Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another.^[1]

In the United States, the term is often used for a person or thing actually named after, rather than merely sharing the name of another.^[2] For example, if a person, place, or thing is named after another person, place, or thing, then the name target is said to be the namesake of the name source. The earliest use reported in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1635. Dictionaries suggest that the word probably comes from "name's sake", "for one's name('s) sake", for "name sake".

History[link]

The term namesake was first recorded in 1635, referring to a place with the same name as another.^[1] Among other recordings, a 1646 usage was carried through in an 1806 publication, entitled A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language.^[3] Modern-day usage has expanded to several uses for the term.^[4]

Usage[link]

Using a namesake's name is a relatively common practice in naming children that has given rise to the large number of "Jr.", "III", and other name suffixes. Namesakes are often used in tribute to older, related persons, such as grandparents. Use of a namesake's name in a leadership position may indicate certain things, usually referring to certain traits of the namesake, such as in the use of papal regnal names.

Some commercial entities and products are named after their creators, such as the Trump Tower and Ford Motor Company. Items are also named after people associated with them, such as the teddy bear. This is especially the case with scientific discoveries and theories, such as Gibbs free energy. When the target name merely is derived from the source name without an additional "sake" connection, such usage more accurately may be called an eponym rather than a namesake.

Discrepancies in meaning (US usage)[link]

There has been some discrepancy as to whether the name source or the name target takes the term namesake. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a namesake is a person or thing named after another.^[5] In other words, the name target takes the term namesake, as in

"I was named after my grandfather. I am his namesake."

or

"Julian's Castle, Julian's namesake restaurant."

The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary are not so restrictive. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a namesake is a person or thing having the same name as another. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines "namesake" as "one that has the same name as another; especially one who is named after another or for whom another is named",^[5] allowing the usage of:

"I met a person who happened to have the same name as me. We are namesakes."

By "for whom another is named", Merriam-Webster's Dictionary allows the term namesake to be used in reference to the name source as in,^[5]

"I was named after my grandfather. He is my namesake."

Both usages of namesake are correct. This ambiguity sometimes may be resolved by the term eponym or "namegiver", which refers to the name source as providing the name to the name receiver.^[6]

Examples of namesakes[link]

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this section if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (May 2008)

Popular culture[link]

• Woody Allen (for his favourite jazz singer Woody Herman);
• The teddy bear (after Theodore Roosevelt)
• The Nintendo mascot, Mario (after Mario Segale)
• Daughtry (for its frontman, Chris Daughtry)
• Van Halen (for its founding brothers Eddie & Alex Van Halen)
• The Jackson 5 (later known as The Jacksons) (for its members Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael, Randy, Rebbie, & Janet Jackson)
• Hanson (for its members Isaac, Taylor, & Zac Hanson)
• Fleetwood Mac (for its members Mick Fleetwood and John McVie)
• Bon Jovi (for its frontman, Jon Bon Jovi)
• Guns N' Roses (for its lead vocalist Axl Rose and former guitarist Tracii Guns)
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (after band leader Bruce Springsteen and E Street in Belmar, New Jersey)

Scientific terms[link]

• ohm named after Georg Ohm.
• Gibbs free energy (after Josiah Willard Gibbs)
• Michaelis-Menten kinetics (after Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten)
• Von Neumann architecture (after John von Neumann)

Sports[link]

• The Stanley Cup (after Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby)
• Heisman Trophy (after John Heisman)

Commercial products and entities[link]

• Bose Corporation (after Amar Bose)
• Boeing (after William Boeing)
• Cox Enterprises (after James M. Cox)
• Craigslist (after Craig Newmark)
• Dell, Inc. (after Michael Dell)
• The Walt Disney Company (after Walt Disney, one of the company's co-founders)
• Fox Film Corporation & FOX (after William Fox)
• Godrej Group (after Pirojsha and Ardeshir Godrej)
• Hearst Corporation (after William Randolph Hearst)
• Heineken International (after Gerard Adriaan Heineken)
• The Jim Henson Company (after Jim Henson)
• Hilton Worldwide (after Conrad Hilton)
• Koch Industries (after Fred C. Koch)
• Larsen & Tourbo (after its founders Henning Holck-Larsen and Søren Kristian Toubro)
• Loews Theaters/Loews Incorporated (after Marcus Loew)
• Mars, Inc. (after Franklin Clarence Mars)
• Morgan Stanley (after Henry S. Morgan and Harold Stanley)
• Prada (after Mario Prada)
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (after Martha Stewart)
• Simmons & Company International (after its founder Matthew R. Simmons)
• Thomson Corporation (after David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet)
• TATA Group (after Jamsetji Tata,founder of the group)
• Trump Organization and Trump Entertainment Resorts (after Donald Trump)
• Ty Inc. (after Ty Warner)
• Walmart and Sam's Club (after Sam Walton)
• Warner Bros. (after Harry, Albert, Sam, & Jack Warner)

Professional examples[link]

• Pope
• Regnal name

Namesake Cataloguing[link]

Casual or accidental identification of personal namesakes can occur in daily life via a number of sources, including: telephone directories, newspaper births/deaths/marriages announcements, dictionaries of biography, internet search engines, etc.

There are some notable examples of deliberate searching for and identification of non-related personal namesakes.

