Shining. Oh hello from wonder media network. I'm Jenny Kaplan. And this is encyclopedia. Manica deemed the first lady of Song. Today's Dreamer was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States. For more than half a century. She went thirteen grammy awards and sold over forty million albums. Her voice was flexible. Wide-ranging accurate and ageless. Let's talk about Ella Fitzgerald Ella. Jane Fitzgerald was born on April twenty fifth nineteen seventeen in Newport News. Virginia to William Fitzgerald and Tempe Henry Ellis parents separated shortly after Ella's birth and she and her mother moved to Yonkers New York where they eventually moved in with Tempe longtime boyfriend. Joseph Dasilva three soon became four LS half-sister Francis was born in Nineteen twenty-three. The family struggled to make ends meet. Both parents worked multiple jobs. L. Occasionally took on work to their apartment was a mixed neighborhood. Where Ella made friends easily? She considered herself more of a Tomboy and often join neighborhood baseball games. Sports Aside Ella enjoy dancing and singing with friends and would perform at lunch and on her way to school in Nineteen. Thirty two ELLAS. Mom Tempe died from serious injury. She received in a car accident. Ella was devastated. She eventually moved in with her aunt Virginia and when her stepfather Joe died shortly thereafter. Ala stepsister. Francis came to live with them. To Ella was in a dark place. She started skipping school and her grades dropped. She got in trouble with the police and was sent to a reform school where she was subject to beatings by her caretakers. Eventually Ella escaped from the reformatory. She was fifteen years old broke and alone during the Great Depression. In nineteen thirty four Islas name was pulled in a weekly drawing the Apollo Theater for a chance to perform and compete an amateur night. Two sisters who the dance in the sisters in the world call the edgewood sisters and they closed the show about I when I saw those ladies. Dan I says no way. I'm going out there and try to dance. Because they stop the show. She was planning to dance but when the Edwards sisters closed the main show. She changed her mind fearing she couldn't compete with their moves. And when I got out there somebody follow up nobody else. What is she going to do? She made a last minute decision to sing and ask the band to play. Hoagy Carmichael Judy. Heavens hurt to me. By the end of the song the crowd demanded an encore and Ella had found her calling one of the people in the band. That night with saxophonist and Arranger Benny Carter wowed by her natural talent. Benny introduced a lot of people. Who could help launch your career? The era of big swing bands was coming to a close in favor of bebop. Ls successfully made the transition using her voice to sound like another horn in the band. She began to experiment with scat singing. Eventually turning it into an art in nineteen thirty eight Ella recorded a version of the nursery. Rhyme a-tisket a task it. A million copies of the album were sold it. Hit number one on the charts and it stayed on the pop charts for seventeen weeks. Ella was suddenly famous her wife. Changed Professionally and personally while on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band in nineteen forty. Six Ella fell in love with bassist. Ray Brown the two got married and adopted a son Ray. Junior through the two later got divorced. They remained lifelong friends L. O. Worked with all the jazz greats including Frank Sinatra Duke Ellington Nat King Cole Dizzy. Gillespie and Benny Goodman from nineteen fifty six to nineteen sixty. Four Ella recorded eight songbooks in which she covered other musicians songs. Including those by Cole Porter Duke. Ellington the Gershwin's Johnny Mercer Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hart Ella continued to work throughout her life by the nineteen nineties. She had recorded more than two hundred albums she received the Kennedy Center honors the US National Medal of Arts and Francis Commander of Arts and letters award. Thank you and I'm so proud to be in class with all these younger ones coming up. Ain't gonNA leave me behind. I'm learning out a wrap in her later. Life Ella suffer from diabetes. She was hospitalized. Congestive heart failure in nineteen eighty six and for exhaustion in nineteen ninety. Nine hundred ninety three. She had to have both of her legs amputated below the knee due to complications from diabetes. She never fully recovered from the surgery. And on June fifteenth. Nineteen Ninety six at the age of seventy-nine Ella Fitzgerald died at her Beverly Hills. Home fans all over. The world mourned her death. A wreath of white flowers was placed next to her star on the Hollywood walk of fame and the Marquee outside the Hollywood bowl read. Lmu will miss you