Tiskets & Taskets

I've been listening to Ella Fitzgerald music all day long. Not that I need an excuse to do that, but today is April 25, which is her birthday.

I've mentioned before that I was lucky enough to attend her last performance in New York City in 1992. Now, twenty-two years later, and nearly two decades after her death, having seen her just once makes me feel connected to an era that was gone long before I was even born.

I would love to have been a regular at Birdland, seen Billie at Storyville,  swung with Ella and Dinah at Newport. On the other hand, I enjoy being able to survey their careers in retrospect and get to hear all kinds of treasures unearthed from the vaults of their record labels. It appeals to the pack rat/archivist in me. Why, just a few years ago Verve released four hours of previously unissued Ella club dates from '61 and '62. If I'd been born one of her contemporaries, I would never have had the chance to hear them.

One of the smartest people I know, with pretty exquisite taste, dismisses Ella because she "ran around singing about her little yellow basket" while Billie was running a cold chill down the spine with songs like Strange Fruit and Black and Blue. Fair enough, but on the other hand Billie didn't lead her own orchestra at the age of twenty-two like Ella did, she didn't have perfect pitch, she didn't scat, and she didn't swing nearly as brightly as Ella, in my opinion. Perhaps the most important distinction (and this is not a recrimination of Billie) is that Ella managed to stay alive and performing well into her seventies. In the world of mid century jazz, awash in drug abuse, racism, and sketchy contracts, that's no small accomplishment.

Lady Be Good (and she really was)

Ella Fitzgerald was born on this day in 1917. I had the great privilege of seeing her perform at Radio City Music Hall in 1992. At nearly 75 years of age and having battled health problems, her voice was well past its  prime, but her spirit was exuberant and infectious and I have always counted myself very lucky to have seen her last New York appearance.

In honor of her birthday I decided to do some quick sketches of her. I was inspired by the story of Pablo Picasso running into Ella at a restaurant and doodling a surrealist portrait of her on a napkin.

When I draw I am basically winging it, and nearly everything I produce takes hours and hours, even when it doesn't look like it. So for this birthday salute I decided to limit each sketch to no more than 10 minutes. I wound up with about 40 or so sketches. What follows is a sampling of my doodles surveying Ella at various ages, weights, and hair styles. Some of them are more successful than others, but I think a few of them capture a tiny bit of her spirit, or at least I hope they do. They are all either ink or pencil on notebook paper, though the exposures have been played with on some of them to adjust the colors.

Too Hungry For Dinner At Eight...

April 25, 2008

It's the Friday night after Thanksgiving and I'm out on the town with my friend Timmy, my sister Kathleen, and my parents. We're milling around the mezzanine of a large nightclub. We seem to be simultaneously attending a music festival and an art gallery opening. People are dancing and drinking on the upper level and checking out the paintings on the lower level while a band plays nearby. I find the music loud and unpleasant and want to leave as soon as possible.

I am no longer in the nightclub. For a moment I am disoriented and unsure of my surroundings. I'm propped up in an overstuffed leather chair while women in lab coats attend to me. Now I know where I am; it's the Elizabeth Arden salon and I'm here to receive a very unusual makeover. I'm being transformed into Ella Fitzgerald so I can return to the music festival and show the crowd what real music sounds like. As I lean back to have my face worked on I hear the stains of "The Lady Is A Tramp" and start to sing along.

As I continue singing, I find myself atop a moss covered hill at dusk entertaining a large crowd of onlookers. They don't seem particularly attentive or appreciative, but still I'm having a great time as I alter the lyrics for the occasion:

Tell Lizzie Arden To Leave Me Alone--

My Breasts Are Fake But My Hair Is My Own

That's Why This Lady Is A Tramp!

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I know this seems unusual, and I guess it is, but I often hear music in my dreams and I do occasionally become someone else, which always leaves me a little confused. As for Ella, anyone who knows me can I attest that I do listen to an awful lot of her music, and she recorded this particular song a number of times--I have at least four versions. The lyric Ella usually sang went like this:

Girls Get Massages, They Cry And They Moan

Tell Lizzie Arden To Leave Me Alone

I'm Not So Hot But My Shape Is My Own