ELLA FITZGERALD, SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR

She dreamed of being a dancer but destiny got in the way. At the age of 16, this shy young orphan participated in an amateur competition at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem and won, thus beginning a career that would last until 1992… Fifty-eight years, thirteen Grammy Awards and more than 40 million records sold: it is probably the longest, or at least the most glorious musical career America has ever known. From her beginnings with drummer Chick Webb’s group, blown away by her voice that was both warm and pure, generous and precise, to her last concert, via the memorable year of 1938 when her song “A -Tisket A-Tasket” stayed on top of the charts for 19 weeks or in her moments of complicity with the greatest jazzmen, Ella never stopped swinging with her inimitable art of scat.