This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

This article needs attention from an expert on the subject. Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article. Consider associating this request with a WikiProject. (November 2010)

Samba parade at Rio de Janeiro, 2008.

Samba (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈsɐ̃bɐ] ( listen)) is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil (Rio De Janeiro) and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival. Considered one of the most popular Brazilian cultural expressions, samba has become an icon of Brazilian national identity.^[1][2][3] The Bahian Samba de Roda (dance circle), which became a UNESCO Heritage of Humanity in 2005, is the main root of the samba carioca, the samba that is played and danced in Rio de Janeiro.

	Uva de caminhão Composed by Assis Valente, recorded by Carmem Miranda in 1939.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	Na Pavuna Almirante, released in 1929.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	Primeira Linha Benedito Lacerda e grupo Gente do Morro, released in 1930. (composed by Heitor dos Prazeres)
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	Samba de fato Patrício Teixeira e Trio T.B.T. recorded in 1932. (composed by Pixinguinha and Cícero de Almeida).
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	Agora é Cinza Mario Reis (singer), released in 1933.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	Conversa de botequim Noel Rosa, released in 1935.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	Com Que Roupa? Noel Rosa, released in 1935.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The modern samba that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century is basically 2/4 tempo varied with the conscious use of chorus sung to the sound of palms and batucada rhythm, adding one or more parts or stanzas of declaratory verses. Traditionally, the samba is played by strings (cavaquinho and various types of guitar) and various percussion instruments such as tamborim. Influenced by American orchestras in vogue since the Second World War and the cultural impact of US music post-war, samba began to use trombones, trumpets, choros, flutes, and clarinets.

In addition to rhythm and bar, samba brings a whole historical culture of food, varied dances (miudinho, coco, samba de roda, and pernada), parties, clothes such as linen shirts, and the NAIF painting of established names such as Nelson Sargento, Guilherme de Brito, and Heitor dos Prazeres. Anonymous community artists, including painters, sculptors, designers, and stylists, make the clothes, costumes, carnival floats, and cars, opening the doors of schools of samba.

The Samba National Day is celebrated on December 2. The date was established at the initiative of Luis Monteiro da Costa, an Alderman of Salvador, in honor of Ary Barroso. He composed "Na Baixa do Sapateiro" even though he had never been in Bahia. Thus 2 December marked the first visit of Ary Barroso to Salvador. Initially, this day was celebrated only in Salvador, but eventually it turned into a national holiday.

Samba is a root style in Southeastern Brazil and Northeast Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Salvador and Belo Horizonte. Its importance as Brazil's national music transcends region, however; samba schools, samba musicians and carnival organizations centered around the performance of samba exist in every region of the country and, while regional musics prevail in other regions (for instance, in Southern Brazil, Center-West Brazil, and all of the Brazilian countryside, Sertanejo, or Brazilian country music, is the most popular style).^[5] Since Rio de Janeiro is the most popular Brazilian city worldwide,^[6][7] usually samba is used to identify Brazilians as part of the same national culture, even if nowadays Sertanejo is the most popular style in Brazil.

Etymology[link]

There are several theories about the origin of the word samba. One of them claims that samba came from the word Zumba or Zamba, both coming from Arabic, from when the Moors invaded the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century.^{[citation needed]} Another theory says it originated from one of many African languages, possibly the Kimbundu, where sam means give and ba means receive or thing falls.^{[citation needed]}

In Brazil, folklorists suggest that the word samba is a corruption of the Kikongo word Semba, translated as umbigada in Portuguese, meaning "a blow struck with the belly button".^[8]

One of the oldest records of the word samba appeared in Pernambuco magazine's O Carapuceiro, dated February 1838, when Father Miguel Lopes Gama of Sacramento wrote against what he called the samba d'almocreve – not referring to the future musical genre, but a kind of merriment (dance drama) popular for black people of that time. According to Hiram Araújo da Costa, over the centuries, the festival of dances of slaves in Bahia were called samba.^{[citation needed]}