• Starting with a drunken wager, British Comedian Dave Gorman used a wide variety of methods to find namesakes, an exercise which then evolved into a 2001 stage show "Are You Dave Gorman" and which was subsequently made into a book and television series [1].
• US actor/filmmaker Jim Killeen used the Google search engine to find personal namesakes for his 2007 documentary "Google Me" [2]

See also[link]

Look up namesake in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Code name, word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word
• Cognomen, inherited name
• Protected Geographical Status, product target name sourced to protected geographical name
• Scientific phenomena named after people

References[link]

Nitin Sawhney
Nitin Sawhney in Lisbon, 24th Feb 2009
Background information
Born	1964 England
Origin	Rochester, Kent, England
Genres	Jazz, Drum and bass, Hip Hop, Orchestra, Trip Hop
Occupations	Producer, Songwriter, Multi-instrumentalist, DJ, Orchestral Composer
Website	NitinSawhney.com

Nitin Sawhney (born 1964) is an Indian-British musician, producer and composer. His critically acclaimed work combines Asian and other worldwide influences with elements of jazz and electronica and often explores themes such as multiculturalism, politics and spirituality. Sawhney is also active in the promotion of arts and cultural matters, and is a patron of numerous film festivals, venues, and educational institutions.

Early years[link]

Nitin Sawhney was raised in Rochester, Kent, England. As a child Sawhney studied piano, classical and flamenco guitar, sitar and tabla. He attended Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, where he experienced racist comments, violence, and bullying from peers and community members who belonged to the National Front. He sought refuge in his music practice. ^[1]

Subsequently, he studied law at Liverpool University for a short time.^[2]

It was during this period that Sawhney met up with an old school friend, acid-jazz keyboard-player James Taylor. Sawhney then toured as part of The James Taylor Quartet.^[3] This experience led to him forming his own band, The Jazztones. He also joined forces with tabla player and DJ/producer Talvin Singh to form the Tihai Trio.^[4]

After dropping out of university, Sawhney took up a position with a firm of accountants called Day Smith and Hunter in Maidstone, Kent. He trained to become a chartered accountant but found that his music was proving too much of a distraction and quit after about two years. Sawhney moved to London, where he met Sanjeev Bhaskar; together they created the comedy team The Secret Asians. The pair were given a show on BBC Radio, which eventually grew into the award-winning BBC TV sketch show Goodness Gracious Me.^[5] Refocusing on music, Sawhney's solo career began in 1993, when he released his debut album, Spirit Dance on his own label.^[6]

Solo career[link]

Sawhney has released eight studio albums to date. His final album for Outcaste records, 1999's Beyond Skin, was his breakthrough, earning a Mercury Prize nomination^[7] and winning the South Bank Show's award for Popular Music.^[6] Subsequently, Richard Branson's V2 Records signed Sawhney to a six-album deal, and released Prophesy in 2001. The album went on to win a MOBO Award,^[8] an EMMA^[9] and the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award.^[10] In 2004 Sawhney issued two remix collections, All Mixed Up and FabricLive.15, released worldwide by London nightclub Fabric and featuring samples of Gipsy Kings' Nicolas Reyes vocals. Sawhney’s album, Philtre, released in May 2005, was awarded the BBC Radio 3 Culture Crossing Award.^[11]

2007 saw the release of In the Mind Of… Nitin Sawhney, the first release in District 6's new compilation series.

Scores[link]

In recent years Sawhney has been commissioned to write the scores for a number of different projects. He has established himself as an in-demand composer for film and television. His music for Channel 4’s Second Generation saw him nominated for the Ivor Novello Award for Film and TV Composition.^[12] He has also scored ads for the likes of Nike and Sephora.^[11] In 2006, Sawhney composed a new symphony to accompany Franz Osten's 1929 silent film, A Throw of Dice, which premiered with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, London.^[13] More recent works include scores for Oscar-nominated director Mira Nair's adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's, The Namesake,^[14] as well as Natural Fantasia for the BBC.^[15]

This work for film and television has led to recognition within the classical world as well. In 2001, Sawhney composed "Neural Circuits" for the Britten Sinfonia, a collaboration that has continued in the years since.^[16] In 2002, he worked with Akram Khan and Anish Kapoor, scoring the music to Khan’s choreographed work Kaash, which toured worldwide between 2002–2003.^[17] In 2004, Sawhney was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to compose a new piece for their Harmony Project.^[18] His most recent scores include the new adaptation of Mahabharata by the Olivier Award winning writer Stephen Clarke,^[19] Simon McBurney's A Disappearing Number for Complicite,^[20] and first-time theatrical director Jonathan Holmes' Fallujah.^[21]

Sawhney produced the music for the Ninja Theory video games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (both starring Andy Serkis) and will also score Fifth Beatle, a major studio film currently in production.

Collaborations and remixes[link]

Sawhney has remixed a wide variety of artists over the years, including Sting, Natacha Atlas, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jeff Beck, Julian Lloyd Webber, Tina Grace and Paul McCartney (for McCartney's The Fireman project). He also collaborated with Paul McCartney on a song called "My Soul", which appeared on Sawhney's London Undersound album and on various Robert Miles projects such as Miles Gurtu and Organik. His own work has been remixed by 4hero, Talvin Singh, MJ Cole and Quantic. He produced several songs on Cheb Mami's album Dellali. Last year he co-produced the second album from songwriter Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly entitled Searching for the Hows and Whys released through Atlantic Records. During 2006-2007, Nitin Sawhney wrote the music for Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's dance piece "Zero Degrees"; Antony Gormley created the set.

