I Get A Kick Out Of You by DrsWoodard

DrsWoodard - I Get A Kick Out Of You

DrsWoodard

Aug 23, 2023 10:47am

<h1>Ella Fitzgerald</h1>QUEEN OF JAZZ<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ella_Fitzgerald_1962.JPG" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Ella_Fitzgerald_1962.JPG/220px-Ella_Fitzgerald_1962.JPG" height="276" width="220"></a> Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">jazz</a> singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diction" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">diction</a>, phrasing, timing, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intonation_(music)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">intonation</a>, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scat_singing" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">scat singing</a>.After a tumultuous adolescence, Fitzgerald found stability in musical success with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Webb" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Chick Webb</a> Orchestra, performing across the country but most often associated with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoy_Ballroom" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Savoy Ballroom</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Harlem</a>. Her rendition of the nursery rhyme "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Tisket,_A-Tasket" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">A-Tisket, A-Tasket</a>" helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. After taking over the band when Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start her solo career. Her manager was Moe Gale, co-founder of the Savoy,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald#cite_note-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">[1]</a> until she turned the rest of her career over to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Granz" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Norman Granz</a>, who founded <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verve_Records" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Verve Records</a> to produce new records by Fitzgerald. With Verve she recorded some of her more widely noted works, particularly her interpretations of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Songbook" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Great American Songbook</a>.While Fitzgerald appeared in films and as a guest on popular television shows in the second half of the twentieth century, her musical collaborations with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Louis Armstrong</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Duke Ellington</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ink_Spots" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">The Ink Spots</a> were some of her most notable acts outside her solo career. These partnerships produced some of her best-known songs such as "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_a_Little_Dream_of_Me" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Dream a Little Dream of Me</a>", "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheek_to_Cheek" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Cheek to Cheek</a>", "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Each_Life_Some_Rain_Must_Fall" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall</a>", and "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Don%27t_Mean_a_Thing_(If_It_Ain%27t_Got_That_Swing)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)</a>". In 1993, after a career of nearly sixty years, she gave her last public performance. Three years later, she died at age 79 after years of declining health. Her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_received_by_Ella_Fitzgerald" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">accolades</a> included 14 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Awards" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Grammy Awards</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Medal_of_Arts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">National Medal of Arts</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">NAACP</a>'s inaugural <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_Image_Award_%E2%80%93_President%27s_Award" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">President's Award</a>, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Presidential Medal of Freedom</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald_Sings_the_Cole_Porter_Song_Book" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book</a>, released in 1956, was the first of eight Song Book sets Fitzgerald would record for Verve at irregular intervals from 1956 to 1964. The composers and lyricists spotlighted on each set, taken together, represent the greatest part of the cultural canon known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Songbook" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Great American Songbook</a>. Her song selections ranged from standards to rarities and represented an attempt by Fitzgerald to cross over into a non-jazz audience. The sets are the most well-known items in her discography.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ella_Fitzgerald_1968.jpg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Ella_Fitzgerald_1968.jpg/170px-Ella_Fitzgerald_1968.jpg" height="200" width="170"></a>Fitzgerald in 1968, courtesy of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_MacPherson" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Fraser MacPherson</a> estate<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald_Sings_the_Duke_Ellington_Song_Book" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book</a> was the only Song Book on which the composer she interpreted played with her. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Duke Ellington</a> and his longtime collaborator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Strayhorn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Billy Strayhorn</a> both appeared on exactly half the set's 38 tracks and wrote two new pieces of music for the album: "The E and D Blues" and a four-movement musical portrait of Fitzgerald. The Song Book series ended up becoming the singer's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work, and probably her most significant offering to American culture. The New York Times wrote in 1996, "These albums were among the first pop records to devote such serious attention to individual songwriters, and they were instrumental in establishing the pop album as a vehicle for serious musical exploration."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald#cite_note-nyobit-9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">[9]</a>Days after Fitzgerald's death, The New York Times columnist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Rich" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Frank Rich</a> wrote that in the Song Book series Fitzgerald "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Elvis</a>' contemporaneous integration of white and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">African-American</a> soul. Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald#cite_note-rich-12" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">[12]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Frank Sinatra</a>, out of respect for Fitzgerald, prohibited <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Capitol Records</a> from re-releasing his own recordings in separate albums for individual composers in the same way.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">citation needed</a>]Fitzgerald also recorded albums exclusively devoted to the songs of Porter and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gershwin" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Gershwin</a> in 1972 and 1983; the albums being, respectively, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Loves_Cole" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Ella Loves Cole</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_Work_If_You_Can_Get_It_(album)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204);">Nice Work If You Can Get It</a>.