Ella Jane Fitzgerald (1917-1996) was born on April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. Her career s

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (1917-1996) was born on April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. Her career started at age 17 when she won the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night contest on November 21, 1934, after which she began performing with the Chick Webb Band and recording under the Decca label. It was with Decca that Fitzgerald’s 1938 song “A-tisket, A-tasket” reached number one on the Billboard charts. With Webb’s passing in 1939, Fitzgerald began recording under the name Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra. She went on to become the “First Lady of Song,” one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time.

Looking for more information on legendary women of jazz? The Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, the world’s largest jazz archive, has posted the finding aids  it produced through a CLIR Hidden Collections grant  to arrange and describe the collections of five women in jazz: Wilma Dobie, Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln, Annie Ross, and Victoria Spivey.

Women in Jazz Project–Institute of Jazz Studies