2004-3-6
(THEME)
ANNCR:
Now, the VOA Special English program, People in America. Today,
Shirley Griffith and Steve Ember tell about the jazz singer, Ella
Fitzgerald. She was known as America's first lady of song.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The year was nineteen-thirty-three. The place was New York City.
Ella Fitzgerald was sixteen years old. She had entered a competition
at the Apollo theater in Harlem. She was going to dance. But she had
just watched two dancers perform. They were better dancers than she.
So, instead of dancing, she sang a
song called "Judy. " People watching the competition urged her to
sing another song. She did. She won first prize - twenty-five
dollars.
That competition at the Apollo Theater changed Ella Fitzgerald's
life forever. Band leader Chick Webb was watching the competition.
He hired Ella to sing with his band. He taught her about singing in
public. He even showed her what kind of clothes to wear. In three
years, she had her first hit record, "A-Tisket-a-Tasket":
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Ella Fitzgerald was born in the southern city of Newport News,
Virginia in nineteen-seventeen. Her father left soon after her
birth. Her mother took Ella and moved to New York City. Ella's
mother died when Ella was fifteen years old.
The next year, Ella started singing with Chick Webb's band. She
stayed with Chick Webb until he died in nineteen-thirty-nine. Ella
kept his band together after he died until World War Two started.
Then most of the band members joined the armed forces. While she was
with the band, Ella recorded almost one-hundred-fifty songs.
VOICE ONE:
Ella Fitzgerald was greatly influenced by the experimental music
of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. It was called be-bop. She
used be-bop rhythms in her singing. In nineteen-forty-five, she
recorded the song "Flying Home," using the be-bop method known as
'scat'. In scat, the singer's voice sounds like another instrument
in the orchestra. Critics say it was the most influential jazz
record of the time.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
In nineteen-forty-nine, jazz
musician Norman Granz invited her to join his band. It was with his
band in Berlin, Germany in nineteen-sixty that Ella sang a famous
song in a very different way. A man asked her if she knew the song
"Mack the Knife. " Ella said she had heard it a few times but the
band did not have the music for it. She said she would try to sing
it anyway. This recording shows how she continued to sing "Mack the
Knife" when she did not remember the words. The people listening
loved it.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Norman Granz later became her manager. He started a new recording
company just for her. It was his idea for Ella to record the now
famous series of record albums called the "Songbooks". On each
record, she sang works of a different songwriter. She recorded
songbooks of the music of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Duke
Ellington, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Critics say
the best songbook is Ella singing the songs of George and Ira
Gershwin. Ira Gershwin reportedly said: "I never knew how good our
songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them. Here, she sings
the Gershwin song, "I Got Rhythm":
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Ella Fitzgerald also appeared in movies and on television. She
became popular internationally. She performed in concerts around the
world sometimes forty weeks a year. She also recorded for different
record companies.
In the nineteen-sixties, she began to sing more modern songs such
as those written by the Beatles and Burt Bacharach. But she was not
very successful with that kind of popular music. She returned to
jazz in nineteen-seventy-three, again with Norman Granz. She also
began performing with symphony orchestras.
VOICE ONE:
Ella Fitzgerald was married two times. Both marriages ended in
divorce. She raised three children who were not her own.
Ella lived quietly in Beverly Hills, California. Throughout her
life she was a very private person. She wanted to be known only for
her music. Her friends included members of the Duke Ellington band,
Count Basie's band, and singers like Sarah Vaughn and Peggy Lee.
Ella Fitzgerald began to have health problems during the
nineteen-seventies. She had the disease diabetes which caused
problems with her eyes. She had a heart operation in
nineteen-eighty-six. In nineteen-ninety three, the effects of
diabetes led to operations to remove both her legs. She died June
fifteenth, nineteen-ninety-six.
VOICE TWO:
People around the world loved Ella Fitzgerald's joyful singing.
Critics said she had raised the American popular song to the level
of art.
She won many awards. She received the National Medal of the Arts
and a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime work. The University of
Maryland named a performing arts center for her.
Ella Fitzgerald's wonderful voice lives on in her
two-hundred-fifty albums. She won thirteen Grammy awards given each
year for the best recordings. Her last Grammy was for the
nineteen-ninety record: "All That Jazz":
(MUSIC)
ANNCR:
This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach. The
announcers were Shirley Griffith and Steve Ember. I'm Sarah Long.
Listen again next week for another People in America program on the
Voice of America.
(THEME)