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Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz by Nicholson, . New Edition
Ella Fitzgerald, who died in 1996, came from a poverty-stricken background. She was abandoned by her father, possibly abused by her stepfather and lived on the streets as a teenager. As a club singer she had to contend with racism, sexism and advances from predatory men. But in the 1950s, just when Billie Holiday, from a similar background, was falling toward drug addiction and a sordid death, Fitzgerald escaped the seeming inevitability of that fate. Her songbook albums relaunched her career in a new direction, and she became a beloved figure in American jazz, known for her musical precision and luminous clarity. This biography offers an assessment of the emotional strength apparent in both her life and music.
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First published May 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
October 8, 2021
Jazz critic, Stuart Nicholson has written a detailed and well-researched biography of the great jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and her band. I gave it four stars because I had hoped there would be more about her personal life with her family and friends instead the book focuses on her performances and music. I have a feeling that Ella was so private that this biographer could not find out more of the gist of who she was as a person so that was disappointing.
November 14, 2014
I love Ella's music... But even my love of Ella can't stop me from thinking that this is one of the worst biographies I have ever read... It is simply a Wikipedia entry of Ella's albums and concerts.. I think the writer would have been better off writing a book on history of jazz based on facts as there is nothing humane about Ella in this work. I'm also puzzled why he chose Ella as he seems to dislike 90% of what Ella has done despite acknowledging the fact that she has an amazing musical talent.
February 25, 2013
Stuart nicholson's biography of the life of the” Queen of Jazz” Ella Fitzgerald was great. He wrote about the life of Ella in a way that made you feel like you were growing up as she did experiencing everything as she did. In the book the author tells about the obstacles that she came across in her life and what made her into the strong successful women that she was. Where having strong beliefs and dreams could get you if you wanted it enough. The author gives you details and insight on important events in her life that you may have not known.
In the book Ella mourns the loss of her parents at a young age where she needed them the most. Soon after Ella began on a down spiral. Going in and out of foster homes, and becoming homeless Ella continues on her path to success. Following her success came more problems though such as being discriminated against. While reading this book you will identify with a true American dream and what it takes to get there.
In the book Ella mourns the loss of her parents at a young age where she needed them the most. Soon after Ella began on a down spiral. Going in and out of foster homes, and becoming homeless Ella continues on her path to success. Following her success came more problems though such as being discriminated against. While reading this book you will identify with a true American dream and what it takes to get there.
June 16, 2018
This would probably get 5 stars for a serious student of music history. For the reader just interested in learning about Fitzgerald's life, the book is a bit dry. The heavy focus on performance and recording dates, venues, contracts, and personnel reflects thorough research and information much of which went over this reader's head. However, this also points to the primary aspect of Fitzgerald: she lived to perform, her work was her life. A few incidents about her life are reported, and at the end there is a very interesting comparison between Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday; but the fact is that Fitzgerald lived a clean life without the drama that yields good narrative script. She had a poor background but worked hard to become one of the foremost jazz singers with international acclaim. She loved her audience and they loved her.
February 24, 2024
If you’re a jazz fan then this is great read. Covers Ella’s life in great detail and a wonderful insight into her love of singing, her motivation, fears and challenges. Also gives reader a history of jazz throughout the 20th century and covers many other famous jazz musicians who worked with and admired Ella.
October 17, 2016
I am interested in reading about Ella Fitzgerald's life. I am not interested in reading Mr. Nicholson's opinions on her swing era repertoire, where he takes a giant steaming dump on her music of that time frame and later periods where those songs resurface. His opinions are out of place contextually, are unnecessary to further our knowledge of the subject, and cast a shadow over the story of Ella's life, as though you were reading her story through the lens of a whiny, bitter critic who only cares about her contributions to bebop and doesn't appreciate her vast talents because they are not entirely suited to his taste. I'd like to read a biography written by a true fan of her music and I'll second others' reviews about the book containing very little information about Ella's personal experiences.
January 28, 2024
Since reading Malka Marom’s Joni: In Her Own Words, I have developed a huge appetite for interviews with and biographical writing on my favorite music artists. I’ve been an ardent Ella Fitzgerald fan since high school but in the past two years have listened to her music with fresh ears and an obsessive fervor not seen since I first discovered Lucinda Williams. Wanting to fan the flame and get a better grasp on a discography that spans six decades, I picked up this book, as it was the most cited on her Wikipedia page. It does some good accounting of her studio output, especially her Decca years, and gives decent insight on the evolution of her style. But to glint Ella Fitzgerald as a barrier-breaking musical genius who helped define three eras of vocal jazz and popular song based on Stuart Nicholson’s account requires a lot of reading between the lines. Despite the usefulness of some of his original research, the book is plagued by inept and cliched writing and frequent and overt condesension toward its subject.
