Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song

An NPR 2023 "Books We Love" Pick

A landmark biography that reclaims Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist & modernist innovator.

Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) possessed one of the 20th century's most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist.

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research & in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer's difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, & the year she spent in a girls' reformatory school—where she sang in its renowned choir & dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald's tense experiences of racial discrimination & her struggles with constricting models of Black & white femininity at midcentury.

Tick’s compelling narrative depicts Fitzgerald’s complicated career in fresh & original detail, upending the traditional view that segregates vocal jazz from the genre’s mainstream. As she navigated the shifting tides between jazz & pop, she used her originality to pioneer modernist vocal jazz. Interpreting long-lost setlists, reviews from both white & Black newspapers, & newly released footage & recordings, the book explores how Ella’s transcendence as an improvisor produced onstage performances every bit as significant as her historic recorded oeuvre...

Breaking ground as a female bandleader, Fitzgerald refuted expectations of musical Blackness, deftly balancing artistic ambition & market expectations. Her legendary exploration of the Great American Songbook in the 1950s fused a Black vocal aesthetic & jazz improvisation to revolutionize the popular repertoire.