Hampton Song Bird
If I spend a some nights at a some quaint hotels around Hampton and search out the different areas of the Virginia coast would I get a better idea of were Ella Fitzgerald was coming from? It is always my belief that an artist is going to put all there experiences of childhood and adulthood into there art or performance. The jazz vocalist, Ella Fitzgerald, did have a very interesting life. Her voice was so rich and soulful that she melted the hearts of the world with her voice. He had three octaves of pure tone blended with perfect diction and delicious phrasing. Her scat singing was a signature of her style it is no wonder she received 13 Grammy Awards and other awards for her talent.
Originally, Ella wanted to be a dancer but she was also a great lover of music. Her mother would play jazz records of Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong and The Boswell Sisters. She fell in love with Connee Boswell and decided she wanted to sing just like her. Her young life would take a big turn for the worse when her mother died when she was about 15 years old. She ended up getting in trouble. It started with skipping school, to working with the Mafia. Finally she was picked up by the police, taken to a reform school of which she escaped and then was placed in a colored Orphan Asylum in the Bronx.
At age 17 she made her big singing debut at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. It became a weekly performance were she pulled in a good audience so was asked to take part in the Amateur Night that the theatre hosted. Funny, she was going to go on dancing but she got intimidated by another act and decided to go on singing in the same jazz style as Connee Boswell. She was a hit and won the first prize of twenty five dollars. Her life and career went on to be astounding. She played with many famous musicians and met presidents had ups and downs. I am sure that all of her interesting life was in every note she sang.