Roll with it like Ella Fitzgerald
She improvised life like she improvised her music
How I Discovered Ella
I was living in Northern Ireland in late 1995/early 1996. One of my acquaintances there was a big jazz fan, and was especially fond of Ella. I’d heard of her before then, of course, but that’s when I really started paying attention. That timeframe also coincided with the CD releases of her magnificent Songbook recordings, which are my perennial favorites, and her death on June 15, 1996—just weeks after I came back to the US—so it was a bit of a roller-coaster for me.
I also discovered, about 16 years too late, that she’d been the opening show when the performing arts center in my hometown celebrated its grand re-opening in 1980, having sat empty for decades. I’d missed it! (I was also 9, and had no idea who Ella was, but if you’ve ever realized you’d had the chance to go see someone years before, even if it would have made no sense at the time, you know the feeling.) This video, which I was surprised to find as I was writing this piece, is as close as I’ll ever get—it includes some rehearsal, some of the renovations, and a little interview as well as some of the performance:
As a singer, my list of criteria for favorite singers is pretty small: Do I want to sing with them? Do they have the kind of voice that feels like it meshes with mine? Do I wish I could do what they’re doing? That doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t enjoy someone with a very different voice, or that I won’t sing along with their music, but some resonate a little more than others. There aren’t many who resonate more for me than Ella. My parents don’t go too far outside of classical music—my dad doesn’t really at all, but my mom will venture out a little here and there, and every time she talks about Ella, her word is, “Smooooooooooth.”
Some folks criticized Ella for being too smooth, but I’m certainly not one of them. I guess they think she was “too perfect,” but what I hear is how much she enjoyed those great American standards—the ones I wrote about in my very first post here—which lent themselves to her kind of performance.
Ella and Improv
One of the things Ella was known for was her improv skills, which are on display with Mel Tormé in this great video from the Grammys in 1976.
I love the look on Mel Tormé’s face when he’s waiting for Ella to answer the question—he knows what they’re about to do, and he knows that neither of them has any idea what’s going to happen, which, of course, is the great joy of improv. You have no clue where you’re going—you just keep saying, “Yes, and…,” do your best to make your partner look good, and trust that it’ll make sense. Somehow, it usually does, though of course the odds are better if you’ve had a lot of practice, like this pair does.
Ella’s improv skills went beyond her singing, though.
The Ultimate “Yes, and…”
Back when I was in Northern Ireland, there was a little magazine called Jazz Greats, each issue of which focused on a single artist and included a CD. I collected the ones I could before I left, and of course, there was one about Ella, with others including Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. This was just before the World Wide Web became a thing(!!), so these magazines were my first chance to learn anything about these folks, and I discovered that Ella first gained any notice at all at an amateur night at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater.
Now, this may not sound surprising at all—someone with a voice like hers was sure to do well in that sort of space, right? Well, here’s the thing: that’s not what she went for. Ella Fitzgerald went to the Apollo that night thinking that, if her name was drawn from the hat (and what were the odds it would be? She was sure it wouldn’t) she was going to perform as a dancer, because that’s what she wanted to be.
When her name was drawn, she was so nervous she couldn’t dance. Our heroine could have run from the stage in that moment—and I imagine many of us would have—but somehow she found the courage to do something else. She said “Yes, and…” to the moment, and instead of dancing, she sang “The Object of My Affection,” with some encouragement from the emcee, and won the night.
Her life, and the world of music, changed overnight. Who knows if we’d ever have heard of Ella Fitzgerald the dancer?
Mack the Knife
Many years later, in 1960, Ella appeared in Berlin for a concert that was recorded and released as a live album. One highlight of the album is her performance of “Mack the Knife,” which was very popular at the time. The only problem? She didn’t really know the song. She was willing to give it a whirl anyway. As you’ll hear at the beginning, she says, “We hope we remember all the words.” Spoiler alert: she doesn’t.
Again… most of us would be so mortified at the thought of forgetting that we’d stop, apologize to the audience, and move on to the next song (or just decide that discretion is the better part of valor and not try to sing it in the first place). Not Ella! She keeps going, admitting in song that she’s totally lost the words. She makes up new ones, pokes fun at herself, and pays tribute to others who’ve sung it, with the band gamely following her lead until she’s done making the song her own. It’s one of my favorites—and I suspect, the favorite of many others—for this very reason. I’m so glad it was caught on tape so everyone could appreciate her courage and genius in that moment.
The Hollywood Bowl
The other Ella story I really love is from 1988, when she performed at the Hollywood Bowl. She was 70 years old, and just a few years past some health issues, so it was a shock when she lost her footing and fell. Her response? “People can say Ella really fell for them.” She finished the song as if nothing happened, as she was helped back up, and as if that’s not enough, later ad-libbed a bit of “Since I Fell For You.”
An Important Footnote
It would be remiss of me not to note, especially as we’re coming up to the Juneteenth holiday, that Ella’s life behind the scenes was not an easy one. In addition to a lot of personal difficulty, she faced a lot of discrimination as a Black performer, especially in the South. Two of her biggest allies were Marilyn Monroe—who singlehandedly ensured Ella would never have to play a small club again and was a close friend—and her manager, Norman Granz, who was an active civil rights advocate.
Granz insisted on adding a desegregation clause to his shows, including one famous Jazz at the Philharmonic show in Houston in 1955, which was still an extremely “conservative” city. He removed the “Negro” and “White” labels from the bathroom doors and refused to pre-sell tickets in order to thwart attempts to create separate seating areas. Houston authorities did not respond well, and its vice squad arrested Granz, as well as Ella, Dizzy Gillespie, and other musicians, on suspicion of gambling during the interval.
The police wisely chose to expedite the process (during which they had the nerve to ask for autographs) and return everyone to the theater, where the second set went on as planned, with the audience none the wiser. Ironically, while there had been fears of disturbances or even violence among the desegregated audience, there were no other issues, even if attendees might have been a bit uncomfortable with what may have been a new experience for most of them. It just goes to show that music can indeed be a force for change. You can read saxophonist Illinois Jacquet’s first-person account of that night here, and I highly recommend checking out the linked PDF for the full story.
Life certainly wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Ella Fitzgerald, but I find the way she was able to roll with what she was handed and make the most of it, and also not take herself too seriously, inspiring. She’s a role model for all of us, especially when it comes to creative courage.
Aww. Great post, Nancy. I love Ella! We used to listen to her all the time at the coffee place I worked when I was in high school. Our favorite tune to sing along to was the fun revenge song, “Goody, Goody.” My dad’s uncle ran a jazz club in NY called Connie’s Inn and Ella sang at his funeral. Oh to have been there!