Ella Fitzgerald also recorded albums of the songs of Cole Porter and George Gershwin in 1972 and 1983. The albums were called "Ella Loves Cole" and "Nice Work If You Can Get It". A later album of songs by a single composer was released when she was with Pablo Records, "Ella Abraça Jobim", with songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim.
While she was recording the "Songbooks" and the occasional studio album, Fitzgerald toured 40 to 45 weeks per year in the United States and internationally, with Norman Granz. Granz helped her to become one of the most important live jazz performers.
In the mid-1950s, Fitzgerald became the first African-American to perform at the Mocambo (a Hollywood nightclub), after Marilyn Monroe had persuaded the owner to make the booking. This was very important in Fitzgerald's career. The event was turned into a play by Bonnie Greer which is to receive a production in London's West End from November 2009.
Some live albums on Verve that she recorded are well thought of by critics: "Ella at the Opera House", "" and "".
In later life, Fitzgerald kept a busy concert schedule, but her health worsened. She had heart surgery in 1986. She had diabetes, which accounted for her failing eyesight. Her diabetes worsened, and both legs were cut off (amputated) below the knees. She never completely recovered. She was unable to perform often. She spent time with family. Fitzgerald died in her Beverly Hills, California home on June 15, 1996 from a stroke. She was interred in the Sunset Mission Mausoleum at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.
By the 1990s, Fitzgerald had recorded more than 200 songs. In 1991, she gave her final concert at Carnegie Hall. She had performed there 26 times. She received numerous awards. In 1979, she received Kennedy Center Honors. In 1987, she received the National Medal of Arts. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. France presented her with the Commander of Arts and Letters award. Yale University, Dartmouth, and other schools awarded her honorary doctorates. Several of Fitzgerald's awards, significant personal possessions, and documents were given to the Smithsonian Institution, the library of Boston University, the Library of Congress, and the Schoenberg Library at UCLA.
In 1941, Fitzgerald married Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer. The marriage was annulled after two years. In December 1947, she married double bass player Ray Brown. They adopted a child of Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances. They named him Ray Brown, Jr.. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1953.
In July 1957, Reuters reported that Fitzgerald had secretly married Thor Einar Larsen, a young Norwegian, in Oslo. The affair was quickly forgotten when Larsen was sentenced to five months hard labor in Sweden for stealing money from a young woman.
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. She was also called "Lady Day", a nickname that her friend and musical partner Lester Young gave her. Holiday was a very important influence on jazz and pop singing. The way that she sang was similar to the way jazz musicians played their instruments. She was admired for her very personal and intimate way of singing. Critic John Bush wrote that she "changed the art of American pop vocals forever."
She co-wrote some songs which have become jazz standards, like "God Bless the Child", "Don't Explain", and "Lady Sings the Blues". She also became famous for singing jazz standards written by other people, like "Easy Living" and "Strange Fruit".
Holiday was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1915, a Roman Catholic. She had a difficult childhood, which affected her life and career. Not much is known about her early life, but there are stories about it in her autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues", which was published in 1956. Later, it was found out that some parts of this book were wrong.
Holiday got her pseudonym, or stage name, from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Holiday, the man who was probably her father. At the beginning of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", but then changed it back to "Holiday" (they are pronounced the same, 'Hahliday', in American English).
People have never been sure who Holiday's father was. This is because her birth certificate said her father was called Frank DeViese. Some people now think that this was a mistake that somebody made when she was born.
Holiday's mother was called Sadie Fagan. Fagan became pregnant when she was 13 years old. Her parents threw her out of her home in Baltimore, and she went to Philadelphia where her daughter Eleanora (Billie Holiday) was born. Fagan moved back to Baltimore and married Clarence Holiday, who was probably her baby's father, but they later divorced. When she was 10 years old, Holiday often missed school. When she said that she had been raped, she was sent to The House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school. She was allowed out two years later, with the help of a family friend. Holiday moved to New York City with her mother in 1928. In 1929 Holiday's mother saw a neighbor, Wilbert Rich, raping Holiday. Rich was sentenced to three months in jail. But after her incident as a rape victim she was still constantly raped by drunk men in her neighborhood. She almost got pregnant by a drunk man walking down their street.
Holiday later said that in 1930 she worked as a prostitute in a brothel, and was imprisoned for a short time for solicitation (prostitution). In the 1930s in Harlem, New York City, she started singing for tips in night clubs, and got a job at Pod's and Jerry's, a famous Harlem jazz club. In 1933 she was working at a club called Monette's. She was discovered by a talent scout called John Hammond.
Hammond helped Holiday to record her first songs in November 1933 with Benny Goodman: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch". In 1935 she recorded more songs with a group led by pianist Teddy Wilson. They recorded "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown To You".
Teddy Wilson was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record pop songs in the new 'swing' style for jukeboxes. They were allowed to improvise the music. Holiday was very good at improvising the melody line to fit the emotions.
Holiday also wrote songs during the 1930s, like "Billie's Blues", "Tell Me More (And Then Some)", "Everything Happens For The Best", "Our Love Is Different", and "Long Gone Blues".
A tenor saxophonist called Lester Young often accompanied Holiday. He had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and she got on well with him. Young gave her a nickname, "Lady Day" and she called him "Prez." She spent three months working at Clark Monroe's Uptown House in New York in 1937. In the late 1930s, she also worked as a big band singer with Count Basie and Artie Shaw. She was one of the first black women to work with a white orchestra (Artie Shaw's).
In the 1930s, Holiday was recording for Columbia Records. She heard of a song called "Strange Fruit". It was based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. The poem had been set to music and was performed at teachers' union meetings. It was heard by a night club owner called Barney Josephson and he told Holiday about it. She sang the song at Josephson's club in 1939. At first she was worried that it might make people angry. She later said that the song reminded her of her father's death, and that this was partly why she did not want to perform it at first. In a 1958 interview, she also said that many people did not understand what the song meant: "They'll ask me to sing that sexy song about the people swinging", she said.