As I've said before, we never sleep here at BSH, so Saturday night
found me watching TV from 9.30pm until midnight, on BSH duty. More of midnight
later. The Ella Fitzgerald offering gave us an interesting account of Ella's
life and career, aided by observations from the likes of Smokey Robinson,
Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Jamie Cullum, Laura Mvulu and also Ella's friend
Norma Miller, and her adopted son Ray Brown Jnr. There were of course examples
of her music and the atmospheric black and white cuts showing the singer
performing were especially evocative.
Ella's achievements
are truly amazing! Coming from an unpromising background to international star
who earned 13 Grammy awards and who was loved even by those outside of the jazz
world.
Her mother died
when Ella was only 13 years old, and she ended up in reform school in Harlem in
1933, where she misbehaved. She left there and from that time she knew she'd
have to earn a living somehow.
She wanted to be a
dancer so she went for an audition at the Apollo. She was too nervous to dance
so she sang instead, and was judged to be the best performer of the night. She
joined the Chick Webb orchestra as a singer and he became a sort of father
figure. She performed with success all over the USA and on radio and had her first
hit record in 1936. She did many novelty songs with Webb, including the famous A-Tisket
A-Tasket. She said 'it's where you're going that counts' and she refused to
be held back by being overweight. Her singing was influenced by musical
theatre, blues and of course, the Gasbook .We saw clips of her at the Cotton
Club, singing to an all-white audience.
She took over
Webb's orchestra when he died, but it was disbanded when the USA entered WW2.
Then the bebop revolution came along, which she embraced with more success,
singing with Dizzy Gillespie. She married bebop bass player Ray Brown and they
adopted a son. We heard part of her amazing 5-minute scat How High The Moon which
included references to about 40 other pieces of music, including folk and
classical works. She certainly knew her music.
She was divorced in 1953 and also acquired a
new manager, Norman Granz, which was the real beginning of her international
career. She made albums of Gasbook songs with orchestral accompaniment
including strings. She still suffered from the prejudice against black
performers in the southern states of the USA. She enjoyed time at home with her
son but never remarried, she seemed to be wedded to her performing. Her son
became a musician in the 1970's.
Ella had sung for
more than 60 years by the time she died of heart failure on June 15, 1996, so
the anniversary of her death occurs shortly. She had by then set up a
foundation to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds to succeed in life.
The song clips we
saw included Sweet Georgia Brown; Crazy Rhythm; Take the A Train; Just One
Of Those Things; Love For Sale; The Man I Love; Summertime and also the
classic clip of Mack The Knife when Ella forgot the lyrics and simply
sang her way out of trouble by singing about forgetting words and making
personal references.
Then came the icing
on the cake, the next programme – reviewed by Russell - was a selection of Jazz
Divas Gold, which included songs by Peggy Lee, Cleo Laine, Annie Ross (God
Bless The Child), Eartha Kitt, Nina Simone and of course Ella. The item I
enjoyed most was a flirtatious performance by Marion Montgomery with Dudley
Moore at the piano. Oddly I can't remember the actual song as I was so
entranced by the underappreciated playing of Moore. There was also, almost an onscreen seduction when Eartha Kitt sang
Let’s Do It!
What you could call
a great night's viewing.
Ann Alex
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