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Ella Fitzgerald was orphaned in early childhood and moved to New York to attend school in Yonkers orphanage. In 1934, she was discovered in an amateur contest sponsored by the Apollo Theater in New York City. This led to a commitment with the group of Chick Webb, and she quickly became a celebrity of the swing era with shows such as A-Tisket, A-Tasket (1938) and Undecided (1939). When Webb died in 1939, Fitzgerald assumed leadership of the band, who led for three years. She then embarked on a solo career, and issuing commercial recordings of jazz and in 1946 began a collaboration with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic, which has finally a large international following.

She also sang in a jazz band led by her husband, Ray Brown (1948-52). In early 1956, Fitzgerald broke its longstanding relationship with Decca to join the newly founded Granz Verve label. Among the first projects was a series of 11 songs dedicated to the great American authors. The series has made use of the superiority of jazz-inflected arrangements of Nelson Riddle and others, and succeeded in attracting a wide audience of non-jazz, the establishment of the Fitzgerald supreme interpreters of popular song repertoire. Thereafter, his career was managed by Granz, and has become one of the best jazz performers of international renown. She has published numerous recordings for labels Granz and made frequent appearances at jazz festivals of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Flanagan, and Joe Pass. Among her many awards is a Grammy Award in 1980. Her collection of scores and photos is now in the library of Boston University.

For decades, Fitzgerald was seen as the quintessential female jazz singer and drew lavish praise from admirers as diverse as Charlie Parker and the singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Her voice is small and somewhat girlish in timbre, but these disadvantages are offset by a very wide range (from D to C), which has orders with remarkable agility and a sense of swing smoothly. This allows her to give performances that rival the best jazz instrumentalists in their virtuosity, particularly in improvised scat solos, for which she is justly famous. Unlike the training of singers, it shows the strain on the breaking of his voice (d ‘and beyond), which, however, it uses the term effect in the construction of the highlights. Fitzgerald also has a gift of mimicry that enables him to imitate other well-known singers (Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin) and the instruments of jazz. As an interpreter of popular songs, it is limited by some innate gaiety of handling drama and pathos convincingly, but it is unmatched in its return of lightweight materials and its ease to slide in and out of the idiom jazz. It has influenced many popular American singers of the post-swing as well as international artists such as singer Miriam Makeba.

The work of trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong once summarized the achievements of New Orleans jazz style and pointed the way to the latest development of music as a solo-oriented art. Its historical importance is offset by its popular appeal – a rare combination in the jazz art form, which is often suspicious of commercial success – and his career, is the favorite of “West End Blues” in 1928, at one end this has changed the course of jazz with his flamboyance and virtuosity, and (at the other end), in his hit records “Hello Dolly” and “What a Wonderful World”, which attracted a mass audience with their charisma and emotionally direct. Leslie Critic Gourse entitled his book on jazz singers Louis “The children, but may equally well be applied to all jazz musicians later, which swim in the inheritance and often work in ’shadow of this huge figure of the art of the first time.

Armstrong often stated that his birthday was the fourth of July, 1900 – a symbolic milestone to celebrate the arrival of this important figure at the dawn of the American Century. However, he used 1901 on the application of social security and other official documents. Search by Tad Jones and Gary Giddins led to the discovery of records of baptism Armstrong has created the most prosaic birthday of August 4 1901.

Armstrong suffered the stigma of an illegitimate child of a prostitute, raised in abject poverty of the tower-of-the-century New Orleans. His father, William Armstrong has left the family when Louis was still an infant, and his mother Mary Armstrong was often absent, and with the child to fall into the care of his grandmother and uncle. He briefly attended the Fisk School for boys, but left when he was eleven years. He earned money by singing in the streets with a quartet, young and working odd jobs. Arrested for firing a gun as part of a celebration of New Year’s Eve, Armstrong was placed in the House of New Orleans Waifs. Armstrong has benefited from the structured and disciplined environment in this context, but perhaps even more so by the musical training he received from the hands of Professor Peter Davis. Armstrong was soon attracting the attention of his cornet playing, and absorb the sounds of jazz from New Orleans.

Armstrong was excited by playing of cornetist Buddy Bolden, a quasi-legend who has never registered, but is often credited as the first musician to perform New Orleans jazz style. The youth was also admired and learned from Bunk Johnson, Kid Ory, Buddy Petit and especially the great Joe ‘King’ Oliver. When Oliver left New Orleans in 1919 to try his luck in the North, Armstrong took his place in the Kid Ory. Armstrong also played on the river boats, and served as second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band. Around this time Armstrong married Daisy Parker, and the couple adopted Clarence Armstrong, the son of Louis the cousin of Flora who died shortly after childbirth. But marriage did not last long, and Parker is dying soon after the divorce.

In 1922, Armstrong was invited to travel to Chicago to join King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. This was the most famous jazz band in Chicago at the time, Armstrong and the association has given a platform to continue his fame and success. Armstrong and Oliver gained attention for the counterpoint of two cones, but in time the youngest player of the more assertive tend to surpass the work of his employer. King Oliver’s classic recording of “Dippermouth Blues”, we see the contrast between the two designers. Former Oliver remains faithful to the tradition of New Orleans mixed with other instruments, and concentrating on the timbre and texture rather than the variety of notes, but the young Armstrong was chomping at the bit, anxious to demonstrate his virtuosity on the horn. His second wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was also with pianist Oliver band, encouraged him to go as a leader and to develop his own style and sound like a jazz musician.

“Make no mistake, [this] jazz music is for everyone. Jazz is not an exclusive, elite club. Go ahead, listen…” Christian McBride

True indeed that jazz music is appreciated not only by a few but surprisingly by many people. They enjoy the unique creativitity of this musical genre of syncopated rhythm of the famous blues.

Jazz fans in Chicago include even the highest official of the USA. Yes, Barack Obama himself!

An article posted in msnbc.com last Feb. 26,2009 had a glaring headline: “Obamas honor Stevie Wonder at White House” and is herein cited:

” WASHINGTON [AP]- President Barack Obama on Wednesday thanked musician Stevie Wonder  for creating “a style that’s uniquely American” as he presented the singer-songwriter the nation’s  highest award for pop music.
Obama, who called Wonder the soundtrack of his youth, gave the star the Library of  Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song during an East Room tribute that featured Tony Bennett, Martina McBride and Wonder himself. The president joked that the group was “the most accomplished Stevie Wonder cover band in history.”

Not only the President but also the First lady Michelle Obama called Wonder as “one of the world’s greatest artists.” She related how her grandfather would play Stevie’s  music all throughout the house, and would together they listened to his song over and over.

And Stevie may have played a big role in Michelle and Barack’s love story!The couple’s wedding song was “You and I”, and the President was quoted saying “… had I not been a Stevie Wonder fan, Michelle might not have dated me, we might not have married”.

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