Awards[link]

1998

• EMMA Award for Displacing The Priest

2000

• Asian Pop Award for Best Mainstream Fusion Act for Beyond Skin
• Technics Mercury Music Prize Nomination for album of the year for Beyond Skin
• South Bank Award for Popular Music for Beyond Skin

2001

• BBC Asia Award for Music for Prophesy
• MOBO Award for Prophesy
• Boundary Crossing Award, BBC Radio 3 Music Awards for Prophesy

2002

• Media Personality of the Year nomination, RIMA Awards
• EMMA Award for Prophesy
• Muso Award for Prophesy

2003

• Commission for Racial Equality Award

2004

• Ivor Novello Award Nomination for Best Film Score for TV

2005

• Boundary Crossing Award, BBC Radio 3 Music Awards for Philtre

2006

• Honorary Graduate Degree from South Bank University, London

2007

• Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Kent

2008

• Companionship From the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in recognition of his contribution to the world of art and entertainment.
• UK Asian Music Awards - "Commitment to Scene"^[22]

2009

• UK Asian Music Awards - "Best Alternative Act"^[23]

Additional information[link]

Much of Sawhney's attention remains focused on the areas of education and community building, accepting the role of Artist in Residence for no less than five separate performing arts organisations across Great Britain and Asia. Sawhney joined Sir George Martin as a patron of the British Government's Access-to-Music programme,^[24] and he is also patron of the Raindance East Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards.^[25] Sawhney appears regularly as an arts and current affairs commentator on topical discussion and news programs such as the BBC's Newsnight, Newsnight Review, and HardTalk. He has also written for UK national broadsheet newspapers: The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, and The Observer.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Spirit Dance (1994) World Circuit
• Migration (1995) Outcaste Records
• Displacing the Priest (1996) Outcaste Records
• Beyond Skin (1999) Outcaste Records
• Prophesy (2001) V2/BMG
• Human (2003) V2
• Philtre (2005) V2
• London Undersound (2008) Cooking Vinyl
• Last Days of Meaning (2011)

Compilations[link]

• Introducing Nitin Sawhney (1999) Outcaste
• FabricLive.15 (2004) Fabric
• All Mixed Up (2004) V2
• In the Mind of... (2007) District 6

Scores[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Nitin Sawhney Website
• Official Nitin Sawhney Myspace page
• BBC: Nitin Sawhney
• Performance of Songbird (Koyal) by Julian Lloyd Webber
• Interview with Graham Brown-Martin for Trace Magazine
• Indepth interview with Nitin Sawhney by Ashanti OMkar
• Interview with Nitin Sawhney from the German site www.theinder.net
• Article about the track "My Soul"
• Nitin Sawhney writes score for Human Planet series

Mira Nair
Nair at the 2008 IIFW Masterclass Directors Meet
Born	(1957-10-15) October 15, 1957 (age 54) Rourkela, Orissa, India
Occupation	Film director, film producer
Years active	1986–present
Spouse	Mitch Epstein (divorced) Mahmood Mamdani (1988–present)

Mira Nair (born October 15, 1957) is an Indian film director and producer based in New York.^[1] Her production company is Mirabai Films.

She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! (1988), won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. She used the proceeds of the film, to establish an organization for street children, called the Salaam Baalak Trust in India.^[2] She often works with longtime creative collaborator, screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala, whom she met at Harvard.

She has won a number of awards, including a National Film Award and various international film festival awards, and was a nominee at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards and Filmfare Awards. She was also awarded the India Abroad Person of the Year-2007, which was presented by Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO, PepsiCo, Inc, and India Abroad Person of the Year-2006.^[3] In 2012 she was awarded India's third highest civilian award the Padma Bhushan by President of India, Pratibha Patil.^[4]

Her most recent films included Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon, The Namesake, and Amelia.^[5]

Early life[link]

Mira Nair, a Punjabi and a malayali, was born in Rourkela, Orissa^[6] where her father was employed. She was the youngest of three children from a middle-class family. Her father was a civil servant and her mother a social worker.

Mira did her early schooling at a boarding school, Loreto Convent Tara Hall in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. She studied sociology at Miranda House, Delhi University, where she became involved in political street theater and performed for three years in an amateur drama company. In 1976, at age 19 she left for the US^[7] with a scholarship at Harvard University, where she continued her studies in sociology.^[8] While at Harvard she met her first husband, photographer Mitch Epstein, as well as her screenwriter, Sooni Taraporevala and gradually moved towards making documentary films.

Career[link]

At the beginning of her career as a film artist, Nair directed four television documentaries. India Cabaret, a film about the lives of strippers in a Bombay nightclub, won the Blue Ribbon award at the 1986 American Film Festival. Salaam Bombay! (1988), with a screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won many other awards. It is today considered a groundbreaking film classic, and is standard fare for film students.

The 1991 film Mississippi Masala starred Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury, and profiled a family of displaced Ugandan-Indians living and working in Mississippi. The screenplay was again by Sooni Taraporevala, and produced by Michael Nozik. In 1995 her film adaption of the book The Perez Family, by Christine Bell, was released. The film starred Marisa Tomei, Alfred Molina, and Angelica Huston, and was again produced by Michael Nozik.

She was also the director of the movie Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love a provocative movie set in 16th century India. In 1998 she made My Own Country starring Naveen Andrews. It was produced for HBO Films and adapted from the memoir by Abraham Verghese by Sooni Taraporevala.

