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00:00Women who change the world.
00:30I sing with my eyes closed, and my whole mind is concentrated on what I want to do.
00:36Any little noise can thrill me.
00:38Ella Fitzgerald.
00:40On April 25, 1917, jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia.
00:47Ella lived with her mother until she died when Ella was 15, and Ella's aunt took her in.
00:53Ella had a troubled childhood, but was determined to turn her life around and become a dancer.
00:57She was a jazz enthusiast from a very young age.
01:01She was a fan of Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby, and truly idolized Connie Boswell of the Boswell sisters.
01:08It was the beginning of one of the most celebrated careers in music history.
01:12In 1934, Ella Fitzgerald appeared at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
01:17A 16-year-old Ella Fitzgerald stepped on stage, but was too intimidated to dance.
01:22Instead, she sang Judy in the style of her idol Connie Boswell, silenced the awestruck crowd, and won first prize, winning an amateur contest.
01:33Chick Webb, who was in the audience at the Apollo, let her sing with his orchestra on a one-nighter.
01:38Starting in 1935, Fitzgerald began recording with Webb's orchestra, and by 1937, over half of the band's selections featured her voice.
01:48A Tisket, a Tasket, became a huge hit in 1938, and Undecided soon followed.
01:54Performing frequently on the radio, as well as in clubs, Ella soon earned the respect of public and band members alike,
02:01ranking number one female vocalist in downbeat and Melody Maker readers' polls, ahead of Billie Holiday.
02:07In 1937, Ella and the band took part in Battles of the Band at the legendary Savoy Ballroom.
02:14In a contest against the Count Basie Band and Billie Holiday, Ella beat her rival.
02:20Within three short years, at 21 years of age, Ella Fitzgerald had become the most popular female vocalist in America,
02:27known as the First Lady of Swing.
02:29During this era, Fitzgerald already had a beautiful voice, but did not improvise or scat much.
02:35That would develop later.
02:37Ella Fitzgerald was not so much happy in love.
02:39Her first marriage in 1941 to Harlem hustler Ben Cornegay was quickly annulled at the advice of her agent and concerned friends.
02:47In later years, she denied having been married to Cornegay.
02:50In 1942, shortly after Ella's film debut, she married bass player Ray Brown, and they adopted a child, Raymond Matthew Brown Jr.
02:59He was in fact her nephew, the child of her younger half-sister, Frances Da Silva.
03:03Ella's natural gift was her ability to make her voice sound like instruments from her band while she was singing, which is called scat singing.
03:11In the mid-1940s, when Ella began recording under Milt Gabler for Decca,
03:16her 1945 recording of Flying Home showed Ella Fitzgerald pushing in a new direction,
03:22extending the boundaries of jazz singing toward bebop, using scat singing for its musical potential.
03:27In the mid-1950s, Ella was signed by Verve Records and began recording the albums that would become her most popular hits.
03:36The very first Grammy Awards were held in 1959.
03:39That night, she won two Grammys and made history by becoming the first African-American female to win the award.
03:47Fitzgerald found a place among the growing jazz innovators,
03:50making recordings with such greats as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong.
03:55By the 1970s, she was performing with the trio headed by pianist Tommy Flanagan,
04:00and regularly with dozens of different symphony orchestras.
04:04Ella Fitzgerald was called the First Lady of Song.
04:07Quite apart from the quality of her voice, there was a warmth and intelligence behind it
04:12that gave even melancholy songs a plausible tilt toward optimism.
04:15She was the last of four great female jazz singers, including Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, and Carmen McRae,
04:22who defined one of the most prolific eras in jazz vocal style.
04:26With an output of more than 200 albums, she was at her sophisticated best with the songs of Richard Rogers and Laurence Hart,
04:33of George Gershwin, and of Cole Porter.
04:36Her 13 Grammy Awards are more than any other jazz performer,
04:39and she won the Best Female Vocalist Award three years in a row,
04:44completely at home with up-tempo songs.
04:46Her scat singe placed her jazz vocals with the finest jazz instrumentalists,
04:50and it was this magnificent voice that she brought to her film appearances.
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