Randolph Magri-Overend

JAZZ LEGENDS : ELLA FITZGERALD

Ella Fitzgerald was not the only black person to suffer racism and discrimination.  In 1946 Ella, whose contract with the Decca Recording Company had just expired, started touring with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic.  Granz became her mentor and guide with Ella signing up for his Verve label and launching a series of recordings would secured her place in musical history.

The members of JATP entourage became highly protective of Ella, especially Granz.  On one occasion, in a series of performances in Houston Texas, Granz had advised patrons that the concert would not be segregated.  On the first of the concerts Granz noticed three men in business suits standing backstage. They advised him they were off-duty police detectives who wanted to listen to the music.  Oscar Peterson was on stage and Gene Krupa, Illinois Jacquet and Dizzy Gillespie were in Ella’s dressing room playing a one-dollar game of craps. The detectives entered the room and arrested them for gambling.  When Granz entered the room he too was arrested for running a gambling game. Noticing that one of the cops had entered Ella’s bathroom and becoming fearful that the cop was about to plant narcotics, Granz followed him.  The cop threatened him with “What are you doing?” “Watching you!” Granz replied. The cop pulled out a gun “I ought to kill you,” he said. 

Granz, Dizzy, Jacquet, Krupa  and Ella were taken to a court house and charged with gambling.  But Granz discovered after the event that newspaper photographers had been warned in advance to attend the concert.  Granz posted the $50 bail saying that “they’d set us up to smear us.” Noticing Ella’s embarrassment, Granz decided to fight the levy and won.  He spent $2000 to get the $50 back.

There were other incidents of racial abuse.  In 1954, after they had boarded a Pan-Am flight in Honolulu bound for a concert tour of Australia, the four members of the Fitzgerald entourage were ordered to leave the aircraft (they all had first-class seats) after they had already boarded. They were refused permission to re-board.  As a result the flight left without them and they were left stranded in Honolulu for three days without any baggage or clothing before they could get another flight to Sydney. Two concerts had to be cancelled and although Pan-Am refused to acknowledge that what had happened was an act of racism, Granz took them to court and later it was confirmed that they all received a ‘nice settlement’.

The reasons why her entourage felt protective of Ella was her shyness.  She was extremely shy as a young girl and that shyness never outgrew her.  Born of humble beginnings in Newport Mews, Va., on April 1917, Ella lived most of her childhood in Yonkers, NY.  Her mother lived in a common-law relationship but Ella’s father died shortly after the move and her mother took up a relationship with a Portuguese man, Joseph Da Silva.  Ella helped with finances by working as a messenger and as a lookout for a bordello. Dancing was all the craze then, the swing bands were in their element and except for the occasional addition of a singer, the dance craze lasted till the war years.  Ella was caught up in the craze and she entered an amateur contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre. She was a great fan of Connee Boswell and when, on the night, she froze on being ushered on stage she was urged to sing instead. She chose the only two of Connee’s songs she knew ‘Judy’ and ‘The Object of My Affection’ and won the $25 first prize.

The Apollo performance led her to join the jazz group led by drummer Chick Webb and Ella soon found herself singing at one of Harlem’s top spots, The Savoy.  In 1938 she recorded her first number one hit ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket’ which she also co-wrote. Following Webb’s death in 1939, Ella took over the band. But soon, in the early 1940s she went solo and signed a contract with Decca Records. It wasn’t until Norman Granz came onto the scene and started working with her that Ella started seeing artistic results. Known as the ‘First Lady of Song’ she began recording for the new Granz label, Verve.  She was allowed more freedom in selecting her repertoire and came out with the 1956 hit series ‘Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook’ and this was followed by the ‘Duke Ellington Song Book’ (working hand in hand with Ellington), the ‘Irving Berlin Song Book’ and the ‘George and Ira Gershwin Song Book’. 

