Thread by @dean_frey

Remembering Ella Fitzgerald on her birthday 🎂
📷 Richard Avedon, NY, 1959
"Amongst all of us who sing, she was the best."
- Johnny Mathis

Ella Fitzgerald by Annie Leibovitz, Beverly Hills, 1988
"As the years went by, her singing became more seasoned & brilliantly skilled, passing beyond anything anyone else could do... The strange thing is that the voice itself remained eternally young."
- Gene Lees

Ella Fitzgerald by Yale Joel for Life, 1958
"I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them."
- Ira Gershwin

Ella Fitzgerald sings for Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Richard Rodgers
📷 Herman Leonard, New York, 1948

Ella Fitzgerald with Dizzy Gillespie & Ray Brown, by William P. Gottlieb, 1947
This photo was the big hit of her Centennial year in 2017:
nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/ra…
@smithsonian

On Ella's birthday, I'm listening to Ella Fitzgerald Sings "The Rodgers & Hart Song Book", a double LP with a great Herman Leonard cover, released in 1956. Superb Buddy Bregman arrangements.
This is a Desert Island Disc for me.
open.spotify.com/album/3DXgUbJh…

One of the great Ella Fitzgerald portraits, by Eliot Elisofon, printed in the Life magazine #JazzEssay, January 17, 1955. The caption: "Enduring First Lady of Jazz".
Along with a second shot, just as good.

I love Carl Van Vechten's 1935 portrait of Ella Fitzgerald
@BeineckeLibrary

Phil Stern's famous shot of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong taken during the recording session for Ella and Louis, August 16, 1956

Oscar Peterson & Ella Fitzgerald by David Redfern, 1980
The album "Ella & Oscar" was recorded in Los Angeles May 19, 1975. The two of them click!
Mean to Me

"Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book" is graced with an Henri Matisse cover.
This album was recorded in 1960, & released the next year. Great Billy Mays arrangements. This is the only time Ella & Billy worked together.