Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Ray Brown Trio : Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald in Berlin

Los Angeles, June 15, 1996, “The First Lady of Song” passed away in her Beverly Hills apartment at the age of 79. Just under a year later, her ex-husband and the father of her child, legendary bassist Ray Brown, joined forces with the great voice of Dee Dee Bridgewater to pay tribute to her on an album entitled Dear Ella—which won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Album in 1998 and was performed on stage at Berlin's Jazzfest festival. 

Spotted by Chick Webb at the tender age of 21, Ella Fitzgerald was the queen of swing and the undisputed mistress of scat, opening up jazz to a wider audience: a real challenge for a musical genre that had long been misunderstood and scorned as “music for bad boys”. In the heart of the '50s, at a time when racism and misogyny—against which she never ceased to fight—confined her to the microphones of Harlem's popular venues, she dreamed of performing in California's chic clubs. It was her close friendship with Marilyn Monroe that helped her to live her dream: the superstar negotiated with an iron fist to hold a show at the famous Mocambo club in 1955, and went so far as to refuse to enter the halls that forbade the singer entry through the main door.

For Ella, who played her voice like Gillespie played his trumpet—to the point of improvising a mythical scat to the chirping of crickets in Juan-les-Pins in 1964—history is above all a question of sisterhood. Her legacy carries on in this concert, with the voice of Dee Dee Bridgewater.