In the middle of the 19th century, the word samba defined different types of music made by African slaves when conducted by different types of Batuque, but it assumed its own characteristics in each Brazilian state, not only by the diversity of tribes for slaves, but also the peculiarity of each region in which they were settlers. Some of these popular dances were known as bate-baú, samba-corrido, samba-de-roda, samba-de-Chave and samba-de-barravento in Bahia; coco in Ceará; tambor-de-crioula (or ponga) in Maranhão; trocada, coco-de-parelha, samba de coco and soco-travado in Pernambuco; bambelô in Rio Grande do Norte; partido-alto, miudinho, jongo and caxambu in Rio de Janeiro; and samba-lenço, samba-rural, tiririca, miudinho, and jongo in São Paulo.^[1]

History[link]

Background[link]

Origins of the Samba[link]

The Batuque practiced in Brazil of the 19th century, in a painting by Johann Moritz Rugendas

Although samba exists throughout Brazil – especially in the states of Bahia, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo – in the form of various popular rhythms and dances that originated from the regional batuque, a type of music and associated dance form from Cape Verde, the samba is most frequently identified as a musical expression of urban Rio de Janeiro, where it was born and developed between the end of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century. It was in Rio that the dance practiced by former slaves who migrated from Bahia came into contact with and incorporated other genres played in the city (such as the polka, the maxixe, the lundu, and the xote), acquiring a completely unique character and creating the samba carioca urbana (samba school) and carnavalesco (Carnaval school director).^[3] Samba schools are large organizations of up to 5,000 people which compete annually in the Carnival with thematic floats, elaborate costumes, and original music.

During the first decade of the 20th century, some songs under the name of samba were recorded, but these recordings did not achieve great popularity. However, in 1917, "Pelo Telefone" ("By Phone") was recorded,^[9] and it is considered the first true samba. The song was claimed to be authored by Ernesto dos Santos, best known as Donga (musician) (pt/de), with co-composition attributed to Mauro de Almeida, a well-known Carnival columnist. Actually, "Pelo Telefone" was created by a collective of musicians who participated in celebrations at the house of Tia Ciata (Aunt Ciata). It was eventually registered by Donga and the Almeida National Library.^[3]

"Pelo Telefone" was the first composition to achieve great success with the style of samba and to contribute to the dissemination and popularization of the genre. From that moment on, samba started to spread across the country, initially associated with Carnival and then developing its own place in the music market. There were many composers, including Heitor dos Prazeres, João da Bahiana, Pixinguinha, and Sinhô, but the sambas of these composers were "amaxixados" (a mix of maxixe), known as sambas-maxixes.^[3]

The contours of the modern samba came only at the end of the 1920s, from the innovations of a group of composers of carnival blocks in the neighborhoods of Estácio de Sá and Osvaldo Cruz, and the hills of Mangueira, Salgueiro, and São Carlos. Since then, there have been many great names in samba, such as Ismael Silva, Cartola, Ary Barroso, Noel Rosa, Ataulfo Alves, Wilson Batista, Geraldo Pereira, Zé Kéti, Candeia, Ciro Monteiro, Nelson Cavaquinho, Elton Medeiros, Paulinho da Viola, Martinho da Vila, and many others.^[3]

As the samba consolidated as an urban and modern expression, it began to be played on radio stations, spreading across the hills and neighborhoods to the affluent southern areas of Rio de Janeiro. Initially viewed with prejudice and discrimination because it had black roots, the samba, because of its hypnotic rhythms and melodic intonations in addition to its playful lyrics, eventually conquered the white middle class as well. Other musical genres derived from samba, such as samba-canção, partido alto, samba-enredo, samba de gafieira, samba de breque, bossa nova, samba-rock, and pagode, have all earned names for themselves.^[3]

The samba is frequently associated abroad with football and Carnival. This history began with the international success of Aquarela do Brasil, by Ary Barroso, followed by Carmen Miranda (supported by Getúlio Vargas government and the US Good Neighbor policy), which led samba to the United States. Bossa nova finally entered the country into the world of samba music. The success of the samba in Europe and Japan only confirms its ability to win fans, regardless of their language. Currently, there are hundreds of samba schools held on European soil and scattered among countries like Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Sweden, and Switzerland. Already in Japan, the records invest heavily in the launch of former Sambista's set of discs, which eventually created a market comprised solely of catalogs of Japanese record labels.^[3]

Favela and Tias Baianas[link]

From the second half of the 19th century onward, as blacks, mestizas, and ex-soldiers of the War of Canudos in Rio de Janeiro came from various parts of Brazil (mainly Bahia) and settled in the vicinity of Morro da Conceição, Pedra do Sal, Praça Mauá, Praça Onze, Cidade Nova, Saúde, and Zona Portuária. These stands form poor communities that these people called the favelas (later the term became synonymous with the irregular buildings of the poor).

