One of the most celebrated figures in jazz, Ella Fitzgerald performs at the Down Beat Club on her 30th birthday, in April 1948. Using a Shure Unidyne that captured her three-and-ahalf octave range, she captivated an audience that included luminaries of the music world such as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman (seated at the table in front of the stage). Her career began when she attended a talent show at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in 1934. The 15-year-old girl was too scared to dance; so she decided to sing instead. In the audience was a member of the famed Chick Webb Orchestra. Ella Fitzgerald appeared with the band for a one-night tryout, and that one night grew into a 60-year career. Her live radio performances and recordings in the 1930s and 1940s brought her music to an audience outside the New York clubs. When she toured, one publication wrote: “… newspapers would herald her arrival; there’d be sellouts; critics would stalk the dictionary for new words to sing her praise.” One of those critics, Brooks Atkinson, of the New York Times, required no complex words when he declared: “She simply manages things that the human voice can’t do.” In addition to the more than 100 albums she recorded, the photograph at the right, which is in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution, remains an enduring reminder of her spellbinding talent.
