Ella, Eternal: A Centenary Celebration of the First Lady of Song
Famed jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald performs at the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1971.
On April 25, 1917, a baby girl was born in Newport News, VA. One hundred years later, her name is synonymous with both jazz and The Great American Songbook. Known to many as “The First Lady of Song,” others know her as just Ella.
WNYC’s Julian Fleisher hosted a celebration of Ella Fitzgerald’s centennial birthday with the help of nine-time Grammy Award winner Janis Siegel, award-winning singer Marilyn Maye and The Harlem School of the Arts’ Dorothy Maynor Singers. They performed some of their favorite songs and discussed her influence and legacy over the last 100 years.
About Janis Siegel
Internationally acclaimed jazz singer Janis Siegel is a founding member of The Manhattan Transfer and a nine-time Grammy Award winner.
About Dorothy Maynor Singers
The Dorothy Maynor Singers is a group of intermediate and advanced vocal students named after the internationally acclaimed concert soprano Dorothy Maynor, founder of Harlem School of the Arts (HAS). HSA has blossomed into a thriving, extraordinary cultural institution that has served more than 50,000 students over the last 50 years, annually working with approximately 4,000 young people from across the greater New York metro area.
About Marilyn Maye
Marilyn Maye is an acclaimed singer, actress and a Grammy Award-nominated recording artist and musical treasure. She has appeared 76 times on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the record for any singer. An icon of cabaret, she has more recently appeared at sold-out performances at the Metropolitan Room, Birdland, Feinstein’s at The Loews Regency Hotel and the 92nd Street Y Theater.