These communities would be the scene of a significant part of Brazilian black culture, particularly with respect to Candomblé and samba amaxixado at that time. Among the early highlights were the musician and dancer Hilário Jovino Ferreira—responsible for the founding of several blocks of afoxé and Carnival's ranchos—and Tias Baianas, a term given to the female descendants of Bahian slaves.

Thus, the samba and musical genre was born in the houses of Tias Baianas (Bahian aunts) in the beginning of the 20th century, as a descendant of the style lundu of the candomblé de terreiro parties between umbigada (Samba) and capoeira's pernadas, marked in pandeiro, prato-e-faca (plate-and-knife) and in the palm of the hand. There are some controversies about the word samba-raiado, one of the first appointments to the samba. It is known that the samba-raiado is marked by the sound and accent sertanejos / rural brought by "Tias Baianas" to Rio de Janeiro. According to João da Baiana, the samba-raiado was the same as chula raiada or samba de partido-alto. For the sambist Caninha, this was the first name would have heard at the home of Tia Dadá. At the same time, there were the samba-corrido, a line that had more work together with the rural Bahian accent, and the samba-chulado, a more rhyming and melodic style that characterized the urban samba carioca.^[1]

Scenes in Bahia and São Paulo[link]

Pandeiro and cavaco, the nucleus of common samba instrumentation

The urban carioca samba is the anchor of 20th century "Brazilian samba" par excellence. However, before this type of samba was to consolidate as the "national samba" in Brazil, there were traditional forms of sambas in Bahia and São Paulo.

The rural Bahia samba acquired additional names as choreographic variations – for example, the "samba-de-chave", where the soloist dancer faking looking wheel in the middle of a key, and when found, was replaced.^{[clarification needed]} The poetic structure of Bahian samba followed the way back-and-chorus—composed of a single verse, a solo, followed by another, and repeated by the chorus of dancers as the falderal. With no chorus, the samba is called samba-corrido, which is an uncommon variant. The chants were taken by one singer, one of the musicians, or soloist dancer. Another peculiarity of Bahian samba was a form of competition that dances sometimes presented: it was a dispute between participants to see who performed better. Besides the umbigada, common to all the bahianian samba, the Bahia presented three basic steps: corta-a-joca, separa-o-visgo, and apanha-o-bag. There is also another choreographic element danced by women: the miudinho (this also appeared in São Paulo, as dance solo in the center of the wheel). The instruments of the Bahian samba were pandeiros, shakers, guitars, and sometimes the castanets and berimbaus.^[1]

In São Paulo state, samba became the domain of blacks and caboclos. In rural areas, samba can provide without the traditional umbigada. There are also other choreographic variations—the dancers may be placed in rows with men on one side and women on another. The instruments of the samba paulista were violas and pandeiros. It is possible that the early provision of the wheel, in Goiás, has been modified by the influence of quadrilha or cateretê. According to historian Luís da Câmara Cascudo, it is possible to observe the influence of city in the samba, by the fact that it is also danced by pair connections.^[1]

One of the most noticeable groups of São Paulo's samba, Demônios da Garoa (Drizzle's Demons), had a strong link with Adoniran Barbosa, who composed the musics they sang. Musics like "Samba do Arnesto" and "Saudosa Maloca" turned into legendary musics, and nowadays are recognized as "the real Samba Paulistano". This group is still alive, but without the original formation. In 2000, one of their most famous musics, "Trem das Onze", was elected São Paulo's symbol music.

