Becoming Ella Fitzgerald : The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song

Ella Fitzgerald (1917�_"1996) possessed one of the twentieth century�_Ts most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald�_Ts death, music historian Judith Tick draws on deep archival research, family interviews and newly available recordings and concert footage to show how Fitzgerald fused a Black vocal aesthetic with mainstream popular repertoire to revolutionise American music. From Fitzgerald�_Ts first audition at the Apollo Theatre to swing-era success at the Savoy, Tick shows how this �_ogirl singer�__ broke new ground: as a female bandleader, as a groundbreaking bebop improviser and as the arbiter of the American canon with herA�Song BookA�recordings. Yet even as she electrified concert halls and sold millions of records, jazz critics belittled her as �_onaive�__. Tick reveals instead an ambitious risk-taker with a stunningly diverse repertoire, whose exceptional musical spontaneity (often radically different on stage than in the studio) made her a transformational artist.