Summertime is one of the most popular numbers from
George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, what the composer called a folk opera and
what many consider his finest achievement. He was inspired to compose the work
after reading Edwin Dubose Heyward's novel Porgy in 1926. The song soon became a popular and much recorded
jazz standard, described as "without doubt... one of the finest songs the
composer ever wrote.... Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has characterized
Heyward's lyrics for "Summertime" and "My Man’s Gone Now"
as "the best lyrics in the
musical theater".
The song is recognized as one of the most
covered songs in the history of recorded music, with more than 25,000 covers by
groups and solo performers.
It was recorded for the first time by Abbie Mitchell
on 19 July 1935, with George Gershwin playing the piano and conducting the
orchestra. One year later, in September 1936, a recording by Billie Holiday was
the first to hit the US pop charts, reaching #12. Other notable recordings
include those by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in 1957, Gene Vincent and MilesDavis in 1958, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1968, Jill
Scott and George Benson.
Dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” Ella
Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for
more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold
over 40 million albums. Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and
ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument
in an orchestra. The one fault was that, since she
always sounded so happy to be singing, Fitzgerald did not always dig below the
surface of the lyrics she interpreted and she even made a downbeat song such as
"Love for Sale" sound joyous. However, when one evaluates her career
on a whole, there is simply no one else in her class. She worked with
all the jazz greats, from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to
Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman.
She performed at top venues all over the
world, and packed them to the hilt. Her audiences were as diverse as her vocal
range. They were rich and poor, made up of all races, all religions and all
nationalities. In fact, many of them had just one binding factor in common -
they all loved her.
One could never guess from her singing
that Ella Fitzgerald's early days were too grim. Growing up in poverty,
Fitzgerald was literally homeless for the year before she got her big break. In
1934, she appeared at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, winning an amateur contest
by singing "Judy" in the style of her idol, Connee Boswell. After a
short stint with Tiny Bradshaw, Fitzgerald was brought to the attention of
Chick Webb by Benny Carter (who was in the audience at the Apollo). Webb, who
was not impressed by the 17-year-old's appearance, was reluctantly persuaded to
let her sing with his orchestra on a one-nighter. She went over well and soon
the drummer recognized her commercial potential. Starting in 1935, Fitzgerald
began recording with Webb's Orchestra, and by 1937 over half of the band's
selections featured her voice. "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" became a huge hit
in 1938 and "Undecided" soon followed. During this era, Fitzgerald
was essentially a pop/swing singer who was best on ballads while her
medium-tempo performances were generally juvenile novelties. She already had a beautiful
voice but did not improvise or scat much; that would develop later.
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| Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe |
On June 16, 1939, Chick Webb died. It
was decided that Fitzgerald would front the orchestra even though she had
little to do with the repertoire or hiring or firing the musicians. She
retained her popularity and when she broke up the band in 1941 and went solo;
it was not long before her Decca recordings contained more than their share of
hits. She was teamed with the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and the Delta Rhythm
Boys for some best-sellers, and in 1946 began working regularly for Norman
Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. Granz became her manager although it would be
nearly a decade before he could get her on his label. A major change occurred
in Fitzgerald's singing around this period. She toured with Dizzy Gillespie's
big band, adopted bop as part of her style, and started including exciting
scat-filled romps in her set. Her recordings of "Lady Be Good,"
"How High the Moon," and "Flying Home" during 1945-1947
became popular and her stature as a major jazz singer rose as a result. For a
time (December 10, 1947-August 28, 1953) she was married to bassist Ray Brown
and used his trio as a backup group. Fitzgerald's series of duets with pianist
Ellis Larkins in 1950 (a 1954 encore with Larkins was a successful follow-up)
found her interpreting George Gershwin songs, predating her upcoming Songbooks
series.
After appearing in the film Pete
Kelly's Blues in 1955, Fitzgerald signed with Norman Granz's Verve label and
over the next few years she would record extensive Songbooks of the music of
Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen,
Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer. Although (with the exception of the Ellington
sets) those were not her most jazz-oriented projects (Fitzgerald stuck mostly
to the melody and was generally accompanied by string orchestras), the
prestigious projects did a great deal to uplift her stature. At the peak of her
powers around 1960, Fitzgerald's hilarious live version of "Mack the
Knife" (in which she forgot the words and made up her own) from Ella in
Berlin is a classic and virtually all of her Verve recordings are worth
getting.
Fitzgerald's Capitol and Reprise recordings of 1967-1970 are not on
the same level as she attempted to "update" her singing by including
pop songs such as "Sunny" and "I Heard It Through the
Grapevine," sounding quite silly in the process. But Fitzgerald's later
years were saved by Norman Granz's decision to form a new label, Pablo.
Starting with a Santa Monica Civic concert in 1972 that is climaxed by
Fitzgerald's incredible version of "C Jam Blues" (in which she trades
off with and "battles" five classic jazzmen), Fitzgerald was
showcased in jazz settings throughout the 1970s with the likes of Count Basie,
Oscar Peterson, and Joe Pass, among others. Her voice began to fade during this
era and by the 1980s her decline due to age was quite noticeable.
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| Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra |
Ella continued to work as hard as she had
early on in her career, despite the ill effects on her health. She toured all
over the world, sometimes performing two shows a day in cities hundreds of
miles apart. In 1974, Ella spent a legendary two weeks performing in New York
with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Still going strong five years later, she
was inducted into the Down Beat magazine Hall of Fame, and received Kennedy
Center Honors for her continuing contributions to the arts.
Troubles with her eyes and
heart knocked her out of action for periods of time, although her increasingly
rare appearances found Fitzgerald still retaining her sense of swing and joyful
style. On June 15, 1996, Ella Fitzgerald
died in her Beverly Hills home. Hours later, signs of remembrance began to
appear all over the world. A wreath of white flowers stood next to her star on
the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a marquee outside the Hollywood Bowl Theater
read, “Ella, we will miss you.”
Here is my top 10 of her songs:
1. "Summertime" (with Louis Armstrong)
2. "Cry Me A River"
3. "I Love You Porgy"
4. "Mack The Knife"
5. "Love For Sale"
6. "A Fine Romance"
7. "In A Sentimental Mood"
8. "Rock It For Me"
9. "Misty"
10. "The Man I Love"
Ella Fitzgerald Google Doodle Watch the Video here.
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