The first decades of the 20th century[link]

"Pelo Telefone"[link]

Tia Ciata, grandmother of the composer Bucy Moreira, was responsible for the sedimentation of samba carioca. According to the folklore of that time, for a samba musician to achieve success, he would have to pass the house of Tia Ciata and be approved on the rodas de samba. Many compositions were created and sung in improvisation, where the samba Pelo Telefone (from Donga and Mauro de Almeida), samba for which there were also many other versions, but to come to the history of Brazilian music as the first samba to be recorded in 1917.^{[1][9][clarification needed]}

Meanwhile, other recordings have been recorded as samba before Pelo Telefone, as this composition was done by double Donga / Mauro de Almeida, who is regarded as a founder of the genre. Still, the song is written and discussed, and its proximity to the maxixe made it finally be designated as samba-maxixe. This section was influenced by maxixe dance and basically played the piano—unlike the Rio samba played in the Morros hills—and the composer has musician Sinhô, self-titled o rei do samba ("the king of Samba") which with other pioneers such as Heitor dos Prazeres and Caninha, lay the first foundations of the musical genre.^[2]

Turma do Estácio[link]

Cartola, one of great carioca sambists

The growing shantytowns in the hills of suburban Rio would become the home of new musical talents. Almost simultaneously, the samba carioca, which was born in the city center, would climb the slopes of the hills and spread outside the periphery, to the point that, over time, it came to be identified as samba de morro (samba from the hills).

At the end of the 1920s, the carnival samba of blocks of the districts Estácio de Sá and Osvaldo Cruz was born, and in the hills of Mangueira, Salgueiro, and São Carlos, there were innovations in rhythmic samba that persist until the present day. This group, the Turma do Estácio, from which would arise Deixa Falar, was the first samba school in Brazil. Formed by some composers in the neighborhood of Estácio, including Alcebíades Barcellos (aka Bide) Armando Marçal, Ismael Silva, Nilton Bastos and the more "malandros" such as Baiaco, Brancura, Mano Edgar, Mano Rubem, the "Turma do Estácio" marked the history of the Brazilian samba by injecting more pace to the genre one performed, which has the endorsement of the youth's middle class, as the ex-student of law Ary Barroso and former student of medicine Noel Rosa.^[2]

Initially a "rancho carnavalesco", then a Carnival's Block, and finally a samba school, the Deixa Falar was the first to Rio Carnival parade in the sound of an orchestra made up of percussion surdos, tambourines, and cuícas, who joined pandeiro and shakers. This group was instrumental and is called bateria, and it lends itself to the monitoring of a type of samba that was quite different from those of Donga, Sinhô, and Pixinguinha. The samba of Estácio de Sá signed up quickly as the samba carioca par excellence.

The Turma do Estácio has made the appropriate rhythmic samba were so it could be accompanied in the carnival's parade, thus distancing the progress samba-amaxixado of composers such as Sinhô. Moreover, its wheels of samba were attended by composers from other Rio hills, as Cartola, Carlos Cachaça, and then Nelson Cavaquinho, e Geraldo Pereira, Paulo da Portela, Alcides Malandro Histórico, Manacéia, Chico Santana, and others. Accompanied by a pandeiro, a tambourine, a cuíca and a surdo, they created and spread the samba-de-morro.

Popularization in the 1930s and 1940s[link]

Brazilian actress Carmen Miranda helped popularize samba internationally.

After the founding of "Deixa Falar", the phenomenon of the samba schools took over the scene and helped boost Rio's samba subgenera of Partido Alto, singing and challenging in candomblé terreiros the samba-enredo.

From the 1930s, the popularization of radio in Brazil helped to spread the samba across the country, mainly the sub-genres samba-canção and samba-exaltação. The samba-canção was released in 1928 with the recording "Ai, yo-yo" by Aracy Cortes. Also known as "samba half of the year", the samba-canção became established in the next decade. It was a slow and rhythmic samba music and had an emphasis on melody and generally easy acceptance. This aspect was later influenced by the rhythms of foreigners, first by foxtrot in the 1940s and then bolero the 1950s. The most famous composers were Noel Rosa, Ary Barroso, Lamartine Babo, Braguinha (also known as João de Barro), and Ataulfo Alves. Other practitioners of this style were Antonio Maria, Custódio Mesquita, Dolores Duran, Fernando Lobo, Ismael Neto, Lupicínio Rodrigues, Batatinha, and Adoniran Barbosa (this latter by sharply satirical doses^{[clarification needed]}).^[1][2]

The ideology of Getúlio Vargas's Estado Novo contaminated the scene of the samba. With Aquarela do Brasil, composed by Ary Barroso and recorded by Francisco Alves in 1939, the samba-exaltação had become the first success abroad. This kind of samba was characterized by extensive compositions of melody and patriotic verses. Carmen Miranda popularized samba internationally through her Hollywood films.

