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Ella Fitzgerald

Hailed as the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald virtually redefined the art of jazz singing during a distinguished sixty-year recording career in which she undeniably mastered the Great American Songbook. Her wondrously pure tones, crystal clear diction and improvisational ability first caught the wider public's attention in the mid-1930s when she fronted and eventually took over Chick Webb's orchestra. But it was as a solo artist where Fitzgerald established herself as a vocal legend, embracing the advent of bebop by incorporating the scat style into her repertoire, reinventing a whole host of Songbooks from the likes of Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and Johnny Mercer and releasing some of the greatest live albums of all time. By the time of her retirement in 1994, she'd sold 40 million records, won 13 Grammy Awards and forever changed the face of jazz.