Ella Fitzgerald's Legacy

Ella Fitzgerald is the topic we will be covering. We will be covering Ella’s life, music, and her legacy. The reason we chose Fitzgerald as a topic is because she was one of the most notable singers in the 1920s, even being named the Queen of Jazz. In addition, her music appealed to us with her beautiful vocals. On April 25, 1917 in Newsport News, Virginia, Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newsport News, Virginia. She was born to William and Temperance Fitzgerald, who divorced shortly after her birth. It was not before long that Ella Fitzgerald and her mother moved to Yonkers, New York. There, they lived with her mother’s boyfriend, Joseph Da Silva. In 1923, her half-sister Frances was born. The family was not as well off as they’d hope, but to
After some time, Ella took over the band, renaming it Ella and her Famous Orchestra, trying to keep it together. Within the band, she showed excellent leadership skills at the age of 22. Together, the band released over 187 tracks. However, a majority of those tracks were passed off as novelties more than anything else. The band went on for three more years until Ella Fitzgerald decided to pursue a solo career. Her following grew when she began an association with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic.
Fitzgerald was very musically talented. She was capable of singing in many different styles of music. Ella Fitzgerald was able to sing pop, jazz, bossa nova, blues, and even opera. However, with the legacy she left behind, many knew she favored Jazz. She also was a master of mimicking vocalists and instrumentalists alike with her musical ability coming at ease.
Ella was greatly influenced by the music stylings of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, called be-bop. She later would use it in her songs in a be-bop method called scat. She first started to use scat during recording her song “Mac the Knife” because she forgot the lyrics. Fitzgerald was not one to prepare thoroughly when recording music, in fact she had a habit of leaving it to the last minute. Luckily, Mac the Knife became a huge hit among music listeners. Along with knowing how to scat, Fitzgerald had an amazing vocal range spanning
She won many awards. The first Grammy Awards show, in 1958, included her winning two Grammy’s. This event would make her the first African-American women to win the award. She won these two awards for best individual jazz performance and and best female vocal performance. By the end of her career she won thirteen Grammy’s. Some of her other musical accomplishments were having A-Tisket, A-Tasket entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame, receiving the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts’ Medal of Honor award, receiving the Pied Piper Award and the National Medal of Art, and many more awards throughout her