In 2001 she released Monsoon Wedding (2001), a film about a chaotic Punjabi Indian wedding with a screenplay by Sabrina Dhawan. It was awarded the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, making Nair the first female recipient of the award.^[9] After the success of Monsoon Wedding Nair collaborated with writer Julian Fellowes on her 2004 adaptation of Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair starring Reese Witherspoon. The same year she also founded Maisha, a film lab to help East Africans and South Asians learn to make films.^[10] Maisha is headquartered in Nair's adopted home of Kampala, Uganda. Later that year she rejected an offer to direct Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix saying, "...I would prefer someone else make it. I am better suited to emotions, human beings, and less interested in special effects.".^[11]

Her next film, The Namesake, premiered in fall 2006 at Dartmouth College where Nair was presented with the Dartmouth Film Award. Another premiere was held in fall 2006 with the Indo-American Arts Council in New York.^[12] The Namesake, adapted by Sooni Taraporevala from the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, was released in March 2007. The same year she was honoured with the Pride of India award at the 9th Bollywood Movie Awards for her contributions to the film industry.^[13][14]

She directed a short film in New York, I Love You, a romantic-drama anthology of love stories set in New York and a 12-minute movie on AIDS awareness (funded by The Gates Foundation) called Migration.^[15][16]

Her biographical film Amelia was released in October 2009 to predominantly negative reviews.^[17][18]

For several years, Nair was attached to a big-budget adaptation of the novel Shantaram, but the production was shelved in 2009. Nair has also purchased the rights to Mohsin Hamid's 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Nair lives near Columbia University in New York City where she is an adjunct professor in the Film Division of the School of Arts, and where her husband, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, also teaches.^[20][21] Nair and her husband first met in 1988, when she went to Uganda for the first time to research for the film Mississippi Masala.^[7] Nair has been an enthusiastic yoga practitioner for decades; when making a film, she has the cast and crew start the day with a yoga session.^[22] Nair has one son named Zohran.^[23]

Filmography[link]

• Jama Street Masjid Journal (1979)
• So Far From India (1982)
• India Cabaret (1985)
• Children Of A Desired Sex (1987)
• Salaam Bombay! (1988)^[5]
• Mississippi Masala (1991)^[5]
• The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat (1993)
• The Perez Family (1995)^[5]
• Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)^[5]
• My Own Country (1998) (Showtime)
• Monsoon Wedding (2001)^[5]
• Hysterical Blindness (2002)
• 11'9"01 September 11 (Segment - "India") (2002)
• Still, The Children are Here (2003)
• Vanity Fair (2004)^[5]
• The Namesake (2006)^[5]
• Migration (AIDS Jaago) (2007)^[24]
• New York, I Love You (Segment - "Kosher Vegetarian") (2009)^[25]
• 8 (Segment - "How can it be?") (2008)^[26]
• Amelia (2009)^[5]

Awards[link]

Wins[link]

• 1985: Best Documentary Film, Global Village Film Festival: India Cabaret
• 1986: Golden Athena, Athens International Film Festival: India Cabaret
• 1986: Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival: India Cabaret
• 1988: Audience Award, Cannes Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: Golden Camera (Best First Film), Cannes Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi: Salaam Bombay!^[27]
• 1988: National Board of Review Award for Top Foreign Films: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: "Jury Prize", "Most Popular Film" and "Prize of the Ecumenical Jury" at Montreal World Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: New Generation Award, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
• 1988: Lilian Gish Award (Excellence in Feature Film), Los Angeles Women in Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1991: Golden Osella (Best Original Screenplay), Venice Film Festival: Mississippi Masala (with Sooni Taraporevala)^[28]
• 1991: Critics Special Award, São Paulo International Film Festival: Mississippi Masala
• 1992: Best Director (Foreign Film), Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Mississippi Masala
• 1992: Asian Media Award, Asian American International Film Festival
• 1993: Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature: Mississippi Masala
• 2000: Special Mention (Documentary and Essay), Biarritz International Festival of Audiovisual Programming: The Laughing Club of India
• 2001: Golden Lion (Best Film), Venice Film Festival: Monsoon Wedding
• 2001: Laterna Magica Prize, Venice Film Festival: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: Audience Award, Canberra International Film Festival: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: Special Award for International Cinema, Zee Cine Awards: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: UNESCO Award, Venice Film Festival: 11'9"01 September 11
• 2004: Faith Hubley Web of Life Award, Rochester-High Falls International Film Festival
• 2007: "Golden Aphrodite", Love is Folly International Film Festival (Bulgaria): The Namesake
• 2012 ; Padma Bhushan by Govt. of India

Nominations[link]

• 1989: Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: Salaam Bombay!
• 1989: César Award for Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger): Salaam Bombay!
• 1989: Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film: Salaam Bombay!
• 1990: BAFTA Film Award Best Film not in the English Language: Salaam Bombay!
• 1990: Filmfare Best Director Award: Salaam Bombay!
• 1990: Filmfare Best Movie Award: Salaam Bombay!
• 1991: Golden Lion (Best Film), Venice Film Festival: Mississippi Masala
• 1996: Golden Seashell, San Sebastián International Film Festival: Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
• 1999: Best Film, Verzaubert International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival: My Own Country
• 2001: Screen International Award (Best Non-European Film), European Film Awards: Monsoon Wedding
• 2001: Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: BAFTA Film Award Best Film not in the English Language: Monsoon Wedding
• 2003: Chlotrudis Award for Best Director: Monsoon Wedding
• 2003: Golden Star, International Film Festival of Marrakech: Hysterical Blindness
• 2003: César Award for Best Film from the European Union: 11'9"01 September 11
• 2004: Golden Lion (Best Film), Venice Film Festival: Vanity Fair
• 2007: Gotham Award for Best Film: The Namesake

