For half a century, Ella Fitzgerald has been the most technically accomplished jazz singer and the one who has commanded the largest popular following.  While not as intense as Billie Holiday, she sold millions of records with her skillful scat singing and jazz-tinged versions of pop standards. After winning a Harlem Amateur Hour contest in 1934 by singing ‘Judy’, she joined Tiny Bradshaw’s band before taking up a permanent post with drummer Chick Webb’s orchestra in 1935.  Her first recording with Webb was  ‘Love and Kisses’ (1935) and her  biggest hit the million-selling ‘A Tisket a Tasket’ (1938).

With music by Al Feldman, the song’s throwaway lyrics were taken by Fitzgerald from a nursery rhyme, and its success dominated Decca’s recording plans for her over the next decade.
   After Webb’s death in 1939. Fitzgerald led his band for two years and then went solo. As well as ballads, she released novelty numbers like ‘My Wubba Dolly’ (1939) and ‘Melinda the Mouse’. Decca’s Jack Kapp also paired her with such popular vocal groups as The Mills Brothers, The Delta Rhythm Boys, Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong and The Ink Spots. Fitzgerald’s jazz singing was given more scope on Norman Granz’s ‘Jazz at the Philharmonic’ tours which she joined in 1946. Her scat singing on such tunes as ‘Flying Home’ and ‘How High the Moon’ were highlights of the concerts but apart from a Gershwin Songbook album, her Decca records remained in the pop ballad category.                         
   When her Decca contract ran out in 1955, Fitzgerald joined Granz’s Verve label and in 1956 began a long series of recordings based on the ‘songbook’ concept. With orchestral backing by Nelson Riddle and others, she performed the works of such writers as Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Harold Arlen and Duke Ellington. This was Fitzgerald at her best, her technical skill meshing with the polished lyrics of such songs as ‘Manhattan', 'Love for Sale' and 'Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’. A parallel set of albums found Fitzgerald paired with leading jazz musicians such as Ellington, Oscar Peterson and Louis Armstrong, with whom she made an album of songs from Gershwin’s 'Porgy and Bess' in 1960, while 'Rhythm Is My Business'  had arrangements by Bill Doggett, with whom she had previously recorded ‘Crying in the Chapel’. Now managed by Granz, Fitzgerald made her first film appearance in 'Pete Kelly’s Blues', with Peggy Lee making an album of songs from the film, followed by 'St Louis Blues' and 'Let No Man Write My Epitaph'. She also made the occasional hit single, ‘Swinging Shepherd Blues’ reached the British Top Twenty, while Fitzgerald had a transatlantic success with a live recording of ‘Mack the Knife’ in 1960.                                    
   Four years later her version of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ was a minor hit in Britain. Serious illness interrupted her career in the late sixties but Fitzgerald returned to recording with Granz’s Pablo label in the seventies. Some of the finest of the later albums were made with guitarist Joe Pass and pianist Tommy Flanagan her regular accompanist on live dates. 'Nice Work If You Can Get It'  was a further selection of Gershwin material with Andre Previn on piano.