Nicholson announces from the beginning that the book was written without her cooperation (it was published three years before her death), relying instead on the written record and interviews with people who knew and worked with her. While I’m sure not having Fitzgerald’s input was a limitation, it doesn’t excuse the tiny role her voice plays in Nicholson’s story of her life. If we follow only his account, it seems that Ella Fitzgerald was not responsible for her own career and stardom. He would have it that she was an extraordinary musician with little vision for what her sound should be, whose output was defined largely by male chaperones—Chick Webb, Decca’s Moe Gale and Milt Gabler, and eventually Norman Granz. This version of events is not only contradicted by the obvious fact that it was her voice and her abilities as a live performer that sold records and packed concert venues around the globe. As Nicholson details, she broke onto the scene thanks to her own precocious musical abilities, blossomed into a virtuoso stylist with the Chick Webb Orchestra, engineered her first hit with “Tisket-A-Tasket,” lobbied for the record company to give her better material, pursued new and exciting sounds her entire career, embracing bop and changing the game for women in jazz for decades to come, and eventually emerged as a preeminent interpreter of the Great American Songbook.
Yet Nicholson does not take these facts as the starting point for the story of an ambitious and pioneering music artist. He instead consistently follows other voices who characterize her as a shy and childlike, whose naivety is reflected in her “girlish” tone, questionable song choices and ebullient performing style. Following some other hack jazz critics, Nicholson wants you to believe that Ella Fitzgerald did not “put herself in her music,” could rarely emote, and didn’t understand the lyrics of a Cole Porter song. At best, he grants her musical intelligence and a cool perfection that belies her inability to grasp the meaning of a song. At worst, he dips into demeaning rhetoric, disparaging her intellect and physical appearance, and discounting her experiences as an artist and a woman. The role of sexism, racial prejudice and segregation in limiting her early career is given scarce attention. Her romances, including her six-year marriage to bassist Ray Brown, are dismissed as affairs and mishaps in the life of a plain and lonely woman. The last two decades of her career are nearly completely written off as a mere document of vocal decline with little artistic value. And throughout he dedicates a bizarre amount of energy to transcribing insults and rude and misguided comments from her fellow musicians.
One of his most galling rhetorical moves comes in Chapter 11, which he opens with an epigraph quotation from Sylvia Syms, a white woman, proclaiming, “I don’t think anyone would accuse Ella of having an intellectual relationship with the lyrics to her song.” This is how he chooses to introduce the years 1955-7 in her career, the start of her iconic songbook era, and in fact seems to be one of the theses of his book, something he returns to again and again, even as he consistently provides evidence that contradicts it (accounts of audiences rapt and near tears as she sings a ballad, stirring live renditions of “Body and Soul” and “I Loves You, Porgy” ). In the last chapter, immediately following a grotesque and sexist summation of her artistry in relation to other “sexier” women singers, Nicholson quotes Betty Carter as saying, "Ella sings a ballad pretty much how the composer wants a ballad sung, because she's going to sing it straight...the way she approaches the melody is the important thing...the phrasing, the attack of the words, the way she sounded when she sang." Bafflingly, he uses this, again, as evidence that she did not make a song her own. Carter is of course describing the ingenious and subtle ways in which she did.
Incidentally, Nicholson has also written a biography of Billie Holiday and in 2021 penned an article for Jazz Times that posthumously diagnoses her as a criminal psychopath (I’m not joking). His goal in that article as in this book, conscious or otherwise, is to deny these women the authority to speak for themselves. Ella Fitzgerald did in fact give accounts of her life and artistry in interviews and in song throughout the course of her seven-decade career. She, like Holiday, understood her songs as a mode of personal expression and a means of communicating with audiences For someone interested in learning more about that, I would direct them instead to Judith Tick’s Becoming Ella Fitzgerald, which at least envisions her as a conscious agent, placing the singer much more firmly at the center of her own narrative, drawing readily from sources that no doubt existed when Nicholson was writing his biography but which he almost completely overlooks.
Nicholson announces from the beginning that the book was written without her cooperation (it was published three years before her death), relying instead on the written record and interviews with people who knew and worked with her. While I’m sure not having Fitzgerald’s input was a limitation, it doesn’t excuse the tiny role her voice plays in Nicholson’s story of her life. If we follow only his account, it seems that Ella Fitzgerald was not responsible for her own career and stardom. He would have it that she was an extraordinary musician with little vision for what her sound should be, whose output was defined largely by male chaperones—Chick Webb, Decca’s Moe Gale and Milt Gabler, and eventually Norman Granz. This version of events is not only contradicted by the obvious fact that it was her voice and her abilities as a live performer that sold records and packed concert venues around the globe. As Nicholson details, she broke onto the scene thanks to her own precocious musical abilities, blossomed into a virtuoso stylist with the Chick Webb Orchestra, engineered her first hit with “Tisket-A-Tasket,” lobbied for the record company to give her better material, pursued new and exciting sounds her entire career, embracing bop and changing the game for women in jazz for decades to come, and eventually emerged as a preeminent interpreter of the Great American Songbook.
