Ella Fitzgerald Analysis

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Information about Ella Fitzgerald prior to her singing career remains quite ambiguous. There are no written autobiographies, memoirs and not much evidence of her childhood written down. Unlike Louis Armstrong, she did not want to make her past known to her public because she was ashamed by of the poverty and struggle she faced before her fame. Only interviews with childhood friends, family and of musicians who knew her off the stage are what are left to help reveal a more in depth look into her life. Known mostly by her stage names, “Lady Ella”, “The Queen of Jazz”, and “The First Lady of Song”; Ella Jane Fitzgerald, born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25th 1917 was renowned for her improvisational ability in her scat singing. She never …show more content…

The documentary is narrated by Tony Bennett and includes footage of Ella Fitzgerald singing in concerts all over the world and live interview recordings of her and of her close friends and family. Her whole family moved up to Yonkers, New York along with thousands of other disadvantaged black families that moved north during the Great Migration. Hoping to move into better employment and housing, only to find that this wasn’t the case. Her father left Ella and her mother, Temperance Fitzgerald, during the first years of her life but Mrs. Fitzgerald quickly moved on and found herself a new man, Joseph Da Silva, a Portuguese immigrant. Her mother died early in 1932, leaving Ella with her stepfather who she seemed to have adjusted to. Later in life, Ella Fitzgerald never spoke about her stepfather and friends of her say this was because she was sexually abused as a child after her mother …show more content…

During this time her mother passed away and she started living with her aunt due to the abuse from her stepfather. Forced to live on the streets at times, she would try to listen to the radio every chance she got and would sneak into movie theaters to absorb the popular music of the day. Listening to singers such as Louis Armstrong, Conne Boswell, and Bing Crosby. She continued to dance with her friends for pennies and would enter multiple amateur contests in Harlem on a

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