“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.
There’s a story about Ella that has proven to be my favorite, and I’m unable to find its source but I think about it all the time. In this story, Ella and a friend used to roll through the McDonald’s drive thru line in either a convertible or a limo while wearing their bathrobes.
My obsession with Ella began somewhere around September 2006, 9-24-06 is the earliest mention of her I can find in my own writing. That summer or the one before, I’d bought a Jazz compilation album with 2 of her songs on it. It was the beginning of my 2nd year at the University of Louisville, and it wasn’t a great time in my life. Shortly thereafter, I read that McDonalds story, and thought that I needed some of that in my life.
Over 11 years later, I now have at least 489 Ella Fitzgerald songs, more than any other band or artist.
Her recording career lasted over half a century- 1935 through 1989. Believe me when I tell you that I’m not yet satisfied.
In actuality, the story starts a little sooner- April 14th, 2004, to be exact. I was 16 years old, and I was nearing the end of my Junior year of high school, a year of hope and excitement and fun. That night, I was watching episode 28 of season 3 of American Idol, the Movie Soundtracks episode, when Fantasia Barrino laid down on the stage and gave the very best performance I ever saw on that show- a portion of Summertime, the George Gershwin song from Porgy and Bess. With equal touches of glide, drama, and weight, using just enough force to punch the correct notes paired with enough finesse not to belabor the point, Fantasia’s version of the song was splendid. I was wowed, and knew about 20 seconds in that I was seeing something very special indeed.
That performance, fortunately, remains, and it was my gateway to Ella- the Jazz compilation I eventually bought was because I saw Ella’s performance of the same song on it, along with her version of Mack the Knife from that night in Berlin in 1960. While writing this essay, I listened to Fantasia’s version (begins at the 0:33 mark) a few times, and I listened with a fair amount of trepidation, afraid it would no longer be as captivating as it was to me then. I am pleased that it retains its shimmer, and I remain grateful to Fantasia for bringing Ella Fitzgerald into my life.
“I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.”
– Ella Fitzgerald
Ella was Everywoman, but she was also a complicated woman, both personally and professionally. Like many women, Ella had issues with her weight. Ella used her skill to triumph, as a woman and particularly as a black woman. She spent her career singing about love, but she never really managed to find it herself. Her mother died when she was a child, and she spent some of her adolescence homeless. In adulthood, she refused to speak much about her childhood. Peers and friends such as Mel Tormé described her as a difficult person to get to know. She was private, self-possessed, and had few friends.
She was funny. She lived for the stage, often doing several concerts in different countries on the same night, but she had terrible stage fright. Her inner landscape was inaccessible and elusive, and from everything I’ve read (though flawed, Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz, written by Stuart Nicholson, is the best Ella biography I know of), that was by design.
Music consumed her. It was obvious. She went in front of thousands of audiences, planted her feet, and burned the whole thing down. I admire that.
I like that she was unconventional, and did whatever the hell she wanted to.
Ella swung wild. Even today, I marvel at how she was all over the road from the late ‘50s through the late ‘60s. I’m not sure how evident it was to her fans at the time, but it seems like there must have been times it was bewildering to be a fan of hers.
In the late ’50s, Ella began to branch out into recording in several different genres other than jazz, with varying degrees of success: opera, broadway, country, blues, bossa nova, several forays into contemporary pop, television theme songs, even nursery rhymes.
Yeah.
During the recording of her 1964 live album Ella at Juan-Les-Pins, she sang both People and Can’t Buy Me Love, and on the same album she includes The Cricket Song, a spontaneous duet with some crickets that are particularly audible on the recording. On her eponymous 1969 album, she includes several Beatles and Motown songs. On 1972’s Jazz at Santa Monica Civic ’72, she does You’ve Got a Friend, and What’s Going On?, both of which are somewhat difficult listening. A few songs later, she actually sings the Sanford and Son theme song. Typical of Ella, one of my favorite songs of hers is also included on that album- a lovely Brazilian song named Madalena.
The thing about Ella was that she would try anything. When she did something, she did it. I find it terribly endearing, and I admire her for her utter devotion to her art, but it also sometimes makes me wince on her behalf, because the wings that brought us Mack the Knife and Summertime are the same ones she rode right into the sun with.
“Oh, I have gobs and gobs of ideas, but… well, you dream things like that, and that’s what these are, you know- my day dreams.”
– Ella Fitzgerald
On June 11th, 2007, I interviewed for a position with my previous employer. While waiting to go into the building, I heard a cover of an Ella song on another car’s radio, and immediately knew I’d get the job.
A year later, I turned 21, and I went out west to celebrate with beloved friends. On June 1st, I stood in the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco and the rest of the continent at my back, and had never felt so free. I was wearing shorts, it was a cold day, and I can’t remember a time I’ve ever cared less. That year I bought and was gifted with many Ella albums, the ones that remain the core of my collection. The next year, I performed in a musical, and I used some of Ella’s music for vocal practice.
Ella’s music often formed the mental, emotional, or aural landscape of many of the most momentous moments in my life thus far. Her music sustains me through the difficult periods of my life, using perfect technique to spotlight the facets of her songs, and providing me sometimes badly needed light in the dark. Personally, I place Ella’s vocal peak at roughly 1966, her 49th year, and that year there was no one better. She was flawless, and as captivating as the recordings from that period are, it must have been even greater in person.
I respect the hell out of her talent. Her competence. Her ability. I respect that she was able to use her technique, her technical artistry, and sheer will to transcend societal notions of what it meant to be a woman in America. I respect that she was fluid and open enough to integrate a wide assortment of elements into her work, and in that way, I think she’s the most American artist we’ve ever had.
Ella showed me how to achieve everything I ever wanted, more than I ever thought possible, and she did it by relentlessly pursuing her passion, burning down audience after audience with the fire that consumed her. I’ve never heard a woman as alight as Ella was when she was riffing and composing live in front of an audience.
Ella gave me the gift of the life aglow.