Yet Nicholson does not take these facts as the starting point for the story of an ambitious and pioneering music artist. He instead consistently follows other voices who characterize her as a shy and childlike, whose naivety is reflected in her “girlish” tone, questionable song choices and ebullient performing style. Following some other hack jazz critics, Nicholson wants you to believe that Ella Fitzgerald did not “put herself in her music,” could rarely emote, and didn’t understand the lyrics of a Cole Porter song. At best, he grants her musical intelligence and a cool perfection that belies her inability to grasp the meaning of a song. At worst, he dips into demeaning rhetoric, disparaging her intellect and physical appearance, and discounting her experiences as an artist and a woman. The role of sexism, racial prejudice and segregation in limiting her early career is given scarce attention. Her romances, including her six-year marriage to bassist Ray Brown, are dismissed as affairs and mishaps in the life of a plain and lonely woman. The last two decades of her career are nearly completely written off as a mere document of vocal decline with little artistic value. And throughout he dedicates a bizarre amount of energy to transcribing insults and rude and misguided comments from her fellow musicians.
One of his most galling rhetorical moves comes in Chapter 11, which he opens with an epigraph quotation from Sylvia Syms, a white woman, proclaiming, “I don’t think anyone would accuse Ella of having an intellectual relationship with the lyrics to her song.” This is how he chooses to introduce the years 1955-7 in her career, the start of her iconic songbook era, and in fact seems to be one of the theses of his book, something he returns to again and again, even as he consistently provides evidence that contradicts it (accounts of audiences rapt and near tears as she sings a ballad, stirring live renditions of “Body and Soul” and “I Loves You, Porgy” ). In the last chapter, immediately following a grotesque and sexist summation of her artistry in relation to other “sexier” women singers, Nicholson quotes Betty Carter as saying, "Ella sings a ballad pretty much how the composer wants a ballad sung, because she's going to sing it straight...the way she approaches the melody is the important thing...the phrasing, the attack of the words, the way she sounded when she sang." Bafflingly, he uses this, again, as evidence that she did not make a song her own. Carter is of course describing the ingenious and subtle ways in which she did.
Incidentally, Nicholson has also written a biography of Billie Holiday and in 2021 penned an article for Jazz Times that posthumously diagnoses her as a criminal psychopath (I’m not joking). His goal in that article as in this book, conscious or otherwise, is to deny these women the authority to speak for themselves. Ella Fitzgerald did in fact give accounts of her life and artistry in interviews and in song throughout the course of her seven-decade career. She, like Holiday, understood her songs as a mode of personal expression and a means of communicating with audiences For someone interested in learning more about that, I would direct them instead to Judith Tick’s Becoming Ella Fitzgerald, which at least envisions her as a conscious agent, placing the singer much more firmly at the center of her own narrative, drawing readily from sources that no doubt existed when Nicholson was writing his biography but which he almost completely overlooks.
March 15, 2015
Ella Fitzgerald led a fascinating life, from growing up during the Great Depression and doing her first audition as a teenager that was living on the street, dirty and dressed in ragged clothes, to living in luxury as the First Lady of Jazz. This biography was well researched and included detailed information about Ella’s life. I had to listen to her singing some of her songs on You Tube to add to the enjoyment of reading the book!
June 5, 2008
Stuart Nicholson has done an excellent job of revealing Ella Fitzgerald's life. His research was extensive and his insight on how music changed in her lifetime is very compelling. The only drawback, in my opinion, is the denseness of his writing. Though, it is just a little over 300 pgs., it is not a quick read.
April 28, 2025
This is the life of one of the best - maybe THE best - singers in jazz.
It's a good story, but it lurches around from recording to recording, concert to concert, with precious little look at the artistry - except to criticize her for sometimes choosing to entertain instead of making art. This was the First Lady of Jazz, giving us classics like "Lady Be Good" and "How High The Moon," while also giving us "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" and "Ringo Beat."
Also frustrating is the constant lists of who played with her at this show or that recording session. It's an exercise in completeness, but seems unnecessary to me.
We do get a look at her personal life, which included one failed marriage, no kids, and a lot of loneliness. From dirt-poor beginnings to lavish riches, she seemed a lost soul, a little girl with a memorable voice, an innocent in a difficult world.
This story ends in 1993, three years before her death, so there is no happy ending, no clean wrap-up.