With the support of the Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas, the samba won status as the "official music" of Brazil. However, with this status of national identity came the recognition of intellectual Heitor Villa-Lobos, who arranged a recording with the maestro Leopold Stokowski in 1940, which involved Cartola, Donga, João da Baiana, Pixinguinha, and Zé da Zilda.^[1]

Also in the 1940s, there arose a new crop of artists: Francisco Alves, Mário Reis, Orlando Silva, Silvio Caldas, Aracy de Almeida, Dalva de Oliveira, and Elizeth Cardoso, among others. Others such as Assis Valente, Ataulfo Alves, Dorival Caymmi, Herivelto Martins, Pedro Caetano, and Synval Silva led the samba to the music industry.^[2]

A new beat in the 1950s: the Bossa Nova[link]

João Gilberto, bossa nova pioneer

A movement was born in the southern area of Rio de Janeiro, strongly influenced by jazz, marking the history of samba and Brazilian popular music in the 1950s. The bossa nova emerged at the end of that decade, with an original rhythmic accent which divided the phrasing of the samba and added influences of impressionist music and jazz and a different style of singing which was both intimate and gentle. After precursors such as Johnny Alf, João Donato, and musicians like Luis Bonfá and Garoto, this sub-genre was inaugurated by João Gilberto, Tom Jobim, and Vinicius de Moraes. It then had a generation of disciples and followers including Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, Durval Ferreira, and groups like Tamba Trio, Bossa 3, Zimbo Trio, and The Cariocas.^[1]

The sambalanço also began at the end of the 1950s. It was a branch of the popular bossa nova (most appreciated by the middle class) which also mingled samba rhythms and American jazz. Sambalanço was often found at suburban dances of 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. This style was developed by artists such as Bebeto, Bedeu, Scotland 7, Djalma Ferreira, the Daydreams, Dhema, Ed Lincoln, Elza Soares, and Miltinho, among others. In the 21st century, groups like Funk Como Le Gusta and Clube do Balanço continue to keep this sub-genre alive.

Rediscovered of the samba's roots in the 1960s and 1970s[link]

In the 1960s, Brazil became politically divided with the arrival of a military dictatorship, and the leftist musicians of bossa nova started to gather attention to the music made in the favelas. Many popular artists were discovered at this time. Musicians like Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho, Guilherme de Brito, Velha Guarda da Portela, Zé Keti, and Clementina de Jesus recorded their first albums during this time.^[1]

In the 1970s, samba returned strongly to the air waves with composers and singers like Paulinho da Viola, Martinho da Vila, Clara Nunes, and Beth Carvalho dominating the hit parade. Great samba lyricists like Paulo César Pinheiro (especially in the praised partnership with João Nogueira) and Aldir Blanc started to appear around that time.

Rapprochement with the hill[link]

Vinicius de Moraes

With bossa nova, samba is further away from its popular roots. The influence of jazz deepened, and techniques have been incorporated from classical music. From a festival in Carnegie Hall of New York, in 1962, the bossa nova reached worldwide success. But over the 1960s and 1970s, many artists who emerged—like Chico Buarque, Billy Blanco, Martinho da Vila, and Paulinho da Viola—advocated the return of the samba beat in its traditional form. They also wanted veterans like Candeia, Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho, and Zé Kéti to return. In the early the 1960s, the "Movement for Revitalization of Traditional Samba", promoted by Center for Popular Culture, started in partnership with the Brazilian National Union of Students. During the 1960s, some samba groups appeared and were formed by previous experiences with the world of samba and songs recorded by great names of Brazilian music. Among them were The Cinco Crioulos, The Voz do Morro, Mensageiros do Samba, and The Cinco Só.^[1]