She picked up her first Grammy Awards in 1958 plus became the first African-American woman to win the best individual jazz performance award.  The ‘songbooks’ were mostly arranged by Nelson Riddle (the arranger/conductor who resurrected Frank Sinatra’s career), Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington and soon became popular with jazz and non-jazz listeners as highly musical interpretations of their genre.  ‘Mack the Knife’ saw Ella break into the pop-charts again in 1960 and she was highly successful playing concerts all around the world. In 1974 she was involved with a memorable two-week engagement in New York with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. ‘Ella in Berlin’ continues to be one of Ella’s best-selling albums and it includes ‘Mack the Knife’ when she forgot the lyrics  but then improvises admirably.

Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1963 and in 1967 MGM failed to renew Ella’s contract and she began recording for a variety of labels including Atlantic, Capitol and Reprise.  Her repertoire changed drastically from her previous jazz interpretations. She recorded a Christmas album and a country and western inspired album. In 1972 the ‘Jazz at Santa Monica Civic ‘72’ album prompted Granz to found Pablo Records and Ella recorded 20 or so albums for the label.

But age was beginning to take its toll and one biographer wrote that “She frequently used shorter, stabbing phrases, and her voice was harder with a wider vibrato.”  Ella made her last recoding in 1991 and the last public appearance was in 1993. Besides heart surgery in 1986, Ella started suffering from arthritis in both sets of fingers which forced her to constantly switch hands when holding a microphone.  She also suffered from acute diabetes and the disease led to blindness and to both legs being amputated in 1994.

Ella Fitzgerald died at her home in Beverly Hills on 15 June 1996.  She was 79. Her legacy included more than 200 albums and about 2,000 songs with more than 40 million record sales.  

On 24 April 1997 the Ella Fitzgerald Collection was officially donated to the Smithsonian Library.  The collection consists of Ella’s entire music library and also contains 10,000 pages of scores and items such as photographs and videos.

Frank Sinatra, out of respect for Ella after she died, prohibited Capitol Records from re-releasing his own recordings in separate albums for individual composers. Mel Torme called her ‘the High Priestess of Song’, Pearly Bailey called her ‘the Greatest Singer of Them All’, Bing Crosby once said ‘Man, Woman or Child, Ella is the greatest of them all.’  

High praise.  Who are we to argue?                     

Published by Randolph Magri-Overend

One of the questions Randolph hates to answer is “Where do you come from?” Why? Because the answer can be so time-consuming and, in a way, also gives away how old he is!! Plus the questioner has to wrestle with the wish he hadn’t asked the question!! He was born in Cairo, Egypt, many moons ago of British parents although he can trace Maltese and Croatian ancestry in his lineage. Educated in a Jesuit college in London his wander lust for things unorthodox drove him to embark on a seafaring career with both Canadian Pacific Steamships and Shaw Savill. That in itself dates him because both lines have been redundant for many a year. One of his boasts is that he was the Purser on the “Gothic” which ten years previously had been Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal Yacht soon after her coronation in 1953. One of the objects imported on the ship by HM and left behind was a tape player which Randolph utilised on many a memorable Sunday evening with a classical concert for his passengers. Thus began a journey that not only awakened Randolph’s love for good music but also eventually led to his extensive knowledge of music in all forms. That he loves the era of Sinatra, Crosby, Armstrong, Dorsey (both) and many many more exponents of the post-war music scene is also part and parcel of his appreciation of the music of many an era. These days Randolph is retired but still reviews CDs and DVDs and has written articles on such diverse personalities as Yvonne Kenny, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Alexander Briger, the late Sir John Tavener, Sir James Galway, Dawn Upshaw and countless probes into the music of Gustav Mahler, Elizabeth Shwarzkopf and her husband Walter Legge, Glenn Gould, Leonard Bernstein and many many more he regrets to admit he has lost track of! Before emigrating to Australia, Randolph spent a number of years as a Flight Dispatcher in Canada. Since arriving in Australia, Randolph has written for The Weekend Australian (especially in their travel pages), The Sydney Morning Herald, Opera Opera and Fine Music magazine as well as some jazz magazines. If you require an extensive coverage of your music to a public that, at last count, reaches the best part of 818,000 please contact David Kary on editor.sydneyartsguide@gmail.com or email me directly on ibmar@bigpond.com. This also includes advertising any forthcoming shows by promoting featured artists. Cheers and thank you.