In a way, her story reminds me of another legend, Aretha Franklin, the "Queen of Soul," who also was dragged for entertaining instead of creating. I'll find out more later when I read that biography.
It's a good story, but it lurches around from recording to recording, concert to concert, with precious little look at the artistry - except to criticize her for sometimes choosing to entertain instead of making art. This was the First Lady of Jazz, giving us classics like "Lady Be Good" and "How High The Moon," while also giving us "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" and "Ringo Beat."
Also frustrating is the constant lists of who played with her at this show or that recording session. It's an exercise in completeness, but seems unnecessary to me.
We do get a look at her personal life, which included one failed marriage, no kids, and a lot of loneliness. From dirt-poor beginnings to lavish riches, she seemed a lost soul, a little girl with a memorable voice, an innocent in a difficult world.
This story ends in 1993, three years before her death, so there is no happy ending, no clean wrap-up.
In a way, her story reminds me of another legend, Aretha Franklin, the "Queen of Soul," who also was dragged for entertaining instead of creating. I'll find out more later when I read that biography.
July 29, 2017
Hearing Ella Fitzgerald finesse the Gershwin songbook is one of my earliest, strongest childhood memories. The magic of her singing spoiled me for good. Nicholson's well-researched book gave me such an appreciation for the incredible poverty, racism, and sexism she overcame to share her singular talent with the world. He acknowledges her eagerness to please caused her to often choose inferior material to sing, but he clearly revered her superlative diction, clarity, and range. He acknowledges that many find Billie Holliday superior as an artist, and while I adore Lady Day's work as well, I feel that Ella deserves all the accolades she lived to receive. Her drug of choice was food, and she paid for that with diabetes and limb loss, but she avoided the tragic loss of her skills far longer than Holliday. Ella Fitzgerald lived to sing, and how grateful I am that she recorded for the ages.
November 28, 2022
Overall, I liked learning about Ella’s life so I will give this 4 stars. The writing may be more of a 3 star book for me. This may be because it was written by a white man in the 90s. He is certainly knowledgeable about jazz and the major players. I would have liked to see more interest in compassion toward Ella as a person. Her adopted son got no more than 1 page of coverage in the first half of the book…And Ella was repeatedly referred to as having “no family to speak of,” which was clearly not true,” and it was emphasized how lonely she must have been. A 2019 documentary of Ella expressed far more of a connection with her son than this book implied (which I am inclined to believe since her son was interviewed and featured in the doc) and that her social life was more fruitful, as well.
August 28, 2017
Good combo of her personal and professional life, including some insights into the prevailing practices of the music industry at certain times. Well researched and included a number of primary sources. Great discography info.
October 5, 2018
Great book, but a lot of unneeded detailsm
January 19, 2021
Extremely well researched & a very detailed discography / summary of recording sessions. Some of the writing was stiff, but that is forgivable considering the thoroughness of the author’s work.
February 8, 2022
One of my favourite ever jazz singers. Amazing story and amazing person. I highly recommend this book if you love jazz singers/music.
January 10, 2023
After thinking on it for a few days, I’m changing my review to two stars. The author seems to have little interest in a large portion of Ella’s music, and frankly was unnecessarily rude about her throughout the book. I had to go read Gary Giddins’ chapter on her in ‘Visions of Jazz’ to cleanse my palate.
March 20, 2023
Magnificent Ella, acknowledged as a legend in her own lifetime, The First Lady of Song.
June 4, 2024
Too dry, like reading a textbook
June 27, 2024
I would’ve liked to see more discussion about her musicality and how her life and her music coincide. It’s more information than wikipedia but it doesn’t dive as deep as I would’ve liked.
April 23, 2014
This took a long time to read because, once Ella makes it, the story is over. The book becomes a record on repeat: Concert tour, concert tour, concert tour, album release, moderate shake-up; repeat. Bless her, Ella managed to stay away from controversy, which makes for a great life as a public figure, but makes for pretty dull reading.
January 22, 2016
I prefer more information about the artist's personal life and less about her professional performances in many venues. Ella maintained a distance between herself and her public, and I respect that. Nevertheless, I had hoped to learn more about her, her relationships including the ones with her husbands, lovers, adopted son and granddaughter.
February 19, 2013
I wish I had enough time to finish this before I had to return it to the library. But what i read was well-researched and set me on the path to discover a lot more of her influences and those she inspired. Excellent read.
March 23, 2008
ella forever!!
April 3, 2011
slower read but full of interesting information
July 31, 2013
One of the most levelheaded and hype-free biographies I've written. Great myth-busting and music-dissecting too.
Read
June 20, 2014lots of information and a great discography indexed by years
February 20, 2017
I couldn't finish this book because it just dragged with too much music detail for me.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews