Ella Fitzgerald Analysis

1083 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Biography of Ella Jane Fitzgerald Ella Fitz

Information about Ella Fitzgerald prior to her singing career remains quite ambiguous. There are no written autobiographies, memoirs and not much evidence of her childhood written down. Unlike Louis Armstrong, she did not want to make her past known to her public because she was ashamed by of the poverty and struggle she faced before her fame. Only interviews with childhood friends, family and of musicians who knew her off the stage are what are left to help reveal a more in depth look into her life. Known mostly by her stage names, “Lady Ella”, “The Queen of Jazz”, and “The First Lady of Song”; Ella Jane Fitzgerald, born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25th 1917 was renowned for her improvisational ability in her scat singing. She never …show more content…

The documentary is narrated by Tony Bennett and includes footage of Ella Fitzgerald singing in concerts all over the world and live interview recordings of her and of her close friends and family. Her whole family moved up to Yonkers, New York along with thousands of other disadvantaged black families that moved north during the Great Migration. Hoping to move into better employment and housing, only to find that this wasn’t the case. Her father left Ella and her mother, Temperance Fitzgerald, during the first years of her life but Mrs. Fitzgerald quickly moved on and found herself a new man, Joseph Da Silva, a Portuguese immigrant. Her mother died early in 1932, leaving Ella with her stepfather who she seemed to have adjusted to. Later in life, Ella Fitzgerald never spoke about her stepfather and friends of her say this was because she was sexually abused as a child after her mother …show more content…

During this time her mother passed away and she started living with her aunt due to the abuse from her stepfather. Forced to live on the streets at times, she would try to listen to the radio every chance she got and would sneak into movie theaters to absorb the popular music of the day. Listening to singers such as Louis Armstrong, Conne Boswell, and Bing Crosby. She continued to dance with her friends for pennies and would enter multiple amateur contests in Harlem on a

Show More
Related

  • Ethel Waters

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1896. She had a hard life in which she faced rejection from her mother and poverty. Waters' love of singing began as a child when she sang in church choirs but her childhood was cut short when at thirteen she married an abusive man, dropped out of sixth grade, and was divorced a year later. Shortly thereafter, she began working as a maid until two vaudeville producers discovered her while she was singing in a talent contest in 1917. She toured with vaudeville shows, and was billed as "Sweet Mama Stringbean" because of her height and thinness. In 1919, she left the vaudeville circuit and performed in Harlem nightclubs. Two years later she became one of the first black singers to cut a record on the Black Swan Record label with her release of "Down Home Blues" and "Oh, Daddy".

    Read More

  • Analysis: The Eye On The Sparrow

    1536 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ethel Waters overcame a very tough childhood to become one of the most well known African American entertainers of her time. Her story, The Eye on the Sparrow, goes into great detail about her life and how she evolved from taking care of addicts to becoming the star of her own show. Ethel was born by her mother being raped at a young age. Her father, John Waters, was a pianist who played no role in Ethel’s life. She was raised in poverty and it was rare for her to live in the same place for over a year. Ethel never fit in with the rest of the crowd; she was a big girl, about five nine when she was a teenager, and was exposed to mature things early in her life. This is what helped shape Ethel to be the strong, independent woman she is.

    Read More

  • Ella Fitzgerald Research Paper

    642 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ella was born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25, 1917. When alled “The First Lady of Song” by some fans. She was known for having beautiful tone, extended range, and great intonation, and famous for her improvisational scat singing. Ella sang during the her most famous song was “A-tiscket A-tasket”. Fitzgerald sang in the period of swing, ballads, and bebop; she made some great albums with other great jazz artists such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong. She influenced countless American popular singers of the post-swing period and also international performers such as the singer Miriam Makeba. She didn’t really write any of her own songs. Instead she sang songs by other people in a new and great way. The main exception

    Read More

  • Biography: The Life of Josephine Baker

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lewis, Jone J. "Josephine Baker." About.com Women's History. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2013. .

    Read More

  • Civil Rights, Equality and the Music of Nina Simone

    2383 Words  | 5 Pages

    Her family ties to the south, her unique talent, her ability to travel and make money are similar to the Blues women movement that preceded her. It can be said that Nina Simone goes a step further the by directly attacking inequities pertaining to race and gender in her music. However, what distinguishes her is her unique musicianship and that is what ultimately garners her massive exposure and experiences than those of her past contemporaries. Like the Blues women Simone expands ideas pertaining to self-expression, identity and beauty as they relate to black women. She does this by embracing what is definitively African American and connecting that to a historical context. By doing so she is the embodiment of a political statement. Her journey which began like many entertaine...

    Read More

  • Aretha Franklin's Success At A Young Age

    1189 Words  | 3 Pages

    Aretha Franklin is a well known pop, R&B, and gospel singer. She has been nicknamed “The Queen of Soul” and is an internationally known artist and a symbol of pride in the African American community. Her popularity soared in 1967 when she released an album containing songs “I Never Loved a Man”, “Respect”, and “Baby I Love You.” Throughout her career she has achieved fifteen Grammy Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Legend Awards, and many Grammy Hall of Fame Awards. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Time magazine chose her as one of the most influential artists and entertainers of the 20th century. She sang at Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral and at former President Bill Clinton’s inaugural party. Although she has all these accomplishments and awards there are other reasons that have driven Franklin to fame and landed her on the front cover of Time magazine on June 28, 1968. The reasons I believe allowed Aretha Franklin to become so successful are the following: Her family’s involvement with religion, the inspiring people that surrounded her, and the pain she suffered.

    Read More

  • Jen Lopez

    828 Words  | 2 Pages

    Her parents who at that time could not understand the choices she made are very happy for their daughter and what she has accomplish. When she left her home at the middle of a fight and never went back. She said,” I had to make my own way” and then lived in a Manhattan dance studio where she was training. Then she got an apartment with some friends in Manhattan Hell’s Kitchen. Since the time she move out of her home she started her showbiz career as a dancer in stage musicals and most notably in her tour to Golden musicals of Broadway and in a Japanese tour. Then she audition to be a fly girl in Fox’s hit comedy “In living Colors,” she beat out 2,000 other contenders in a nation wide competition. Then she cracked into Hollywood and she wanted to make a transition to acting, but she followed Color producer Keenan Ivory Wayans advice to stay with the show for a while before making any attempt to move on.

    Read More

  • The legendary Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fitzgerald was born on September 28th 1896 into an upper middle class family living in Saint Paul Minnesota. His mother and father Mollie and Edward Fitzgerald named him after his second cousin three times removed Francis Scott Key the author of the star spangled banner. His mother previously had two children Mary and Louise who unfortunately passed away before he was born from illnesses at the ages of one and three. Mollie Fitzgerald became pregnant once more after that but lost the baby an hour after birth. However in 1901 Scott’s Sister Annabel was born completing the family.

    Read More

  • Ella Baker

    1430 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ella Josephine Baker was born in Virginia, and at the age of seven Ella Baker moved with her family to Littleton, South Carolina, where they settled on her grandparent's farmland her grandparents had worked as slaves. Ella Baker's early life was steeped in Southern black culture. Her most vivid childhood memories were of the strong traditions of self-help, mutual cooperation, and sharing of economic resources that encompassed her entire community. Because there was no local secondary school, in 1918, when Ella was fifteen years old, her parents sent her to Shaw boarding school in Raleigh, the high school academy of Shaw University. Ella excelled academically at Shaw, graduating as valedictorian of her college class from Shaw University in Raleigh in 1927.

    Read More

  • Biography of Whitney Houston

    1363 Words  | 3 Pages

    Whitney Houston is considered one of the greatest singers of our generation. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, she holds the record of being the most rewarded female artist of all time. I chose her as my topic, because she represents resiliency and tenacity, despite her troubled experiences with drugs and her personal life. Whitney Houston comes from a family with an amazing, musical pedigree; her mother, Cissy Houston, was a successful back-up singer for Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley. Dionne Warwick is her first cousin, and Aretha Franklin is her godmother.

    Read More

  • Lena Horne

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1924 she went back to live with her mother, traveling and being schooled all over the state until she was fourteen. At the age of fourteen she decided to drop out of school and go to work. Because she was talented and light skinned it was not hard for her to find a job. She became a chorus girl in Harlem’s Cotton Club where blacks entertained a strictly all white crowd. At that time she was making about $25 a week. It was here that Lena got to meet and observe now famous artists such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Ethal Waters, and Billie Holiday.

    Read More

  • How Did Josephine Baker Overcome Discrimination

    1324 Words  | 3 Pages

    Josephine Baker Josephine Baker was an African American woman who had to overcome discrimination and abuse in achieving her dream of becoming a singer and dancer. She did this during the 1920s, when African Americans faced great discrimination. She had a hard childhood. Her personal life was not easy to handle. Furthermore, she overcame poverty and racism to achieve her career dream.

    Read More

  • Billie Holiday Comparison

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday were both prominent jazz singer-songwriters during the same time and masters in their own right, but their worlds could not have been further apart. In 1939, while they were both in the midst of experiencing mainstream success, Ella was touring with Ella and her Famous Orchestra and showcasing her perfect pitch and tone to the world while singing songs that would soon become standards to fellow singers and musicians. Billie was singing solo, comfortable with her limited range, and gaining the adoration of audiences nationwide who loved her soulful voice. Both of these historic singers made contributions to the art of jazz, with vocalists and instrumentalists still using elements of their style today. Ella

    Read More

  • The Many Faces of Billie Holiday

    400 Words  | 1 Pages

    The movie Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday paints an interesting, and thought provoking portrait of one of jazz and blues most charismatic, and influential artists. The incomparable talent of Billie Holiday, both truth and legend are immortalized in this one-hour documentary film. The film follows Holiday, also referred to as “Lady Day” or “Lady”, through the many triumphs and trials of her career, and does it’s very best to separate the facts from fiction. Her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues is used as a rough guide of how she desired her life story to be viewed by her public. Those who knew her, worked with her, and loved her paint a different picture than this popular, and mostly fictional autobiography.

    Read More

  • Bessie Smith

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    Known as the “Empress Of Blues”, Bessie Smith was said to have revolutionized the vocal end of Blues Music. She showed a lot of pride as an independent African-American woman. Her style in performance and lyrics often reflected her lifestyle. Bessie Smith was one of the first female jazz artists, and she paved the way for many musicians who followed.

    Read More

More about Ella Fitzgerald Analysis

Open Document