Review by Booklist Review
A vocalist with a phonographic memory and "astonishing agility" and inventiveness, who used her voice like an instrument, fused jazz and pop, and brilliantly interpreted songs by writers ranging from Cole Porter to Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, the Beatles, Carole King, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald was forever shadowed by the traumas of her rough childhood. Born in 1917, she grew up poor in Yonkers, New York, enchanted by music and determined to succeed as a dancer. But it was her voice that distinguished her, even in reform school. Music historian Tick tracks every phase of Fitzgerald's arduous life of dedicated creativity and effort--she toured incessantly, nationally and globally, for decades and made stacks of records--along with her wit, shyness, generosity, triumphs, and sorrows. Portraying close collaborators, especially bandleader Chick Webb and producer Norman Granz, and establishing a richly textured social context by drawing extensively on press coverage, especially in Black newspapers, Tick illuminates the artist and her experiences with precision, insight, and fluency. Tick's chronicling of Fitzgerald's genius for intuiting what an audience wanted to hear, her "courage and independence," the sharp criticism she endured for her daringly innovative choices, and the ardent acclaim she earned as a pioneering Black woman artist and civil rights advocate coalesces in a defining, revelatory, and invaluable biography.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Tick (Ruth Crawford Seeger), a professor emerita of music history at Northeastern University, delivers a magisterial biography of singer Ella Fitzgerald (1917--1996), who "fearlessly explored... different styles of American song through the lens of African American jazz." Fitzgerald grew up in Yonkers, N.Y., performing for classmates in the schoolyard and listening to the Mills Brothers and Boswell Sisters, groups that proved "prophetic" for the singer's development "because they treated the voice as a human instrument." At 15, Fitzgerald gave her earliest public performance at the Yonkers Federation of Negro Clubs; three years later, she officially began her recording career. "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," her "swinging rendition" of the children's nursery rhyme, kicked off her ascent to stardom in 1938, and her career blossomed thanks to her ambition and willingness to mix different musical styles, from swing to bebop to pop. Though Fitzgerald was sometimes faulted by jazz critics for blending jazz and pop standards, her music (and characteristic vocal elements such as scat singing) remained popular with audiences and helped shape the evolution of jazz in America. Drawing on archival research and animated by genuine passion for her subject, Tick paints a detailed portrait of an artist whose willingness to reinvent herself galvanized her career. It's rendered in luxuriant prose that brings Fitzgerald's "glass-shattering high notes" and "lustrous beguiling voice" to life. The result is an excellent addition to the shelf on America's jazz legends. (Dec.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Tick (emerita, music history, Northeastern Univ.; coauthor, Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion) has meticulously researched the music career of Ella Fitzgerald (1917--96) for this stunning and comprehensive biography. The book relies heavily on documented concert footage, recordings, and archival print and audio interviews to construct a portrait of Fitzgerald that makes up with its thoroughness what it lacks in intimacy. Throughout the book, Tick inspires readers to rediscover Fitzgerald's musical genius, as she describes the singer continually reinventing herself to stay vital and relevant, a process that Fitzgerald never abandoned, even in her later years. This exploration of Fitzgerald's life and career describes those personal relationships closest to her, but the book's formal tone doesn't convey a strong sense of the woman herself. VERDICT Best for jazz scholars or readers who are superfans of Fitzgerald.--Amy Shaw
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Comprehensive and fascinating biography of an American music titan. Music historian Tick, author of Ruth Crawford Seeger, presents the first extensive biography of Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) since her death. The author makes excellent use of newly available resources, in particular the digital records of Black newspapers such as the Baltimore Afro-American, "the most widely circulated Black newspaper on the East Coast," and the Chicago Defender, unavailable to previous Fitzgerald biographers. Tick expertly synthesizes those sources to provide tremendous insight into Fitzgerald's early and personal life, the jazz and pop worlds in which she thrived and expanded her audience, and her groundbreaking work as a Black American woman singer and bandleader. The author's music-history chops are on full display in her consistently intriguing analyses of how and why particular songs and lyrics ("The Object of My Affection," "Goodnight My Love," and "Mack the Knife" for example) worked for Fitzgerald musically and culturally; her significance in the world of bebop; early performances in such venues as the Apollo Theater and the Savoy Ballroom; and her radio, stage, and recording career with bandleaders like Chick Webb. Tick excels at describing the stark contrast between Fitzgerald's onstage presence and her offstage shyness; passages on Fitzgerald's relationship with the Decca and Verve labels and her collaborations with arrangers such as Nelson Riddle are equally valuable. The author also covers prominent music journalists' reviews of and debates about Fitzgerald's work and status, her lasting imprint on the Great American Songbook, and her evolution to adapt to a changing American music scene. "Through her own transformative quests as an artist," writes Tick, "she changed the trajectory of American vocal jazz in this century." Essential for casual fans of jazz and music history and Fitzgerald aficionados alike, this thoroughly impressive work will be hard to equal. As masterful and wonderful as its subject. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
