.
Fitzgerald had carried on working and managing Webb's band and although the musicians did not dislike Fitzgerald, they had to adjust to the fact that someone who had recently played black-jack with them was now the boss. But once the novelty of leading a band wore off, Fitzgerald tired of hearing the musicians' demands for more money (they were on $67.50 a week) and pleading for more space for solo features.
What she needed was a good manager and she eventually found that in Norman Granz, a Californian who was a year younger than Fitzgerald. Granz was to help make her an artist of international renown. Granz was a great believer in racial equality and he would not allow any of his concerts to be segregated. He loved jazz and had begun promoting in the summer of 1944. The billing 'Jazz at the Philharmonic', which was always shortened to JATP, was a unit that featured the very best of jazz musicians, all of them prepared to play tours that took them all over the world.
Granz became Fitzgerald's manager in 1954 (she had previously been part of his JATP line-ups) and he was also the manager of Oscar Peterson. Granz continued these roles even after he moved to Switzerland in 1959. He continued to be present at most of her engagements worldwide, including when she performed 'An Ella Night' at the Hollywood Bowl, attended by 22,000 people. Her travelling companion in this period was her cousin Georgiana Henry, who helped her conquer a fear of flying.
Even then, much of her time was spent looking for hits. Some contenders were well-formed but frivolous ('I want the Waiter with the Water'), or quaint ('The Muffin Man') but once she was a star, various music publishers offered good songs. When I first chatted with her during the Sixties, she told me that she always carried a little notebook when she went to the cinema so she could jot down the name of a featured song she liked. Sometimes finding a good song was the result of pure luck. Once, during a visit to the hairdresser, she heard an assistant singing an attractive calypso theme, 'Stone Cold Dead in the Market (He Had It Coming)'. That sough-after single had dropped into Fitzgerald's lap.
Her partner on that recording was Louis Jordan but it was her partnership with another Louis that won universal praise. Louis Armstrong had long been one of her favourites and to record with him was a supreme pleasure, not least because of his part in originating scat singing back in 1926. Their duets (three albums in all) radiate mutual admiration. Their voices, though different in timbre, combine beautifully, with the bonus being the seasoning provided by Armstrong's one-in-a-billion trumpet tone.
Although Fitzgerald could pay homage to Armstrong's gravely-sounding scat, she sometimes displayed a more rhapsodic, gentler style, as on 'In a Sentimental Mood' with guitarist Barney Kessel. Fitzgerald was always keen to play with jazz musicians and in 1960 her tours of Europe and South America were enhanced by the presence of guitarist Jim Hall.
Although there were a number of good songs within the hundred or so sides that Ella made for Decca during the years 1934-1955, her most important recordings from any era were the Songbook series (eight in all), highlighting the work of America's leading popular composers.
The scope of the selections has never been equalled and she is on top form throughout. It began in 1956 with Cole Porter (Buddy Bregman was the arranger) and went on to include Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Duke Ellington, Rodgers and Hart, Harold Arlen, George and Ira Gershwin and Johnny Mercer.
The only anxious moments came in the recordings with Duke Ellington. Fitzgerald liked to be familiar with the outlines of her accompaniment so she could run through them before the first take. But Ellington's habit was to leave everything until the last minute. With Fitzgerald, he entered the studio with his ideas mapped out on a large envelope, and that was all he carried. She was reduced to tears. Professional to the end, she paid full homage to his compositions and, in truth, 'Don't Get Around Much Anymore' is one of her very finest recordings.
But it was to be some months before they worked together again, although Ellington did write a 16-minute song called 'Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald'. Fitzgerald said: "All those Songbooks helped me get into spots I had never been able to play before".
Her success was now resounding. Fitzgerald was on numerous 'woman of the year' listings and was immensely proud to receive a doctorate of music from Yale University. She won Down Beat polls time and time again and won 13 Grammy awards (as well as The Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and NAACP Award for lifetime achievement). She was invited to the White House by three presidents. One place she was never particularly feted, however, was Hollywood. She had sung briefly in the 1942 Abbott and Costello film Ride 'Em Cowboy and had a cameo in 'Hard Hearted Hannah' and 'Pete Kelly's Blues' along with a handful of songs in 'Let No Man Write my Epitaph' but overall, her movie achievements were scarce.
She was flattered when Pablo Picasso (a friend of the art-collector Granz) did a drawing of her but overall, despite all the adulation, nothing turned her head. Late in life, she said: "I'm just a ballad singer" and she always gave audiences full value with long concerts and lengthy encores (there were always cries for 'Manhattan'). This hard-working approach, even into her late sixties, affected her health and she grew increasingly disenchanted with the business side of stardom: contracts, travel arrangements and press interviews. Her eyes had been a problem for years and In London, during the Sixties, I heard her scream with pain as a photographer took a flash-lit picture holding his camera very close to her face. In 1971 she had an operation to have cataracts removed and always wore spectacles afterwards.
A new avenue of work opened in 1973 when she began appearing with symphony orchestras, featuring with 40 different orchestras over the next two years. She worked with a number of conductors and arrangers, the most regular of whom was Nelson Riddle. Together, they recorded almost 150 songs and enjoyed a close friendship. Count Basie was also a regular accompanist and friend. Two younger musicians who recorded acclaimed duets with Fitzgerald were pianist Ellis Larkins and guitarist Joe Pass, who made several fine albums with her.
Frank Sinatra, Basie and Fitzgerald teamed up temporarily in September 1975 to appear for two weeks at the Uris Theatre, New York. The booking grossed a million dollars and enjoyed similar success in Las Vegas.
She continued working during the late Seventies and early Eighties and made a trip to London in July 1984 to appear in cabaret at the Grosvenor Hotel, accompanied by Paul Smith on piano. He had spent nearly 30 years with her band. Another long-term member of her unit was road-manager Pete Cavello. She was having difficulty in walking and when I saw her backstage she was hobbling around. But when she stepped on to the stage, she appeared to be the same young girl who had once tap-danced in New York. She sang magnificently, watched admiringly by Granz.
Health-wise there were no miracles and because of the complications of diabetes, she had to have a toe removed, followed later by a leg amputation. She spent four months recuperating at her Beverly Hills home, where she heard the dreaded news that she would have to have a second leg amputated.
Fitzgerald stayed at home for most of her remaining years. Numerous fans sent sympathetic messages and friends from the world of music visited her and although her reminiscences were sometimes vague, most found her still lucid and articulate.
Fitzgerald died on June 15, 1996, aged 79, and there was not a single disparaging comment in even the most detailed obituaries. Ella has left us a treasury of vocal performances of a standard that has never been equalled and I believe she is the greatest singer of popular music who ever lived.
John Chilton, a Grammy-winning jazz writer, has written biographies of Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Louis Jordan and Henry Allen, as well as The Who's Who Of Jazz. He was a trumpet player and leader of the Feetwarmers, who toured and recorded with George Melly for more than three decades.
10-disc box set Ella Fitzgerald: The Voice of Jazz is out on Verve Records/Universal Music Enterprises.
