She met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb there. In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. She sang Boswell's "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection," a song recorded by the Boswell Sisters, and won the first prize of US$25.00. She had originally intended to go on stage and dance, but, intimidated by the Edwards Sisters, a local dance duo, she opted to sing instead in the style of Connee Boswell. She pulled in a weekly audience at the Apollo and won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of its famous "Amateur Nights". She made her singing debut at 17 on November 21, 1934, at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. Eventually she escaped and for a time she was homeless. However, when the orphanage proved too crowded, she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, a state reformatory. When the authorities caught up with her, she was first placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, Bronx. Abused by her stepfather, she ran away to her aunt and, at one point, worked as a lookout at a bordello and also with a Mafia-affiliated numbers runner. Following this trauma, Fitzgerald's grades dropped dramatically, and she frequently skipped school. In 1932, her mother died from a heart attack. She idolized the lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, "My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it.I tried so hard to sound just like her." ![]() In her youth, Fitzgerald wanted to be a dancer, although she loved listening to jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and The Boswell Sisters. The church would have provided Fitzgerald with her earliest experiences in formal music making, and she may have also had piano lessons during this period if her mother could afford it. Fitzgerald and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday school. At the age of six, Fitzgerald began her formal education, and moved through a variety of schools before attending Benjamin Franklin Junior High School from 1929.įitzgerald had been passionate about dancing from third grade, being a fan of Earl "Snakehips" Tucker in particular, and would perform for her peers on the way to school and at lunchtime. ![]() By 1925, Fitzgerald and her family had moved to nearby School Street, then a predominantly poor Italian area. Initially living in a single room, her mother and Da Silva soon found jobs and Ella's half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923. With her mother's new partner, a Portuguese immigrant named Joseph Da Silva, Ella and her mother moved to the city of Yonkers, in Westchester County, New York, as part of the first Great Migration of African Americans. ![]() ![]() Her parents were unmarried, and they had separated within a year of her birth. Over the course of her 60-year recording career, she sold 40 million copies of her 70-plus albums, won 14 Grammy Awards and received during her career many other major awards and honors.įitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, the daughter of William Fitzgerald and Temperance "Tempie" Fitzgerald. Often referred to as the "First Lady of Song" and the "Queen of Jazz" or just simply "Lady Ella", she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.įitzgerald was a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook. Ella Jane Fitzgerald (Ap– June 15, 1996) was an American jazz voc… Read Full Bio Ella Jane Fitzgerald (Ap– June 15, 1996) was an American jazz vocalist with a vocal range spanning three octaves (D♭3 to D♭6).
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