Editing Ella Fitzgerald (section)

===Verve years===
[[File:Ella Fitzgerald at the Paul Masson Winery, 1986.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|alt=Fitzgerald is speaking into a microphone outside outside a winery.|Fitzgerald at the Paul Masson Winery, [[Saratoga, California]], in 1986]]

Fitzgerald made her first tour of [[Australia]] in July 1954 for the Australian-based American promoter [[Lee Gordon (promoter)|Lee Gordon]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stratton |first=Jon |date=September 2007 |title='All Rock and Rhythm and Jazz': Rock 'n' Roll Origin Stories and Race in Australia |journal=Continuum |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=379–392 |doi=10.1080/10304310701460730 |s2cid=143360217 |hdl-access=free |hdl=20.500.11937/39207}}</ref> This was the first of Gordon's famous "Big Show" promotions and the "package" tour also included [[Buddy Rich]], [[Artie Shaw]] and comedian [[Jerry Colonna (entertainer)|Jerry Colonna]].

Although the tour was a big hit with audiences and set a new box office record for Australia, it was marred by an incident of racial discrimination that caused Fitzgerald to miss the first two concerts in [[Sydney]], and Gordon had to arrange two later free concerts to compensate ticket holders. Although the four members of Fitzgerald's entourage – Fitzgerald, her pianist [[John Lewis (pianist)|John Lewis]], her assistant (and cousin) Georgiana Henry, and manager Norman Granz – all had first-class tickets on their scheduled [[Pan-American Airlines]] flight from Honolulu to Australia, they were ordered to leave the aircraft after they had already boarded and were refused permission to re-board the aircraft to retrieve their luggage and clothing. As a result, they were stranded in [[Honolulu]] for three days before they could get another flight to Sydney. Although a contemporary Australian press report<ref>{{Cite news |date=July 24, 1954 |title='Stop the music,' said Artie Shaw |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23419892 |access-date=February 7, 2018 |work=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |page=3 |via=[[National Library of Australia]]}}</ref> quoted an Australian Pan-Am spokesperson who denied that the incident was racially based, Fitzgerald, Henry, Lewis and Granz filed a civil suit for racial discrimination against [[Pan Am|Pan-Am]] in December 1954,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Complaint, ''Ella Fitzgerald et al v. Pan American'', December 23, 1954 |url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/documented-rights/exhibit/section4/detail/fitzgerald-complaint-transcript.html |access-date=February 7, 2018 |publisher=[[National Archives and Records Administration]]}}</ref> which they won on appeal in January 1956.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Judgment in the Case of Fitzgerald v. Pan American World Airways |url=https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/fitzgerald-judgment |website=Docs Teach}}</ref> In a 1970 television interview Fitzgerald said they received what she described as a "nice settlement".<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 25, 2017 |title=Ella Fitzgerald Sues Airline for Discrimination (1970) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2bnuByFa1M |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/V2bnuByFa1M |archive-date=December 11, 2021 |access-date=February 7, 2018 |publisher=[[CBC News]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Fitzgerald was still performing at Granz's [[Jazz at the Philharmonic]] (JATP) concerts by 1955. She left Decca, and Granz, now her manager, created [[Verve Records]] around her. She later described the period as strategically crucial, saying: "I had gotten to the point where I was only singing be-bop. I thought be-bop was 'it', and that all I had to do was go some place and sing bop. But it finally got to the point where I had no place to sing. I realized then that there was more to music than bop. Norman ... felt that I should do other things, so he produced ''[[Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book]]'' with me. It was a turning point in my life."<ref name="nyobit" />

