Analyzing Ella: The “First Lady of Song” gets a first-rate biography

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song (W.W. Norton & Company)

By Judith Tick

Judith Tick’s new biography of vocal artist Ella Fitzgerald is the finest to date.

One of the clearest signs of how much I enjoy a book is the number of “dog ears” or folded triangles I make on the pages. Throughout my reading of veteran musicologist Judith Tick's new biography Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song, I found myself constantly dog earring pages that unearthed new or interesting information regarding Fitzgerald’s life, personal background, or musical choices, as well as marking recordings and television programs and concerts new to me. Even though I have accumulated a pretty sizable collection of her recordings on CDs and digital services over the years the reality is that the digital age has made it easier to access an even wider array of Ella related material. This includes recordings as well as filmed concert performances. Such incessant marking of pages speaks to the wealth of riches Tick examined in her research process.

Journalists who write biographies commonly interview acquaintances of their subjects and quote materials from various secondary sources. This is certainly the dominant approach of previous biographies. Several portend to tell the story of Ella Fitzgerald's life and career, the best being Stuart Nicholson's originally published in 1994 (updated in 2004), but Tick’s is the first rigorous academic analysis though its written for a trade press. Beyond the chronology, anecdotes, and factoids common to biographies, she repeatedly places Fitzgerald’s life and art in the broader cultural universe including the transition of popular music from a publisher’s industry to a recording based one, its synergistic relationships to Broadway, film, and television, and the isolated nature of Black life during segregation and after its legal dissolution. During a time when Black artists constantly fought to be included in so-called “mainstream” popular culture Fitzgerald was more than a talented singer; she was a symbol of Black creative achievement and a social ambassador who saw music as a way to connect a divided world. Her performances during fundraisers for progressive causes throughout her career, and her unity-focused stage patter before American and European audiences, especially during the 1960s, reflect a mission beyond just singing notes correctly.

Fitzgerald croons as dizzy Gillespie, bassist Ray Brown, and onlookers listen in circa 1947.

Tick’s study distinguishes itself by including a wider range of interviewees, including Fitzgerald’s childhood neighbors and friends, considering a broad range of sources and lenses, and making easier for the reader to see the scope of Fitzgerald’s work. She was a musician, an ambassador, and an experimenter of form and genre with an unusual skill for reshaping songs and finding possibilities, especially in front of an audience. Beginning her career as a featured vocalist with the Chick Webb Orchestra in 1936 and recording her last vocals on 1990’s All That Jazz album, few vocalists remained active from the swing era through rock ‘n’ roll, acid rock, singer-songwriter pop and hip-hop.  In many ways her versatility and ever expansive repertoire, which included everything from 1938’s Fitzgerald original composition “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” to Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” created an archetype for future eclectics like Dinah Washington, Ray Charles, Linda Ronstadt, and Maria Muldaur. These attributes combined with her ambassadorship make her a remarkable subject for academic study.

In addition to synthesizing journalistic accounts, quoting direct interviews with musicians, family members, and staff members of Fitzgerald, Tick’s analysis includes succinct analyses of various recordings and videos. The result is a genuinely academic reflection on Ella Fitzgerald's career, the multiple directions jazz has taken as a genre, and the dynamics of the popular music industry and tandem industries. After completing Becoming I felt more interested in revisiting some of Fitzgerald's recordings and in locating live appearances I may have overlooked. This is a great testament to the thoroughness of her archive and her willingness to open up new ways to consider Fitzgerald's very storied career.

Over the last 25 years some of the titans of vocal jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Betty Carter, Johnny Hartman, and Sarah Vaughan, have received scholarly biographical treatments commensurate with the scope and depth of their talents. Tick, a distinguished scholar, now retired from Northeastern University, who has written about gender in popular music, among other topics, has worked fastidiously on this biography for about a decade. You can tell; what's refreshing about her new book Becoming Ella Fitzgerald is the more panoramic critical lens than you typically find in books written by journalists. Doing so, she delves more deeply into Fitzgerald and the world that shaped her.

For example, at the outset Tick notes the proliferation of databases spotlighting the writing of the Black popular press which was integral to the information and the knowledge that Black Americans had about popular cultural figures especially during the era of segregation. As an academician Tick also considers a variety of lenses, particularly thinking about how gender and race and inform interpretations and responses to Fitzgerald's artistry. Though widely revered today as a musician and icon, during much of her lifetime critics constantly commented on her body and clothing and questioned her creative choices. Common among them were the following: “How dare a vocalist scat like an instrumentalist?” “Is she urbane enough to sing Cole Porter?” “How could she debase her talent and sing rock music?” Alas, some of her biographers have raised similar doubts about her choices. Fortunately, Fitzgerald, who was very sensitive to criticism, paid more attention to her audience than her naysayers, and forged ahead persisting in her creative instincts. She continually defied stereotypes and external expectations about what a Black woman steeped in jazz, but not inhibited by it, could do. This was especially true as she matured into her 60s.

One of Becoming’s recurring themes, similar to Elaine Hayes's observations in 2017’s Vaughan biography Queen of Bebop, is the constant attempt to narrow the scope and the artistic expressions of Black female artists by confining them to one style or the other. Tick’s chronological approach recounts how Fitzgerald mastered swing and its attendant rhythmic and dance oriented focus in the mid-1930s, and successfully mastered and integrated bebop techniques in the 1940s further expanding her role as an exemplar of modern jazz. After achieving commercial success at Decca Records as a singles artist she began recording albums in in the early 1950s in parallel to an active concert schedule. Producer Norman Granz, who included Fitzgerald on his Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concert series, took notice of her skills as a swinger, bebopper, and balladeer eventually becoming her manager and champion. After signing her to his new label Verve he helped her realize her creative and commercial potential, which included becoming a major touring act domestically and globally. Notably, through the ambitious 1956-64 Songbook albums she was able to demonstrate mastery of the Great American popular song form, and still record thematic jazz-oriented sets and lush pop. In the late 1960s she left Verve and recorded for different labels which fostered an understanding and adaption of songs from the contemporary American rock, pop, and soul idioms, and well as Brazilian fare. While some of these efforts were ill-conceived (1967’s country pop set Misty Blue) or uneven in execution (1969’s pop-soul set Ella) she committed herself to keeping her interpretive approach relevant artistically not just for commercial reasons. In short, she became a consummate American popular artist through balancing a very strong and constantly evolving musicality with an interest in being accessible for a wide variety of audiences. This undoubtedly shaped her widespread appeal in various parts of the world, especially Europe, where she toured frequently for decades.

Fitzgerald’s 1957 collaboration with Duke Ellington’s Orchestra was the most jazz-oriented of her songbooks showcasing her improvisational prowess as well as Ellington’s enduring melodies.

Her populist approach allowed her to reach an acme between balancing accessibility and artistic credibility. Tick’s discussion of concert reviews and analyses of live recordings and footage makes it clear how much musicians enjoyed collaborating with her and how much audiences adored her warmth and artistry. While she might record an album of rock, R&B, and singer-songwriter pop in pop-oriented arrangements in the late 1960s, onstage she was as freewheeling as ever.

For example, on 1969’s concert set In Budapest she seamlessly blends Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s recent “This Girl’s in Love with You” with the standard “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” garners considerable applause for her energetic versions of “Spinning Wheel” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” integrates her band’s names in “Mack the Knife” in a Louis Armstrong like growl, and injects the showtune “People” with personal references to her audience. Her ability to place the new and old in conversation with each other rather than in opposition is an impressive gesture toward younger sensibilities; and her audience loves it. When you compare this with the sneering, tentative and/or outright awkward way many of her peers (e.g. Frank Sinatra) approached rock era material the contrast comes into view.

On 1979’s Fine and Mellow (recorded in 1979) Fitzgerald remained formidable mastering blues, ballads, and rhythm songs with aplomb. Fitzgerald earned her ninth Grammy Award for her performance.

The portrait that emerges of Fitzgerald's personality is that she was a very humble person from modest beginnings who elevated herself through her ability to grow artistically, connect with audiences, and collaborate with the wide range of musicians. Tick’s analysis also depicts her fundamental drive to constantly create and produce. While Fitzgerald had amassed a substantive fortune from sales and concerts over her career and had the option to retire in the 1960s her hunger to never entertain never wavered. She was a hard worker by her conditioning in the 1930s swing era and her métier became the road. Perhaps to her detriment. Tick documents several physical breakdowns Fitzgerald experienced due to relentless touring, and the gradual onset of diabetes diminished her vision and led to an amputation.  Still she persisted through challenges. Alongside her apparent love of entertaining she also took on the responsibility of supporting extended family members, and had a staff to pay as well.

