Word: ellas
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Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library plans to unveil a collection of Ella Fitzgerald's cookbooks bequeathed to the library by the late jazz singer's estate last summer...
...DIED. ELLA COLLINS, 82, civil rights activist and half-sister of Malcolm X who took over the Organization of Afro-American Unity in the wake of Malcolm's assassination; in Boston...
...virtually all her life, Ella Fitzgerald was a shy figure who never found the sunny and confident love she sang so beautifully about [APPRECIATION, June 24]. Her voice spoke of human understanding and sympathy. Her interpretation of sad-sweet lyrics was so precise it seemed almost incredible that such a succulent sound could come from a modest, dumpy woman. She shunned the spotlight, and unlike many of her musical contemporaries, never made the headlines with extracurricular antics. She rarely made the rounds of talk shows to project a personality, but let her singing speak for her. Her black voice gave...
Born in Newport News, Virginia, Ella Fitzgerald never knew her biological father. According to a biographer, she was raised in Yonkers, New York, and fled her abusive stepfather after her mother died, making money by singing and dancing on the sidewalks of Harlem and warning prostitutes of the arrival of the police. At 16, dressed in cast-off clothes and wearing men's boots, she won an amateur-night contest at the Apollo Theater. When she was brought to Chick Webb's attention, he complained, "I don't want that old ugly thing!" But he took her. As admirers would...
...ballad performances that pushed past the pristine technical perfection of her pitch and phrasing into the night country. As a personality, she was remote, needing music to give her substance. As a performer, even to someone hearing her for the first time, she was an old friend. Talk about Ella or Billie, and no further I.D. is required. "It used to bother me when people I didn't know came up and called me Ella," she admitted once. "It seemed to me they should say Miss Fitzgerald, but somehow they never...