Ella Fitzgerald Research Paper

Give light and people will find the way, Said Ella Baker. She was a woman, who even in the darkest hour, gave light to people everywhere. Being a Civil Rights activist in the 1930’s, she was one of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement. She dedicated her life to fighting for freedom and equality, and she deserves to be recognized worldwide.

Zelda Fitzgerald is the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald 's wife, but she is also an American novelist. She was born in Montgomery, Alabama and was considered a “Southern belle”. She had the means and the desire to become a ballet dancer, but she was too

The types of music also created a different style in her voice. Throughout her childhood scat, jazz and swing were very popular. Ella would practice scat in which would develop her ability to use her voice as an instrument. She had a deep interest in it. She worked hard and soon became known as the best scat singers of her time. (Capstone Press). When Fitzgerald sang jazz she had the ability to put more emotion into her songs. Along with those styles of music Fitzgerald practiced swing, which helped her develop incredible rhythm. These all added structure to Ella’s voice.

The couple later got married on April 3, 1920 in St. Patrick Cathedral, located in New York. A little over a year later He and his wife had a child named Frances (Doreski). Fitzgerald lived more by his feelings than his morals (Doreski). He and his wife, Zelda, would throw extravagant parties which put the couple in financial hardship early on. Sometimes these parties would even last 4 days in a row (Shain). Because of all the partying and choice of lifestyle, Zelda developed a mental disorder and had her first mental breakdown in 1930. Fitzgerald wrote short stories to pay for his wife’s treatments. However, he is best known for his works This Side of Paradise, from which he gained his wealth, and The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald’s most popular work (Coale 190). This Side of Paradise was his first autobiographical novel. The book is based on Fitzgerald’s childhood and portrays him as a young boy who is ready for his exciting life to begin (Shain). After it was published, Fitzgerald became rich quickly. Following Zelda’s hospitalization, he wrote the book Tender is the Night. The book was centered on a wealthy psychiatrist and his unstable wife (Bruccoli). By this

F. Scott Fitzgerald, a St. Paul, Minnesota native, was born on September 24, 1896. His father, Edward Fitzgerald, had co-written a novel in his youth and often read works by Edgar Allen Poe and Lord George Gordon Byron to Scott during his childhood. While Fitzgerald’s father praised his literary attempts, both of his parents encouraged him to pursue other career paths. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald was steadfast in his literary endeavors, writing for both his high school and college newspapers. He later dropped out of Princeton University in order to join the army and continued to pursue writing, penning both magazine articles and musical lyrics (Adams 10-11).

Lena Horne was born on June 30, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were Teddy and Edna Scottron Horne. After her father left her at the age of two in order to pursue his gambling career; her mother leaving soon after that to pursue her acting career; she went to live with her grandparents. Through her grandparents influence she became involved with organizations like the NAACP, at an early age.

First, the prominent component of 1920s music were the musicians themselves. Numerous people broke into the "Jazz Age" scene with their unique and abstract styles of the genre. A big reason it grew to such an immense popularity was because the music gave everyone pleasure and happiness after WWI. In the novel The Great Gatsby it speaks of Nick hearing "saxophones wailing the hopeless comment of the 'Beale Street Blues'"(Fitzgerald 158). One big-name musician of this time was Louis Armstrong, a singer/trumpet player, an artist of the famous Harlem Renaissance, and the main popularizer of what is known as "scat singing", which is pretty much another word for singing wordless nonsense ("Louis Armstrong"). He was the first African-American to write

Billie Holiday was born on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania under her birth name, Eleanora Fagan. Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer, from the 1930s to the '50s. All her life she lived with her mother because she did not know her biological father. She grew up in Baltimore, Maryland until her mother, Sadie Fagan, decided to move to New York in search of a better job. In New York, Holiday found a job at a Harlem nightclub. This job will encourage her to pursue a career in music and go on tour with other great artists. She borrowed her professional stage name from her favorite screen star, Billie Dove.

Throughout her life she collaborated on more than 250 albums, sold more than 40 million of those albums and won 13 Grammy awards. Her influence soon spread throughout the musical circuit and her singing style was much imitated in the 1950s and 1960s. Ella's trademark of "scat" singing (a technique in which the singer improvises as an instrument would and uses nonsense syllables) was taken up by many male and female jazz vocalists. Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday and the modern day

Marilyn Monroe got married again to Jo DiMaggio the famous base ball player. But the marriage

The woman who has influenced so many and has become an icon in the music industry. Whitney was born in a musical family who was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, cousin of singing star Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of soul legend Aretha Franklin. By the age of 22, Whitney became one the greatest female voices of her generation. Whitney was an artists who came alive and was able to express herself in full confidence when she was singing. When she performed she always look as though she was understood, at peace, and full of joy when she would sing. Houston was a beautiful woman with a powerhouse voice within her petite body, she had a way of making the audience respond in awe and pay

     Before even hitting a year as a soloist, Miles Davis put out his first album as a soloist named Birth of the Cool. This was definitely something to be marked down on the timeline of Jazz. The album was accurately named, being responsible for the stardom of Cool Jazz, a movement that the very new to the Jazz movement, Miles Davis, invented within his first year of success. The Cool Jazz, which featured Gil Evans, first appeared in the latter days of 1949.

The first jazz was played in the early 20th century. The work chants and folk

Being a touring singing and performer can become a very rough and tiring job. Being on the road traveling for many months, playing different shows every night would make you really realize if singing is what you love to do. Ella was a singer for more than 60 years. Ella Fitzgerald goes down in history as one of the greatest female singers proven by the many awards and respect she received.

I used to always go over to my grandparent’s house and watch my grandfather go crazy over this “Jazz” music. He explained to me that it wasn’t Jazz unless it swung like the greats. I listened to a song “Sing Sing Sing” the other day from one of my Jazz collections that my grandpa gave to me and realized that their was so much energy and pizzazz in this music. He explained to me that it was all put together by a guy named Benny, and I understood why.