On March 15, 1955, Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the [[Mocambo (nightclub)|Mocambo]] nightclub in Hollywood,<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=March 12, 1955 |title=Talent topics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mx4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA24 |access-date=February 8, 2018 |magazine=The Billboard |page=24 |issn=0006-2510}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |date=April 7, 1955 |title=Ella Fitzgerald a big hit |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-bEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA60 |access-date=February 8, 2018 |magazine=Jet |page=60 |volume=7 |issue=22 |issn=0021-5996}}</ref> after [[Marilyn Monroe]] lobbied the owner for the booking.{{sfn |Nicholson |2004 |p=149}} The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career. [[Bonnie Greer]] dramatized the incident as the musical drama, ''[[Marilyn and Ella]]'', in 2008. It had previously been widely reported that Fitzgerald was the first black performer to play the Mocambo, following Monroe's intervention, but this is not true. African-American singers [[Herb Jeffries]],<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=August 13, 1953 |title=Jet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nEIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA60 |access-date=August 16, 2013 |magazine=Jet |page=60 |issn=0021-5996}}</ref> [[Eartha Kitt]],<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=December 10, 1953 |title=Jet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=078DAAAAMBAJ |access-date=August 16, 2013 |magazine=Jet |issn=0021-5996}}</ref> and [[Joyce Bryant]]<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=November 12, 1953 |title=Jet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0L8DAAAAMBAJ |access-date=August 16, 2013 |magazine=Jet |issn=0021-5996}}</ref> all played the Mocambo in 1952 and 1953, according to stories published at the time in ''[[Jet (magazine)|Jet]]'' magazine and ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]''.

''[[Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book]]'', released in 1956, was the first of eight "Song Book" sets Fitzgerald would record for Verve at irregular intervals from 1956 to 1964. The composers and lyricists spotlighted on each set, taken together, represent the greatest part of the cultural canon known as the ''[[Great American Songbook]]''. Her song selections ranged from standards to rarities and represented an attempt by Fitzgerald to cross over into a non-jazz audience. The sets are the most well-known items in her discography and by 1956 Fitzgerald's recordings were showcased nationally by [[Ben Selvin]] within the [[RCA Thesaurus]] transcription library.<ref>{{Cite web |date=August 18, 1956 |title=Billboard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwoEAAAAMBAJ&dq=Ben+Selvin+RCA+Thesaurus&pg=PA39 |publisher=Nielsen Business Media, Inc. |via=Google Books}}</ref> 

[[File:Ella Fitzgerald 1968.jpg|thumb|upright|right|alt=Refer to caption|Signed autograph of Fitzgerald in 1968, courtesy of the [[Fraser MacPherson]] estate]]

''[[Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book]]'' was the only Song Book on which the composer she interpreted played with her. [[Duke Ellington]] and his longtime collaborator [[Billy Strayhorn]] both appeared on exactly half the set's 38 tracks and wrote two new pieces of music for the album: "The E and D Blues" and a four-movement musical portrait of Fitzgerald. The Song Book series ended up becoming Fitzgerald's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work, and probably her most significant offering to American culture. ''The New York Times'' wrote in 1996, "These albums were among the first pop records to devote such serious attention to individual songwriters, and they were instrumental in establishing the pop album as a vehicle for serious musical exploration."<ref name="nyobit" />

Days after Fitzgerald's death, ''The New York Times'' columnist [[Frank Rich]] wrote that in the Song Book series Fitzgerald "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as [[Elvis Presley|Elvis]]' contemporaneous integration of white and [[African-American]] soul. Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians."<ref name="rich" /> [[Frank Sinatra]], out of respect for Fitzgerald, prohibited [[Capitol Records]] from re-releasing his own recordings in separate albums for individual composers in the same way.{{citation needed|date=September 2014}}

Fitzgerald also recorded albums exclusively devoted to the songs of Porter and [[George Gershwin|Gershwin]] in 1972 and 1983; the albums being, respectively, ''[[Ella Loves Cole]]'' and ''[[Nice Work If You Can Get It (album)|Nice Work If You Can Get It]]''. A later collection devoted to a single composer was released during her time with [[Pablo Records]], ''[[Ella Abraça Jobim]]'', featuring the songs of [[Antônio Carlos Jobim]].

While recording the Song Books and the occasional studio album, Fitzgerald toured 40 to 45 weeks per year in the United States and internationally, under the tutelage of Norman Granz. Granz helped solidify her position as one of the leading live jazz performers.<ref name="nyobit" /> In 1961 Fitzgerald bought a house in the [[Klampenborg]] district of Copenhagen, Denmark, after she began a relationship with a Danish man. Though the relationship ended after a year, Fitzgerald regularly returned to Denmark over the next three years and even considered buying a jazz club there. The house was sold in 1963, and Fitzgerald permanently returned to the United States.{{sfn|Nicholson|1996|p=198}}

[[File:Ella-Fitzgerald-in-Helsinki-1963.jpg|thumb|alt=Refer to caption|Fitzgerald performing at the [[Helsinki Culture Hall]] in Finland in April 1963]]

There are several live albums on Verve that are highly regarded by critics. ''[[At the Opera House]]'' shows a typical Jazz at the Philharmonic set from Fitzgerald. ''[[Ella in Rome: The Birthday Concert|Ella in Rome]]'' and ''[[Twelve Nights in Hollywood]]'' display her vocal jazz canon. ''[[Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife|Ella in Berlin]]'' is still one of her best-selling albums; it includes a Grammy-winning performance of "[[Mack the Knife]]" in which she forgets the lyrics but improvises to compensate.

Verve Records was sold to [[MGM Records|MGM]] in 1960 for $3 million and in 1967 MGM failed to renew Fitzgerald's contract. Over the next five years she flitted between [[Atlantic Records|Atlantic]], [[Capitol Records|Capitol]] and [[Reprise Records|Reprise]]. Her material at this time represented a departure from her typical jazz repertoire. For Capitol she recorded ''[[Brighten the Corner]]'', an album of [[hymn]]s, ''[[Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas]]'', an album of traditional [[Christmas carol]]s, ''[[Misty Blue (album)|Misty Blue]]'', a [[country and western]]-influenced album, and ''[[30 by Ella]]'', a series of six medleys that fulfilled her obligations for the label. During this period, she had her last US chart single with a cover of [[Smokey Robinson]]'s "[[Get Ready (The Temptations song)|Get Ready]]", previously a hit for [[the Temptations]], and some months later a top-five hit for [[Get Ready (The Temptations song)#Rare Earth version|Rare Earth]].

The surprise success of the 1972 album ''[[Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72]]'' led Granz to found [[Pablo Records]], his first record label since the sale of Verve. Fitzgerald recorded some 20 albums for the label. ''[[Ella in London]]'' recorded live in 1974 with pianist [[Tommy Flanagan (musician)|Tommy Flanagan]], guitarist [[Joe Pass]], bassist Keter Betts and drummer Bobby Durham, was considered by many to be some of her best work. The following year she again performed with Joe Pass on German television station [[Norddeutscher Rundfunk|NDR]] in [[Hamburg]]. Her years with Pablo Records also documented the decline in her voice. "She frequently used shorter, stabbing phrases, and her voice was harder, with a wider vibrato", one biographer wrote.<ref name="Nicholson">{{harvnb |Nicholson |2004}} ''"For many years Fitzgerald's birthdate was thought to be on the same date one year later in 1918 – and it is still listed as such in some sources – but research by Nicholson and another biographer, Tanya Lee Stone, established 1917 as the correct year of birth."''</ref> Plagued by health problems, Fitzgerald made her last recording in 1991 and her last public performances in 1993.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Davies |first=Hugh |date=December 31, 2005 |title=Sir Johnny up there with the Count and the Duke |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1506681/Sir-Johnny-up-there-with-the-Count-and-the-Duke.html |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1506681/Sir-Johnny-up-there-with-the-Count-and-the-Duke.html |archive-date=January 11, 2022 |access-date=March 16, 2007 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref>