50 Fun Facts About Ella Fitzgerald

In which city was Ella Fitzgerald born in 1917?

The city later named a 276-seat theater after her, a few blocks from her Marshall Avenue birthplace.

Which nickname was Fitzgerald most often given?

She was also called the Queen of Jazz and, more affectionately, Lady Ella.

In which New York city did Fitzgerald grow up after her family left Virginia?

A bronze statue of her by Vinnie Bagwell now stands outside the city's railroad station.

Fitzgerald's mother died in 1932 from injuries sustained in what?

Ella was 15, and within a year had moved to Harlem to live with an aunt.

As a troubled teenager, Fitzgerald was sent to a state reformatory school in which New York town?

A 2020 play, Ella The Ungovernable, imagined her escape from the New York Training School for Girls.

At which Harlem venue did a 17-year-old Fitzgerald make her debut on Amateur Night in November 1934?

She won first prize but was never given the promised week of performances, apparently because of her dishevelled appearance.

What had Fitzgerald originally planned to do on stage at that Amateur Night before switching to singing?

A local dance act called the Edwards Sisters intimidated her out of it, and she sang "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection" instead.

Which singer did the young Fitzgerald idolise and try to sound exactly like?

Boswell was the lead singer of the Boswell Sisters, whose records Ella's mother brought home.

Which drummer and bandleader hired Fitzgerald for his orchestra in 1935?

He was reluctant at first, calling the gawky teenager a diamond in the rough, until Bardu Ali talked him round.

Webb tested Fitzgerald with his band at a dance held at which university?

Decades later, in 1986, the same university gave her an honorary doctorate of music.

Fitzgerald and Webb's orchestra were most closely associated with which Harlem dance hall?

Her first manager, Moe Gale, was one of the ballroom's co-founders.

Which 1938 nursery-rhyme adaptation, which she co-wrote, made Fitzgerald a national star?

It became one of the biggest-selling records of the entire decade.

Webb died in June 1939 of what illness?

The band was renamed Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra, making the 22-year-old singer its leader.

Roughly how many songs did Fitzgerald record with Webb's orchestra between 1935 and 1942?

She also ran a side project called Ella Fitzgerald and Her Savoy Eight in those years.

Whose bebop big band influenced Fitzgerald to make scat singing a major part of her repertoire?

She said she was simply trying to do with her voice what she heard the horns in the band doing.

Which 1945 scat recording did The New York Times call one of the decade's most influential vocal jazz records?

The arrangement was by Vic Schoen; her 1947 bebop take on "Oh, Lady Be Good!" cemented the reputation.

Which producer became Fitzgerald's manager and created Verve Records around her?

He also insisted on integrated seating and equal pay for her at every venue, cancelling shows when promoters refused.

Fitzgerald began working with her future manager after singing in which concert series he founded?

The tours deliberately targeted segregated venues and demanded no coloured or white seating.

Which composer was the subject of the first Song Book album, released in 1956?

Fitzgerald called the record a turning point that rescued her from a career of singing nothing but bop.

How many Song Book sets did Fitzgerald record for Verve between 1956 and 1964?

Frank Sinatra respected the series so much he barred Capitol from repackaging his own records composer by composer.

Which composer was the only one to actually play on his own Song Book album with Fitzgerald?

He and Billy Strayhorn wrote two new pieces for the set, including a four-movement musical portrait of Ella.

Which film star lobbied the owner of Hollywood's Mocambo nightclub to book Fitzgerald in 1955?

The friendship was dramatised in Bonnie Greer's 2008 musical play Marilyn and Ella.

In 1961 Fitzgerald bought a house in the suburbs of which European capital?

She had begun a relationship with a Danish man and briefly considered opening a jazz club there.

On Ella in Berlin she won a Grammy for a performance of which song, despite forgetting the words?

She improvised new lyrics on the spot, and the album remains one of her best sellers.

For how much was Verve Records sold to MGM in 1960?

MGM let her contract lapse in 1967, and she drifted between Atlantic, Capitol and Reprise for five years.

Fitzgerald's last US chart single was a cover of which Smokey Robinson song?

The song had been a hit for the Temptations and would soon be a top-five hit for Rare Earth.

Which label did Granz found in 1972, on which Fitzgerald recorded some 20 albums?

The surprise success of Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72 prompted him to start it, his first label since selling Verve.

Fitzgerald played the singer Maggie Jackson in which 1955 jazz film?

She considered the Warner Brothers role the biggest thing that had ever happened to her.

In which 1942 Abbott and Costello film did Fitzgerald sing two songs?

It was her first movie work, thirteen years before her proper acting role.

In a famous Memorex commercial, what did a recording of Fitzgerald's voice do?

The tagline asked viewers: "Is it live, or is it Memorex?"

For which fast-food chain did Fitzgerald sing and scat the slogan "We do chicken right!"?

Her final commercial campaign was for American Express, shot by Annie Leibovitz.

Which vocal quartet joined Fitzgerald on the No. 1 hit "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall"?

Of the seven songs she cut with the group between 1943 and 1950, four topped the pop charts.

Which trumpeter recorded three Verve studio albums with Fitzgerald, including one of Porgy and Bess?

The two albums of standards, released in 1956 and 1957, are among the most beloved vocal duet records in jazz.

Which guitarist recorded four duo albums with Fitzgerald late in her career?

Critics found the guitar a better melodic foil for her voice than a piano.

Which young arranger wrote the charts for the 1963 album Ella and Basie!?

The record was a welcome break from Song Book sessions and near-constant touring.

Which famous bass player did Fitzgerald marry in December 1947?

They adopted a son born to Ella's half-sister and divorced in 1953, though they kept performing together.

Ella Fitzgerald's annulled 1941 marriage was to Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer who also worked as what?

The marriage lasted barely a year before being annulled in 1942.

From 1949 to 1956 Fitzgerald lived in which Queens neighbourhood alongside Count Basie and Lena Horne?

The area was an enclave of prosperous African Americans that also included Illinois Jacquet.

Fitzgerald sued which airline for racial discrimination after being bumped from a 1954 flight?

Her party was stranded in Honolulu for three days; she won on appeal in 1956 and later described a nice settlement.

What did complications of diabetes cost Fitzgerald in 1993?

The disease also damaged her eyesight; she gave her last public performances that same year.

Fitzgerald died at home in June 1996 of what?

Hours later the Playboy Jazz Festival opened at the Hollywood Bowl with a marquee reading "Ella We Will Miss You."

Where is Fitzgerald buried?

Her funeral was private; her archives went to the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress.

Fitzgerald's extensive cookbook collection was donated to which institution?

Her sheet music went to UCLA and her personal arrangements to the Library of Congress.

Which 1976 Stevie Wonder hit name-checks Fitzgerald?

The song from Songs in the Key of Life is a roll call of jazz greats.

Which French singer had a European hit in 1987 with the Fitzgerald tribute "Ella, elle l'a"?

The song was written by Michel Berger.

Fitzgerald's 2007 US postage stamp was part of which series?

The stamp was released in April 2007, the month of her 90th birthday.

Where did Rolling Stone rank Fitzgerald on its 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time?

A Google Doodle had celebrated her 96th birthday a decade earlier.

Ella Fitzgerald sang 'Three Little Maids' on 1963 TV with Dinah Shore and which opera star?

It is often described as the most unusual performance of her television career.

In 1980 Fitzgerald sang a medley of standards in a duet with which pop singer on a television special?

The special was the Carpenters' Music, Music, Music.

In what year did Fitzgerald receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award?

She had already been the first African-American woman to win at the inaugural Grammy ceremony in 1959.