Further reading[link]

• Jigna Desai: Beyond Bollywood: The cultural politics of South Asian diasporic film. New York: Routledge, 2004, 280 pp. ill. ISBN 0-415-96684-1 (inb.) / ISBN 0-415-96685-X (hft.)
• Gita Rajan: Pliant and compliant: colonial Indian art and postcolonial cinema. Women. Oxford (Print), ISSN 0957-4042 ; 13(2002):1, pp. 48–69.
• Alpana Sharma: Body matters: the politics of provocation in Mira Nair's films. QRFV : Quarterly review of film and video, ISSN 1050-9208 ; 18(2001):1, pp. 91–103.
• Pratibha Parmar: Mira Nair: filmmaking in the streets of Bombay. Spare rib, ISSN 0306-7971; 198, 1989, pp. 28–29.
• Gwendolyn Audrey Foster: Women Filmmakers of the African and Asian Diaspora: Decolonizing the Gaze, Locating Subjectivity. Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8093-2120-3
• John Kenneth Muir: Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair. Hal Leonard, 2006. ISBN 1-55783-649-3, ISBN 978-1-55783-649-6.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mira Nair

• Mira Nair Bibliography (via UC Media Resources Center Berkeley)
• SAWNET biography
• Biography
• Mira Nair at the Internet Movie Database
• Maisha Film Lab in Kampala, Uganda
• Video Interview on LX.TV
• A Conversation with Mira Nair - Harvard @ Home program
• featured profile of Mira Nair - on MirabaiFilms.com
• Video interview with The Namesake director on Sidewalks Entertainment
• Video: Mira Nair at the Asia Society, Dec. 10, 2009
• Mira Nair: A Life in Pictures, BAFTA event video
• The Fabulous Picture Show (part 1, part 2) - Master Class with Mira Nair at the Doha film festival, Al Jazeera English, Dec 2009

Rachael Yamagata
Yamagata in 2005
Background information
Born	(1977-09-23) September 23, 1977 (age 34) Arlington, Virginia
Genres	Adult alternative Indie Blues rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Piano Guitar Vocals
Labels	RCA Victor Warner Bros. Frankenfish Records/Megaforce Records
Associated acts	Bumpus Bright Eyes
Website	www.rachaelyamagata.com

Rachael Yamagata (born September 23, 1977)^[1] is an American singer-songwriter and pianist from Arlington, Virginia. She began her musical career with the band Bumpus before becoming a solo artist and releasing four EP's and three studio albums. Her songs have appeared on numerous television shows and she has collaborated with other musicians including Jason Mraz, Rhett Miller, Bright Eyes, Ryan Adams, Toots and the Maytals and Ray Lamontagne.

Early life and education[link]

Yamagata's childhood was divided between her divorced parents; her father, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney; and her mother, an artist/painter living in New York City.^{[citation needed]} Yamagata graduated from the Holton-Arms School for Girls in Bethesda, Maryland and attended Northwestern University and Vassar College.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Yamagata became the vocalist for the Chicago group Bumpus and spent six years touring, writing and recording with the band before leaving in 2001 to begin a solo career. In September 2002, she obtained a two-record deal with Arista's Private Music and her self-titled EP produced by Malcolm Burn, Rachael Yamagata EP was released in October.^{[citation needed]}

Her first full-length album, Happenstance, followed in June 2004 and received favorable reviews.^{[citation needed]}The album produced by John Alagia at Compass Point Studios featured the song "I Want You" and she made videos for the songs Worn Me Down and 1963.

Yamagata toured with Mandy Moore and contributed a song to Moore's 2007 album, Wild Hope.^[2]

In May 2008, Yamagata released a three-song EP, Loose Ends. A full length album Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart was released in October 2008. The song "Jonah" was included as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of the album and another bonus song "He Loves You Deep Inside" was made available online.^[3] Billboard characterized the album as much darker and sadder in tone than its predecessor.^[4] That same month, a two-song live acoustic video performance appeared on LiveDaily Sessions and featured the songs Faster and Sunday Afternoon.^[5]

In April 2009, Yamagata performed her song Elephants on the television drama One Life to Live.^[6]

Yamagata digitally released a new album in the fall of 2011 through Pledgemusic. Her third studio album Chesapeake was released through Frankenfish Records in October 2011.^[7]

Yamagata has appeared numerous times as a guest vocalist for other artists including: Jason Mraz's Did You Get My Message?, Fireflies and The Believer by Rhett Miller and on Toots & the Maytals's True Love, the song Barfly by Ray Lamontagne, and several songs on Ryan Adams' Cold Roses album. She contributed vocals to six tracks on the Bright Eyes album Cassadaga.

