“That night in Berlin, we were in front of twelve thousand people and at the end of a midnight concert. We had played Brussels earlier, flown to Berlin and been up for twenty-two hours. We were all so tired we couldn’t hold our heads up, when Ella turns around and says, ‘Let’s do “Mack the Knife.”

“My heart sank. I was too tired. We were in front of too many people to try something crazy, and I knew Ella didn’t know the tune. I said, ‘Well, golly Ella…’ but before I could say anymore she had turned around and was announcing it.”

Wilfred Middlebrooks, Ella Fitzgerald’s bassist that night, describing the night Ella, my favorite singer and the best Jazz singer that ever lived, sang Mack the Knife live in front of 12,000 Germans, forgot the words, and got her 5th and 6th Grammy Awards.

April 25th would’ve been Ella’s 100th birthday. This summer proved to be the best summer I’ve had thus far in my life, and in my mind’s eye, it started that night. That night, I was sitting in a San Antonio hotel room eating chocolate Rice Krispie treats, writing the earliest draft of what eventually became this essay, and listening to Midnight Sun, probably my favorite Ella song from one of my favorite Ella albums, her recording of The Johnny Mercer Songbook. Continue reading “First Lady of Song” →