Outside the main scene of the Brazilian Popular Music festivals, the sambists founded the Bienal do Samba in the late 1960s, and it became the space for the big names of the genre and followers. Even in the final decade, the samba-empolgação (samba-excitement) of carnival blocks Bafo da Onça, Cacique de Ramos, and Boêmios de Irajá came into being.^[1]

A fusion: the samba-funk[link]

Also in the 1960s came the samba funk. The samba-funk emerged at the end of the 1960s with pianist Dom Salvador and his group, which merged the samba with American funk, which was then newly arrived in the Brazil. With the departure of Dom Salvador to the United States, the band broke up, but at the beginning of the 1970s, some ex-members, including Luiz Carlos, José Carlos Barroso, and Oberdan joined Christovao Bastos, Jamil Joanes, Cláudio Stevenson and Lúcio da Silva to form Banda Black Rio. The new group has deepened the work of Don Salvador in the double mixture of the bar with the Brazilian samba funk of the American Quaternary, based on the dynamics of implementation, driven by drums and bass. Even after the Banda Black Rio in the 1980s, British disc jockeys began to play the group's work. It was rediscovered throughout Europe, but mainly in UK and Germany.^[1]

Partido-Alto for the masses[link]

At the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s, the young Martinho da Vila would give a new face to the traditional sambas-enredo established by authors such as Silas de Oliveira and Mano Decio da Viola, compressing them and expanding its potential in the music market. Martin popularized the style of the Partido alto with songs like "Casa de Bamba" and "Pequeno Burguês" and launched his first album in 1969.

Although the term partido alto originally arose at the beginning of the 1900s to describe instrumental music, the term came to be used to signify a type of samba which is characterized by a highly percussive beat of pandeiro, using the palm of the hand in the center of the instrument in place. The harmony of Partido alto is always higher in pitch, usually played by a set of percussion instruments (usually surdo, pandeiro, and tambourine) and accompanied by a cavaquinho and/or a guitar.

Also in that decade, some popular singers and composers appeared in the samba, including Alcione, Beth Carvalho, and Clara Nunes. As highlighted in city of São Paulo, Geraldo Filme was one of the leading names in samba paulistano, next to Germano Mathias, Osvaldinho of Cuíca, Tobias da Vai-Vai, Aldo Bueno, and Adoniran Barbosa.

1980s until 1990s[link]

Zeca Pagodinho, a popular contemporary sambist

In the early 1980s, after having been eclipsed by the popularity of disco and Brazilian rock, Samba reappeared in the media with a musical movement created in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. It was the pagode, a renewed samba, with new instruments like the banjo and the tan-tan. It also had a new language that reflected the way that many people actually spoke by including heavy gíria (a type of slang). The most popular artists were Zeca Pagodinho, Almir Guineto, Grupo Fundo de Quintal, Jorge Aragão, and Jovelina Pérola Negra.^[10]

In 1995, the world saw one of the most popular Pagode groups, the Gera Samba, later renamed to É o Tchan, come out from Savador. This group created the most sexual dance of the Pagode during the 1990s, mixing a lot of Axé music in it, and nowadays are satirized as a synonym of bad music. Some groups like Patrulha do Samba and Harmonia do Samba, also mixed in a bit of Axé. Samba, as a result, morphed during this period, embracing types of music that were growing popular in the Caribbean such as rap, reggae, and rock. Examples of Samba fusions with popular Caribbean music is samba-rap, samba-rock, and samba-reggae, all of which were efforts to not only entertain, but also to unify all Blacks throughout the Americas culturally and politically via song. In other words, samba-rap and the like often carried lyrics that encouraged Black pride, and spoke out against social injustice.^[11] Samba, however, is not accepted by all as the national music of Brazil, or as a valuable art form. Light-skinned "upper-class" Brazilians often associated Samba with dark-skinned blacks because of its arrival from West Africa. As a result, there are some light-skinned Brazilians who claim that samba is the music of low-class, dark-skinned Brazilians and, therefore, is a "thing of bums and bandits".^[12]

Samba continued to act as a unifying agent during the 1990s, when Rio stood as a national Brazilian symbol. Even though it was not the capital city, Rio acted as a Brazilian unifier, and the fact that samba originated in Rio helped the unification process. In 1994, the FIFA World Cup had its own samba composed for the occasion, the "Copa 94". The 1994 FIFA World Cup, in which samba played a major cultural role, holds the record for highest attendance in World Cup history. Samba is thought to be able to unify because individuals participate in it regardless of social or ethnic group. Today, samba is viewed as perhaps the only uniting factor in a country fragmented by political division.^[13]

The Afro-Brazilians played a significant role in the development of the samba over time. This change in the samba was an integral part of Brazilian nationalism, which was referred to as "Brazilianism".

