In 1934, Zoot suits were the latest fashion, "Sophisticated Lady" was the latest hit, and the Chick Webb Orchestra was the house band at one of the world's hottest night spots, Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. That same year, an awkward sixteen-year-old girl made her singing debut at the Apollo Theatre's amateur night. Despite her timid and lackluster performance, she captivated Webb. After personally coaching the shy yet ambitious performer, Webb introduced her at the Savoy one evening as his orchestra's singer. That evening marked the beginning of Ella Fitzgerald's singing career.

Ms. Fitzgerald died on June 15 of complications associated with diabetes. She was 79 years old. Though hermetic and in poor health in recent years Ms. Fitzgerald remained an active performer until 1992.

From start to finish, Ms. Fitzgerald's life was marked both by extreme highs and lows. Orphaned in 1932 at the at the age of 15, Ms. Fitzgerald was placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, one of the few orphanages at the time that accepted Afro-American children. From there, she was transferred to the New York State Training School for Girls, a reformatory at which State investigations later revealed wide-spread physical abuse. Having escaped from the reformatory, Ms. Fitzgerald was literally living in the streets of Harlem when she was discovered by Webb. She was married twice, first at the age of 24 to a shady character by the name of Benjamin Kornegay, and then again to bass player Ray Brown at the age of 30. Both marriages ended in divorce. A diabetic for many years, the disease compromised her vision as well as her circulatory system before taking her life. In 1992, both of her legs were amputated below the knee due to diabetes related circulatory problems. As an artist, however, Ms. Fitzgerald achieved legendary success in a career that spanned six decades, yielded recordings numbering into the thousands, and earned the singer countless awards including a Kennedy Center Award for her contributions to the performing arts, honorary doctorate degrees from Dartmouth and Yale, and thirteen Grammy Awards.

Despite never having received formal vocal training, Ms. Fitzgerald's technique rivaled that of the conservatory trained lieder singer. From the very top to the very bottom of her over three-octave vocal range, Ms. Fitzgerald's voice remained uniform in its clarity and child-like timbre. Her diction was unfailingly crisp, and her intonation was absolutely flawless. Coupled with this textbook-perfect technique, Ms. Fitzgerald had an improvisational talent on par with that of the best jazz instrumentalists. Her spontaneous, often pyrotechnic scat vocalizations, in fact, were a trademark of her style.

In looking back upon Ms. Fitzgerald's rich catalog of recordings, the name of Norman Granz consistently emerges in conjunction with that of Ms. Fitzgerald's. Ms. Fitzgerald met the record producer and founder of both the Verve and Pablo jazz labels in 1949, after which the two developed a working relationship which lasted forty years. Under the direction of Norman Granz, Ms. Fitzgerald recorded her legendary "songbook" albums — a series of albums each devoted to the songs of a particular American composer. Between the years of 1956 and 1964, Ms. Fitzgerald recorded songbook albums featuring the music of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer. Collectively, these are one of Ms. Fitzgerald's crowning achievements. Granz also produced Ms. Fitzgerald's phenomenal collaborations with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, respectively entitled "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and "Ella at Duke's Place." All of these recordings are on the Verve label, and are available on CD. After founding the Pablo label, Granz recorded the four Ella Fitzgerald/Joe Pass duet albums, each of which are deservedly considered jazz classics.

Ms. Fitzgerald most memorable album was the Granz-produced recording of her 1960 Berlin performance. This Grammy-winning recording, entitled "Ella in Berlin, Mack the Knife", highlights the best of Ms. Fitzgerald's musical offerings at the apex of her artistic ability. The performance featured several standards, most notably "The Lady is A Tramp", "Misty" and "The Man I Love." Upbeat and ballad alike, Ms. Fitzgerald executed each song with an unparalleled effortlessness and finesses. While singing "Mack the Knife", a song rarely recorded by female vocalists, Ms. Fitzgerald extemporized her own humorous lyrics after the original words apparently slipped her memory part-way through the song. On "How High the Moon", Ms. Fitzgerald used "Ornithology" — Charlie Parker's classic solo based on the "How High the Moon" chord changes — as a springboard for her own improvisation, resulting in what is quite possibly the greatest scat solo ever recorded by a jazz vocalist.

As amazing as Ms. Fitzgerald's musical talents were, equally amazing is the fact that she managed not to fall through the cracks of the segregated child welfare system of the 1930's. A victim of poverty and abuse, Ms. Fitzgerald was able to transcend circumstance and develop into one of the greatest musicians that America has ever produced. Musically, professionally, and personally, Ms. Fitzgerald was one-of-a-kind, an American treasure.

As published in Good Times, July 30, 1996.
© 1996 by Michael L. Maliner. All rights reserved.