Billie Holiday was one of many influential jazz singers during the period known as the Harlem Renaissance. Billie Holiday was born on April 7, 1915 as Eleanora Fagan and began singing in local clubs and renamed herself “Billie” after the film star Billie Dove (“Billie Holiday Biography”). At age 18, Holiday was discovered by producer John Hammond who was impressed by Holiday’s performance at a jazz club in Harlem (Charles). Billie had a thriving career as a jazz singer until she died at age 44 due to heart and liver complications. Although she lost her battle of addiction that led to her death, Billie Holiday is not remembered as a tragic figure of the Harlem Renaissance, but she is remembered as one of the best jazz singers that ever lived.
She had many eye surgeries and even a leg amputation. In her last couple of years of life, she lived in Beverly Hills surrounded by friends and family. She succumbed to her death on June 15, 1996. Many people around the world were devastated. Even though Ella Fitzgerald has passed, we have many artists that are inspired by her.
Ella Fitzgerald is an internationally recognized jazz artist who dominated the 20th century. Born in Newport News, Virginia in 1917, the American singer enjoyed a childhood where she could develop her musical talents. For a time, she had a normal childhood, playing baseball, dancing, and seeing shows at the Apollo Theater in Harlem (“Biography”). The 1930’s were filled with tragedy for Fitzgerald. Her mother died in 1932, leaving Ella in the care of her aunt (“Biography”).
In the last paragraph, I mentioned her voice range, but she also utilized scat, which is singing, but instead of words it's rhythmic, wordless syllables making the lyrics (Cook, E 2024). She used scat cleverly in songs like “How High The Moon” C. Being a person of color in the music industry was either extremely successful, or you couldn't get anywhere because of discrimination. Either way, Ella was successful and had won multiple awards, as well as given names like “The First Lady of Song” (Encyclopedia Britannica n.d). Ella's music was loved by many people, including Marilyn Monroe, both women seeing each other as a role model/inspiration (Kirkfield & Harris, 2020, p. 10). Like I stated earlier, people loved Ella’s singing.
Because of this, and despite her “gawky and unkempt” appearance, he gave her the opportunity to sing with his band at a dance at Yale University as a test run. Webb was quoted for saying that “if the kids like her, she stays”. She was a raging success and true to his promise, Chick hired Ella to travel with the band. She recorded “Love and Kisses” with the band in 1935 and was soon a regular artist at the Savoy, one of Harlem’s hottest nightclubs. It didn’t take too long for Ella to emerge from the shadows and become a star attraction coming out with major hits such as her first number one single, “A-tisket, A-tasket”.
"By 1940 Fitzgerald was recognized throughout the music world as a vocal marvel--a singer with clarity of tone, flexibility of range, fluency of rhythm, and, above all, a talent for improvisation that was equally effective on ballads and up-tempo tunes" (“Ella Fitzgerald.”, Encyclopedia of World Biography) Ella set an example for other jazz musicians and vocal artists as she provided a major contribution to the type of jazz and scatting during this time. This fits into why we need to celebrate Ella Fitzgerald because she was a key figure in the 50s and she gave women the comfort that they needed to get through those hard times, providing something both relatable and inclusive. Ella Fitzgerald had a rough childhood as she did not grow up with strong and supportive figures. She got caught in the wrong crowd and spent time in behavioral institutions as a young woman.
This book highlights the highs and lows of her career as a musician. I would recommend this book to a jazz or any other music enthusiast like myself. Ella was a poorer child growing up. She would never really have a lot of money until her heyday in the 1920’s.
Whitney was in a new musical film called “Sparkle”, starring Jordin Sparks. Whitney was approached to become a x-factor judge, but Whitney did live long enough to become a judge. Whitney died on February 11, 2012 at the age of 48. Whitney was in Los Angeles for a grammy party, that she was going to sing at the night she died. She was staying in Beverly Hilton Hotel.