The one area where the generally affable Fitzgerald expressed legitimate frustration was the lack of access she had to certain creative opportunities. While she had a few limited film roles, and no clear aspirations to be a film actress, Tick notes her disappointment at not being offered the kinds of television exposure White pop singers like Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como, Dinah Shore, and Andy Williams received via weekly TV series. Sinatra, for example, had several tv specials including one featuring Fitzgerald as a guest, before she finally received her own though she had been recording longer.

In her later years as a recording artist Fitzgerald connected with jazz musicians from her generation, and younger, who were quite active and still continuing to record and perform live. Because at that point jazz was more of a niche genre for connoisseurs and patrons of live music she was less burdened by the pressure to record albums that were going to be commercial. In the 1970s during her recordings for Granz’s Pablo Records she continued experimenting by recording in a variety of formats and environments. For example, she discovered a new kind of sparsity and lyricism working with guitarist Joe Pass, and grew more confident on blues-oriented songs. She also had very fruitful collaborations with Count Basie revisiting well established standards and songs from her own repertoire that demonstrated she still had amazing improvisational flair. For example, 1979’s Fine and Mellow (recorded in 1974) finds her riffing on songs as confidently and fluently as ever. Though it was recorded nearly 40 years into her career she cooks on “Rockin in Rhythm” as mightily as she did on 1957’s Ellington Songbook and finds remarkable new colors on classic ballads like “The Man I Love” and “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance” She also recorded dynamic concert albums as well as a piano and voice album with Oscar Peterson with her ex-husband and bandmate Ray Brown on bass. In short even as she soldiered into her fifth decade of recording she was still challenging herself regardless of commercial success.

In many ways this vitality distinguishes her from most of her peers, of which she has very few. She was constantly driven by a need to create and did not limit herself based on the commercial prospects that existed in the pop universe. While it's funny that toward the end of her life she would allude to the fact that she was trying to learn how to “rap” what's actually inspiring about her is her openness and constant desire to innovate and explore what was possible. Because of that the biography reiterates the prominence she has continued to enjoy. There is a reason why her music remains in print and has regularly inspired tribute albums as well as the proliferation of documentaries, such as 2019’s superb Just One of Those Things. People are interested in her because she remained interesting throughout her career.

It is quite fortuitous that Cord Jefferson's film American Fiction, an adaptation of Percival Everett's 2001 satirical novel Erasure, was released recently because in many ways it speaks to something American is constantly navigating. Notably the ways that American culture tries to contain the artistic and creative expression of Black artists. Vocal jazz has definitely been a sight of these attempts to contain artists. As many recent biographies have Illustrated Black vocal artists have a history of being told that they can only do one thing or being framed as such by critics and historians. Sarah Vaughan loathed being called a “jazz singer” as did Johnny Hartman, who was classically trained and insistent he could sing anything. Dinah Washington was similarly resistant.

In the case of Fitzgerald there was an attempt to confine her to swing. But if she done that she would have instantly become a nostalgia act. Instead she forged ahead by integrating bebop; doing so did not negate anything that she done before it extended her vocabulary further. From there she repeatedly demonstrated an acumen to adapt her style to a range of different songs and arrangements. These assets made her the key bridge figure between the musically sophisticated jazz world and the pop world at the time. Who else from her generation was making the effort to connect with younger generations with the same kind of fervor that she was? This included not only what she was recording but it also relates to who she was collaborating with and what she was performing live in concert. Finally, in the last phase of her career even if her vocal equipment lost some of its polish she still jammed with some of the most important improvisers of our time and demonstrated her mettle, staying current while maintaining her classic style. Tick’s biography deepens and extends our understanding of Ella Fitzgerald as “beyond category” to quote her friend and peer Duke Ellington. Her approach entailed a kaleidoscopic look at music that helped America, and the world, hear and see itself more vibrantly and complexly.

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