Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography Of The First Lady Of Jazz

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Description

The life of the very private and media-shy Ella Fitzgerald has long been shrouded in a mix of half-truths and fiction. What emerges in Stuart Nicholson’s groundbreaking biography is a remarkable story of a poor black girl’s determination to realize the American Dream in the face of racial and sexual prejudice. She succeeded, and is now the definition of “jazz singer” to millions, one of the most greatest of all jazz musicians. On this fullest account ever of her life, Nicholson draws on fresh research and interviews with Ella’s friends and colleagues. Supplemented by Phil Schaap’s authoritative discography, Ella Fitzgerald is a wealthy and revealing portrait of one of the crucial popular American singers in history.

Ella Fitzgerald, who died in 1996, came from a poverty-stricken background. She was once abandoned by her father, in all probability abused by her stepfather and lived at the streets as an adolescent. As a club singer she had to contend with racism, sexism and advances from predatory men. But in the 1950s, just when Billie Holiday, from a identical background, was once falling toward drug addiction and a sordid death, Fitzgerald escaped the seeming inevitability of that fate. Her songbook albums relaunched her career in a new direction, and she became a beloved figure in American jazz, known for her musical precision and luminous clarity. This biography offers an assessment of the emotional strength apparent in both her life and music.

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