Yamagata contributed writing, keyboards and vocals to the song Kaleidoscope by Jill Cunniff a former member of Luscious Jackson. Yamagata also performs with an ensemble cast on the 30 Rock episode "Kidney Now!"^[8] The soundtrack for the film Dear John features the song You Take My Troubles Away, Yamagata's duet with Dan Wilson. She also performs the Muppets song I'm Going To Go Back There Someday on a cover album, Muppets: The Green Album.^[9]

Her songs have appeared on several TV shows, including The L Word, Charmed, How I Met Your Mother, ER , Nip/Tuck, Men in Trees, Alias, One Tree Hill, Los Serrano, Brothers & Sisters, Grey's Anatomy and The O.C., on which she made a guest performance.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

Yamagata has a twin brother, Benji.^[1] Her half brother, Josh Ruben, is an actor and director for CollegeHumor.^[10]

Discography[link]

Songs in other media[link]

Yamagata's songs have appeared in a number of films and television shows. These include:^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (November 2011)

• Official website
• Rachael Yamagata on Myspace
• Rachael Yamagata at the Internet Movie Database
• Elephants Review
• Rachael Yamagata on NPR

Ella Fitzgerald
photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1940
Background information
Birth name	Ella Jane Fitzgerald
Also known as	First Lady of Song, Lady Ella
Born	(1917-04-25)April 25, 1917 Newport News, Virginia
Died	June 15, 1996(1996-06-15) (aged 79) Beverly Hills, California
Genres	Swing, traditional pop, vocal jazz
Occupations	Vocalist
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1934-1993
Labels	Capitol, Decca, Pablo, Reprise, Verve
Website	Official website

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella", was an American jazz and song vocalist.^[1] With a vocal range spanning three octaves (D♭3 to D♭6), she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

Fitzgerald was a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook.^[2] Over the course of her 59-year recording career, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.

Early life[link]

Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, the child of a common-law marriage between William and Temperance "Tempie" Fitzgerald.^[3] The pair separated soon after her birth and she and her mother went to Yonkers, New York, where they eventually moved in with Tempie's longtime boyfriend, Joseph Da Silva. Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923. She and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday School.^[4][5]

In her youth Fitzgerald wanted to be a dancer, although she loved listening to jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and The Boswell Sisters. She idolized the lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, "My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it....I tried so hard to sound just like her."^[6]

In 1932, her mother died from a heart attack.^[3] Following this trauma, Fitzgerald's grades dropped dramatically and she frequently skipped school. Abused by her stepfather, she was first taken in by an aunt ^[7] and at one point worked as a lookout at a bordello and also with a Mafia-affiliated numbers runner.^[8] When the authorities caught up with her, she was first placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, the Bronx.^[9] However, when the orphanage proved too crowded she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, a state reformatory. Eventually she escaped and for a time was homeless.^[7]

She made her singing debut at 17 on November 21, 1934, at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. She pulled in a weekly audience at the Apollo and won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of its famous "Amateur Nights". She had originally intended to go on stage and dance but, intimidated by the Edwards Sisters, a local dance duo, she opted to sing instead in the style of Connee Boswell. She sang Boswell's "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection," a song recorded by the Boswell Sisters, and won the first prize of US$25.00.^[10]

Later life[link]

Ella Fitzgerald photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1940.

Fitzgerald married at least twice, and there is evidence that she may have married a third time. In 1941 she married Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer and local dockworker. The marriage was annulled after two years.

Her second marriage, in December 1947, was to the famous bass player Ray Brown, whom she had met while on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band a year earlier. Together they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances, whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. With Fitzgerald and Brown often busy touring and recording, the child was largely raised by her aunt, Virginia. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1953, bowing to the various career pressures both were experiencing at the time, though they would continue to perform together.^[6]

In July 1957, Reuters reported that Fitzgerald had secretly married Thor Einar Larsen, a young Norwegian, in Oslo. She had even gone as far as furnishing an apartment in Oslo, but the affair was quickly forgotten when Larsen was sentenced to five months hard labor in Sweden for stealing money from a young woman to whom he had previously been engaged.^[3]

Fitzgerald was also notoriously shy. Trumpet player Mario Bauza, who played behind Fitzgerald in her early years with Chick Webb, remembered that "she didn’t hang out much. When she got into the band, she was dedicated to her music….She was a lonely girl around New York, just kept herself to herself, for the gig."^[3] When, later in her career, the Society of Singers named an award after her, Fitzgerald explained, "I don't want to say the wrong thing, which I always do. I think I do better when I sing."^[10]

Already visually impaired by the effects of diabetes, Fitzgerald had both her legs amputated in 1993.^[3] In 1996 she died of the disease in Beverly Hills, California at the age of 79. She is buried in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.^[11] The career history and archival material from Ella's long career are housed in the Archives Center at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History while her personal music arrangements are at The Library of Congress. Her extensive cookbook collection was donated to the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University while her published sheet music collection is at the Schoenberg Library at UCLA.

Career[link]

Big-band singing[link]

In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. She met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb there. Webb had already hired singer Charlie Linton to work with the band and was, The New York Times later wrote, "reluctant to sign her....because she was gawky and unkempt, a diamond in the rough."^[6] Webb offered her the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University.

She began singing regularly with Webb's Orchestra through 1935 at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. Fitzgerald recorded several hit songs with them, including "Love and Kisses" and "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)". But it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", a song she co-wrote, that brought her wide public acclaim.

Chick Webb died on June 16, 1939, and his band was renamed "Ella and her Famous Orchestra" with Ella taking on the role of nominal bandleader. Fitzgerald recorded nearly 150 sides with the orchestra before it broke up in 1942, "the majority of them novelties and disposable pop fluff".^[6]

Decca years[link]

Ella in 1947

In 1942, Fitzgerald left the band to begin a solo career. Now signed to the Decca label, she had several popular hits while recording with such artists as the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and the Delta Rhythm Boys.

