Fitzgerald, Ella

views updated

Fitzgerald, Ella (1917–96) US jazz singer. Chick Webb discovered the ‘First Lady of Song’ at Harlem's Apollo Theatre in 1934. Ella's first hit was “A-Tisket A-Tasket” (1938). Her Songbook series of renditions of popular ‘standards’ by George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter have become definitive. She worked with most of the jazz greats of her era, including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong.

More From encyclopedia.com