Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Singer

Ella Fitzgerald is among the finest female singers in the history of jazz music. She was the first female singer to make use of scat singing, a wordless form of vocalization that Louis Armstrong had introduced with his Hot Five recordings in the twenties.

Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1918. She got her first big break when a friend recommended her to New York bandleader Chick Webb. Webb was reluctant to hire Fitzgerald due to her appearance, which he considered homely. However, he relented and hired her, and Fitzgerald became a big hit in the role of vocalist. She recorded her first single, “Love and Kisses,” with Webb in 1935. Several more singles followed until she scored a massive hit with the song “A Tisket, A Tasket” in 1938 with the Webb Orchestra. That song would turn her into a star.

After Webb’s death in 1939, his band was renamed “Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra,” with Ella taking the role of bandleader until the band finally broke up in 1942.

In the Fifties, Fitzgerald started to record her own full-length solo albums, among them several classics that are highly recommended, such as “Ella Sings Gershwin” (1950), “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook" (1956), “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rogers and Hart Songbook” (1956), “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook” (1958), and "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook” (1959).

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