Ella Fitzgerald’s Commonwealth connection.
Although she only lived in Virginia briefly, the great Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), arguably the finest jazz singer of all, was born in Newport News. Truth is, the Commonwealth can’t really claim America’s First Lady of Song, no state can. And maybe that’s as it should be—Ella is everyone’s. When asked about her origins over the years, this talented orphan from a broken home always gave an honest answer: “It’s not where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.” Fitzgerald moved to New York as a child in the early ’20s. She won an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem when she was 17, and went on to receive no less than 13 Grammy awards, the National Medal of Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and other accolades.
This profile appeared as part of a larger feature in our February 2018 issue. Click here to read about the history of jazz in Virginia: meet the artists, read profiles and watch performance videos and interviews.
