Discussion for article #224317
sweet. gracĂous.
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Wonderful! A fun image and an artifact from a time that was a lot more interesting and exciting than it gets credit for. We stereotype those decades—the Forties were The Big One and the Fifties were Father Knows Best—but there was so much going on in music, art, film and everything else that we could really, really envy those people for living then. You could go to a club and hear Charlie Parker; you could go to the movie theater and see a Bergman or Kurosawa film. If that was conformity then give me conformity.
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Yeah, but who’s that bald guy in front?
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No idea. Adlai Stevenson?
It was classic America untainted by the eternal post WWII war footing and CIA’s illegal postwar domestic manipulations of corporate boards and certain films and broadcasts.
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I suppose that for some people I need to wearily add that liking certain things that happened in a particular period does not necessarily mean you like and endorse everything that happened during the period. I hope I can appreciate Bergman and Bird without appearing to also favor segregation, Joe McCarthy, or Adolf Hitler. I like Mozart but don’t like slavery, which was going on at the same time. Further clarifications available on request.
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That’s Ray Brown, bassist and Ella’s soon-to-be husband, over her right shoulder. Wonderful pic!
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MattinPA, nothing to worry about. Adolf Hitler had been dead two years.
Great photo - I’d give almost anything for a time machine to be able to walk those 52nd street jazz clubs back in the day.
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Downbeat club. That’s Milt Jackson, I believe, way in the back.
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Some interesting background that not a lot of folks know. Ella’s Dad was not around as a kid (don’t remember if he died or was just AWOL), and then her mother died when she was ~14. Some relatives took her in, but she ran away, and was essentially a homeless kid in NYC in the middle of the Great Depression.
Back then, the Apollo (and similar clubs) in Harlem had amateur nights, and Ella signed up for it, intending to dance. But the preceding act had dancers she didn’t think she could top, so off the top of her head, she just sang a song…and then another…until the room was on their feet.
I might have a detail or two wrong, but Ella really had an amazing story and life that everyone ought to check out.
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There’s more talent and perseverance in that picture than the present generation will ever understand. Some pictures speak to you, the really great ones sing. This one, like it’s principle subjects, sings.
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You know, I have some fantasies about time travel that are very appealing to me. One is that I’d be able to see my natal state of Michigan, and its lakes, before all the forests were cut down. The second is that I’d be able to see John Coltrane in the early to mid 1960s in a club. But I’d gladly settle for seeing Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald (whom I saw in different occasions in real life) in a club in 1940s Harlem.
This makes me want to pull out my Ella in Berlin record so I can again marvel at her ability to make up new words on the fly for Mack the Knife when she tried to sing it and forgot the actual words. I know that was years after this photo, but it’s a really enjoyable rendition of the song. She was a great talent and a real American treasure. Diz was great too.
Somebody with a great seat.
That’s a fantastic record and a mind-boggling performance of that song.