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Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald was the most influential jazz singer of her time. Her career spanned so many decades and so many movements, from the big-band era of the ‘30s, to bebop in the ‘40s, into the golden age of the standard in the ‘50s (Schoemer 1). She was a master of technique, able to leap octaves, split tones, reinvent melodies, and dance all over complex rhythms. She never sang an unsophisticated note, and she always left a song better off than she had found it (Schoemer 2). This African American female vocalist entertained people all over the world with her legendary voice, and had so much talent that she also became known as the “First Lady of Song” (McGill 1).
Prior to the era of Ella Fitzgerald, jazz did not have a diverse sound of music. It only consisted of swing, ragtime, and big-band music when it originated in 1895, and it remained that way through the mid-1930s (Alexander 1). Because it was known that jazz was composed mostly by African-American males, a...

Posted by: Justin Rech

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