Today would have been Ella Fitzgerald's 96th birthday

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

Born: April 25, 1917, Newport News
Died: June 15, 1996, Beverly Hills

Awards: Presidential Medal of Freedom, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year, National Medal of Arts, Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female, Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo, Kennedy Center Honor, George Peabody Medal, NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Artist, Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Female

She did four solo duet albums with the late great jazz guitarist Joe Pass. These albums were just one person singing and one person playing guitar with no overdubbing and with nothing to hide behind but raw talent and genius.

[elleng]

1. THANK YOU!

ANYTHING GOES!

[elleng]

2. A Tisket,-a-Tasket,

for my #40,000 post, in honor of Ella and an old family recording:

[olddots]

3. TONE

TONE for days

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. My father took the family to see her in the 1970s.

He wanted to make sure we saw a jazz legend. Dad was hip. He must have hung out in jazz clubs when that was probably not common for a white guy in segregated America.

I came home one day with an Art Tatum record and said "Do you know who he is" and Dad said, "Yeah". That blew my mind.

Mom on the other hand was impossibly square.

[kcass1954]

5. She was a favorite of my parents.

After a certain age (9 or so), we were free to play their albums on the big stereo in the living room.

I was also fortunate to see her once with Count Basie about a year or so before he died. I'm not sure how thrilled the former mr.k was. But man-o-man what a great night that was!