"What appears to be new is the local response to that flow, in that instead of simply assimilating outside influences into a local genre or movement, the presence of foreign genres is acknowledged as part of the local scene: samba-rock, samba-reggae, samba-rap. But this acknowledgment does not imply mere imitation of the foreign models or, for that matter, passive consumption by national audiences." – Gerard Béhague, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology. Pg. 84

Marcelo D2 frequently mix hip hop with samba.

Samba in the 21st century[link]

Samba female dancers.

Samba Bateria performing

From the year 2000 onwards, there were some artists who were looking to reconnect the most popular traditions of samba. The cases of Marquinhos of Oswaldo Cruz and Teresa Cristina, were, among others, the ones that contributed to the revitalization of the region of Lapa in Rio de Janeiro. In São Paulo, samba resumed the tradition with concerts in Sesc Pompéia Club and with the work of several groups, including the group Quinteto em Branco e Preto which developed the event "Pagode da Vela" ("Pagoda of Sail"). These all helped to attract many artists from Rio de Janeiro, which has established residence in neighborhoods of the capital paulistana.

In 2004, the minister of culture Gilberto Gil submitted to Unesco an application for declaring samba as a Cultural Heritage of Humanity in the category "Intangible Goods" by the Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage. In 2005 the samba-de-roda of Baiano Recôncavo was proclaimed part of the Heritage of Humanity by Unesco, in the category of "Oral and intangible expressions".

Instruments commonly used in samba[link]

• Acoustic guitar/Seven-string guitar
• 4-string banjo
• Agogô
• Bass guitar
• Cavaquinho
• Chocalho
• Cuíca/Kweeca
• Drum kit
• Ganza
• Güiro
• Hand-repique
• Keyboard instruments
• Pandeiro
• Repinique
• Ring-repique
• Saxophones
• Snare drum/Tarol
• Surdo
• Tamborim
• Tantã
• Trombone
• Trumpet

See also[link]

• List of Brazilian musicians#Samba
• List of English words of African origin

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil. by McGowan, Chris and Pessanha, Ricardo. 2nd edition. Temple University Press. 1998.
• Samba on Your Feet by Eduardo Montes-Bradley at the Internet Movie Database, documentary on the history of samba in Brazil with particular emphasis on Rio de Janeiro. The film is in Portuguese with English subtitles and approaches the subject from an interesting perspective.
• Nosso senhor do samba. by Edigar de Alencar. Rio de Janeiro: FUNARTE, 1988.
• O Encontro Entre Bandeira e Sinhô. by André Gardel Rio de Janeiro: Secretaria Municipal de Cultura, 1996.
• O Sol nasceu pra todos:a História Secreta do Samba. by Luis Carlos de Morais Junior. Rio de Janeiro: Litteris, 2011.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Samba

• Origins of Samba Dance & Music
• All Brazilian Music samba page
• One of the first formal samba definition (1997)
• History of Samba, BBC Radio Bosco De Olivera's History of Samba for BBC Radio - scroll down to "Bosco Does the Samba".

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2011)

Diogo sings with Sandy.

Diogo Nogueira (b. Rio de Janeiro, 1981) is a singer and songwriter from Brazil. He is the son of composer João Nogueira and Ângela Maria Nogueira. He was a samba musician throughout childhood and adolescence, but became a football player, following a father's will.

After a serious knee injury, Nate decided to venture into the already well-known path of samba and released the CD and DVD Live, recorded at the Teatro João Caetano in Rio de Janeiro.^[1]

Discography[link]

• Um sonho através do espelho ("A Dream through the Mirror", various, 2001, CD Jam Music)
• Cidade do Samba ("Samba City", various, 2007, CD ZecaPagodiscos / Universal Music)
• Ao Vivo ("Live", 2007, CD and DVD EMI Music)
• Tô Fazendo a Minha Parte ("I'm Doing My Part", 2009, CD EMI Music)
• Sou Eu Ao Vivo (I Am", 2010, CD e DVD EMI Music)
• Poder da Criação (coletânea) (2011, CD EMI Music)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site

This article about a Brazilian singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia. (November 2010) Don't speak German? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the German article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|de|Carmen Vincelj}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Carmen Vincelj (born 1972 in Stuttgart) is a German professional dancer. Together with Bryan Watson she has won the WDC World Latin Dance Championships in the professional category nine times (1999–2007).^[1]

See also[link]

• International Latin American Dance Champions

References[link]

External links[link]

• At Dancesportinfo.net

This article about a German artist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article about someone associated with the art of dance is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

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.

Tributes and legacy[link]

Fitzgerald in 1960 by Erling Mandelmann.

In 1997, Newport News, Virginia created a music festival with Christopher Newport University to honor Ella Fitzgerald in her birth city. The Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival is designed to teach the region's youth of the musical legacy of Fitzgerald and jazz. Past performers at the week-long festival include: Diana Krall, Arturo Sandoval, Jean Carne, Phil Woods, Aretha Franklin, Freda Payne, Cassandra Wilson, Ethel Ennis, David Sanborn, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ramsey Lewis, Patti Austin, and Ann Hampton Callaway

Callaway, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Patti Austin have all recorded albums in tribute to Fitzgerald. Callaway's album To Ella with Love (1996) features fourteen jazz standards made popular by Fitzgerald, and the album also features the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Bridgewater's album Dear Ella (1997) featured many musicians that were closely associated with Fitzgerald during her career, including the pianist Lou Levy, the trumpeter Benny Powell, and Fitzgerald's second husband, double bassist Ray Brown. Bridgewater's following album, Live at Yoshi's, was recorded live on April 25, 1998, what would have been Fitzgerald's 81st birthday.

Austin's album, For Ella (2002) features 11 songs most immediately associated with Fitzgerald, and a twelfth song, "Hearing Ella Sing" is Austin's tribute to Fitzgerald. The album was nominated for a Grammy. In 2007, We All Love Ella, was released, a tribute album recorded for the 90th anniversary of Fitzgerald's birth. It featured artists such as Michael Bublé, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall, k.d. lang, Queen Latifah, Ledisi, Dianne Reeves, Linda Ronstadt, and Lizz Wright, collating songs most readily associated with the "First Lady of Song". Folk singer Odetta's album To Ella (1998) is dedicated to Fitzgerald, but features no songs associated with her. Her accompanist Tommy Flanagan affectionately remembered Fitzgerald on his album Lady be Good ... For Ella (1994).

Fitzgerald is also referred to on the 1987 song "Ella, elle l'a" by French singer France Gall and the Belgian singer Kate Ryan, the 1976 Stevie Wonder hit "Sir Duke" from his album Songs in the Key of Life, and the song "I Love Being Here With You", written by Peggy Lee and Bill Schluger. Sinatra's 1986 recording of "Mack the Knife" from his album L.A. Is My Lady (1984) includes a homage to some of the song's previous performers, including 'Lady Ella' herself. She is also honored in the song "First Lady" by Canadian artist Nikki Yanofsky.

In 2008, the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News named its brand new 276-seat theater the Ella Fitzgerald Theater. The theater is located several blocks away from her birthplace on Marshall Avenue. The Grand Opening performers (October 11 & 12, 2008) were Roberta Flack and Queen Esther Marrow.

USPS stamp and Yonkers statue[link]

There is a bronze sculpture of Fitzgerald in Yonkers,created by American artist Vinnie Bagwell, the city in which she grew up. It is located southeast of the main entrance to the Amtrak/Metro-North Railroad station. A bust of Fitzgerald is on the campus of Chapman College in Orange, California. On January 10, 2007, the United States Postal Service announced that Fitzgerald would be honored with her own 39-cent postage stamp. The stamp was released in April 2007 as part of the Postal Service's Black Heritage series.^[19]

Filmography[link]

References[link]