With Decca's Milt Gabler as her manager, she began working regularly for the jazz impresario Norman Granz and appeared regularly in his Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts. Fitzgerald's relationship with Granz was further cemented when he became her manager, although it would be nearly a decade before he could record her on one of his many record labels.

With the demise of the Swing era and the decline of the great touring big bands, a major change in jazz music occurred. The advent of bebop led to new developments in Fitzgerald's vocal style, influenced by her work with Dizzy Gillespie's big band. It this in was period that Fitzgerald started including scat singing as a major part of her performance repertoire. While singing with Gillespie, Fitzgerald recalled, "I just tried to do [with my voice] what I heard the horns in the band doing."^[10]

Her 1945 scat recording of "Flying Home" arranged by Vic Schoen would later be described by The New York Times as "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade....Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness."^[6] Her bebop recording of "Oh, Lady be Good!" (1947) was similarly popular and increased her reputation as one of the leading jazz vocalists.^{[citation needed]}

Move to Verve and mainstream success[link]

Fitzgerald was still performing at Granz's JATP concerts by 1955. She left Decca and Granz, now her manager, created Verve Records around her.

Fitzgerald 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 The Cole Porter Songbook with me. It was a turning point in my life."^[6]

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, released in 1956, was the first of eight multi-album Songbook 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.

Ella Fitzgerald in 1968. Photo courtesy of the Fraser MacPherson estate

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook was the only Songbook 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 only Songbook track on which Fitzgerald does not sing). The Songbook series ended up becoming the singer'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."^[6]

A few days after Fitzgerald's death, New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that in the Songbook series Fitzgerald "performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis's 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."^[8] Frank Sinatra was moved out of respect for Fitzgerald to block Capitol Records from re-releasing his own recordings in a similar, single composer vein.

Fitzgerald also recorded albums exclusively devoted to the songs of Porter and Gershwin in 1972 and 1983; the albums being, respectively, Ella Loves Cole and 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 Antonio Carlos Jobim.

While recording the Songbooks 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.^[6]

In the mid-1950s, Fitzgerald became the first African-American to perform at the Mocambo, after Marilyn Monroe had lobbied the owner for the booking. The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career. The incident was turned into a play by Bonnie Greer in 2005. There are several live albums on Verve that are highly regarded by critics. Ella at the Opera House shows a typical JATP set from Fitzgerald. Ella in Rome and Twelve Nights In Hollywood display her vocal jazz canon. 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 magnificently to compensate.

Voice[link]

As Will Friedwald noted,

Unlike any other singer you could name, Fitzgerald has the most amazing asset in the very sound of her voice: it's easily one of the most beautiful and sonically perfect sounds known to man. Even if she couldn't do anything with it, the instrument that Fitzgerald starts with is dulcet and pure and breathtakingly beautiful. As Henry Pleasants has observed, she has a wider range than most opera singers, and many of the latter, including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, are among her biggest fans. And the intonation that goes with the voice is, to put it conservatively, God-like. Fitzgerald simply exists in tune, and she hits every note that there is without the slightest trace of effort. Other singers tend to sound like they're trying to reach up to a note - Fitzgerald always sounds like she's already there. If anything, she's descending from her heavenly perch and swooping down to whatever pitch she wants.^[12]

Henry Pleasants, an American classical-music critic, wrote this about her:

She has a lovely voice, one of the warmest and most radiant in its natural range that I have heard in a lifetime of listening to singers in every category. She has an impeccable and ultimately sophisticated rhythmic sense, and flawless intonation. Her harmonic sensibility is extraordinary. She is endlessly inventive... it is not so much what she does, or even the way she does it, it's what she does not do. What she does not do, putting it simply as possible, is anything wrong. There is simply nothing in performance to which one would take exception... Everything seems to be just right. One would not want it any other way. Nor can one, for a moment imagine it any other way.^[13] Fitzgerald had an extraordinary vocal range. A mezzo-soprano (who sang much lower than most classical contraltos), she had a range of “2 octaves and a sixth from a low D or D flat to a high C flat and possibly higher”.^[13]

Later years[link]

Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1963 for $3 million and in 1967 MGM failed to renew Fitzgerald's contract. Over the next five years she flitted between Atlantic, Capitol and Reprise. Her material at this time represented a departure from her typical jazz repertoire. For Capitol she recorded Brighten the Corner, an album of hymns, Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas, an album of traditional Christmas carols, 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", previously a hit for The Temptations, and some months later a top-five hit for 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, 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 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.^[3] Plagued by health problems, Fitzgerald made her last recording in 1991 and her last public performances in 1993.^[14]

Film and television[link]

Fitzgerald shakes hands with President Ronald Reagan after performing in the White House, 1981

In her most notable screen role, Fitzgerald played the part of singer Maggie Jackson in Jack Webb's 1955 jazz film Pete Kelly's Blues. The film costarred Janet Leigh and singer Peggy Lee. Even though she had already worked in the movies (she had sung briefly in the 1942 Abbott and Costello film Ride 'Em Cowboy), she was "delighted" when Norman Granz negotiated the role for her, and, "at the time....considered her role in the Warner Brothers movie the biggest thing ever to have happened to her."^[3] Amid The New York Times' pan of the film when it opened in August 1955, the reviewer wrote, "About five minutes (out of ninety-five) suggest the picture this might have been. Take the ingenious prologue ... [or] take the fleeting scenes when the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald, allotted a few spoken lines, fills the screen and sound track with her strong mobile features and voice."^[15] Fitzgerald's race precluded major big-screen success. After Pete Kelly's Blues, she appeared in sporadic movie cameos, in St. Louis Blues (1958), and Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960). Much later, she appeared in the 1980s television drama The White Shadow.

She made numerous guest appearances on television shows, singing on The Frank Sinatra Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, and alongside other greats Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Mel Tormé, and many others. Perhaps her most unusual and intriguing performance was of the 'Three Little Maids' song from Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operetta The Mikado alongside Joan Sutherland and Dinah Shore on Shore's weekly variety series in 1963. A performance at "Ronnie Scott's" jazz club in London was filmed and shown on the BBC. Fitzgerald also made a one-off appearance alongside Sarah Vaughan and Pearl Bailey on a 1979 television special honoring Bailey. In 1980, she performed a medley of standards in a duet with Karen Carpenter on the Carpenters' television program, Music, Music, Music. ^[16]

Fitzgerald also appeared in TV commercials, her most memorable being an ad for Memorex. In the commercials, she sang a note that shattered a glass while being recorded on a Memorex cassette tape. The tape was played back and the recording also broke the glass, asking "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" She also starred in a number of commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken, singing and scatting to the fast-food chain's longtime slogan, "We do chicken right!"^[17] Her final commercial campaign was for American Express, in which she was photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

Discography[link]

Collaborations[link]

Fitzgerald's most famous collaborations were with the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the guitarist Joe Pass, and the bandleaders Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

• Fitzgerald recorded three Verve studio albums with Armstrong, two albums of standards (1956's Ella and Louis and 1957's Ella and Louis Again), and a third album featured music from the Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess. Fitzgerald also recorded a number of sides with Armstrong for Decca in the early 1950s.
• Fitzgerald is sometimes referred to as the quintessential swing singer, and her meetings with Count Basie are highly regarded by critics. Fitzgerald features on one track on Basie's 1957 album One O'Clock Jump, while her 1963 album Ella and Basie! is remembered as one of her greatest recordings. With the 'New Testament' Basie band in full swing, and arrangements written by a young Quincy Jones, this album proved a respite from the 'Songbook' recordings and constant touring that Fitzgerald was engaged in during this period. Fitzgerald and Basie also collaborated on the 1972 album Jazz at Santa Monica Civic '72, and on the 1979 albums Digital III at Montreux, A Classy Pair and A Perfect Match.
• Fitzgerald and Joe Pass recorded four albums together toward the end of Fitzgerald's career. She recorded several albums with piano accompaniment, but a guitar proved the perfect melodic foil for her. Fitzgerald and Pass appeared together on the albums Take Love Easy (1973), Easy Living (1986), Speak Love (1983) and Fitzgerald and Pass... Again (1976).
• Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington recorded two live albums, and two studio albums. Her Duke Ellington Songbook placed Ellington firmly in the canon known as the Great American Songbook, and the 1960s saw Fitzgerald and the 'Duke' meet on the Côte d'Azur for the 1966 album Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur, and in Sweden for The Stockholm Concert, 1966. Their 1965 album Ella at Duke's Place is also extremely well received.

Fitzgerald had a number of famous jazz musicians and soloists as sidemen over her long career. The trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie, the guitarist Herb Ellis, and the pianists Tommy Flanagan, Oscar Peterson, Lou Levy, Paul Smith, Jimmy Rowles, and Ellis Larkins all worked with Ella mostly in live, small group settings.

Possibly Fitzgerald's greatest unrealized collaboration (in terms of popular music) was a studio or live album with Frank Sinatra. The two appeared on the same stage only periodically over the years, in television specials in 1958 and 1959, and again on 1967's A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim, a show that also featured Antonio Carlos Jobim. Pianist Paul Smith has said, "Ella loved working with [Frank]. Sinatra gave her his dressing room on A Man and His Music and couldn't do enough for her." When asked, Norman Granz would cite "complex contractual reasons" for the fact that the two artists never recorded together.^[3] Fitzgerald's appearance with Sinatra and Count Basie in June 1974 for a series of concerts at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas was seen as an important incentive for Sinatra to return from his self-imposed retirement of the early 1970s. The shows were a great success, and September 1975 saw them gross $1,000,000 in two weeks on Broadway, in a triumvirate with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Awards, citations and honors[link]

Fitzgerald won thirteen Grammy awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 1967.

Other major awards and honors she received during her career were the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Medal of Honor Award, National Medal of Art, first Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, named "Ella" in her honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.^[18] Across town at the University of Southern California, she received the coveted^{[citation needed]} USC "Magnum Opus" Award which hangs in the office of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation.

Philanthropies[link]

Fitzgerald was a quiet but ardent supporter of many charities and non-profit organizations, including the American Heart Association and the City of Hope Medical Center. In 1993, she established the "Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation", which continues to fund programs that perpetuate Ella's ideals. The Foundation's mission and goals, as well as many of the organizations that receive support, can be found at the official Ella Fitzgerald Foundation website Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation. The Foundation also runs a Children's Book Program in memory of Miss Fitzgerald; called "A Book Just For Me!", it provides over 100,000 brand-new books each year to disadvantaged children.