American singer Ella Fitzgerald is often referred to as the "First Lady of Song". The legendary vocalist, known for her exceptional jazz and blues singing, had a purity of tone and impeccable phrasing that were seldom heard.

She was the most popular female jazz singer in the US for more than 50 years, winning 13 Grammy awards and selling more than 40 million albums.

Her rendition of the 1935 George Gershwin song, Summertime, is still delighting generations of music-lovers today. Originally written for the ground-breaking opera, Porgy and Bess, it started out as a lullaby sung by a mother to her baby.

Over the years, it has been covered by everyone from soul singer Sam Cooke to rock star Janis Joplin, but Fitzgerald's version has become the most memorable. It remains the most popular aria from Gershwin's opera and has been recorded literally thousands of times.

 

Path to success

Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, in April 1917. Her parents, William and Temperance, had split up by the time she was two years old. The youngster and her mother then moved to Yonkers, New York.

She started school at the age of six and was gifted academically, but her true love was music and dancing. She grew up listening to jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and The Boswell Sisters. Fitzgerald admitted she tried to sound like lead singer Connee Boswell when she first started singing.

Sadly, Temperance died in a car accident when Fitzgerald was 15 and she was sent to live with her aunt in Harlem. It was a hard life and she made a living by busking on the streets for a couple of years.

At the age of 17, she won the amateur night talent show at the famous Apollo Theatre on 21st November 1934, singing The Object of My Affection by the Boswell Sisters. In January 1935, she won the chance to perform at the Harlem Opera House with the Tiny Bradshaw Band.

She was introduced to bandleader Chick Webb, who was looking for a new female singer. He thought she was a "diamond in the rough", but gave her the chance to audition with his band when they played at Yale University. She impressed the musicians and the audience, and so was invited to join Webb's band full-time.

 

Long career

Fitzgerald released the jazz record, Flying Home, in 1945. Described as "one of the most influential jazz records of the decade" by The New York Times, it catapulted her to stardom almost overnight.

This was the start of her long and highly successful career. She released some 200 albums and recorded more than 2,000 songs between 1945 and 1995, making her one of the most prolific artists of the 20th century.

 

Porgy and Bess

Fitzgerald has forever been associated with Summertime, one of the most popular songs from Porgy and Bess, even though it wasn't written for her.

There have been an estimated 25,000 versions of the opera's opening aria, making it the most covered song in the world since Gershwin wrote it in 1934. The opera was based on DuBose Heyward's 1925 novel, Porgy, which told the story of a disabled street beggar living in the Charleston tenements of South Carolina in the 1920s.

In 1927, the novel was adapted into a play of the same name by Heyward and his playwright wife, Dorothy. While completing the play, they began negotiations with Gershwin to produce an opera of the novel. In 1935, Porgy and Bess was staged for the first time.

Summertime was a jazz-inspired lullaby that impoverished wife Clara sang to her child. After opening the show, it was reprised several times throughout the opera.

Initially, the song's beauty was overshadowed by the controversy that surrounded Porgy and Bess. It premiered in Boston in 1935 but wasn't particularly well-received by the critics. During its first run on Broadway, they claimed it was too long at four hours.

They also said Gershwin's attempts to blend the classic and the contemporary hadn't been a success. It combined several genres, such as jazz, gospel and the blues, with the cast delivering all their lines in song. It was ground-breaking because it was the first opera to feature a cast made up solely of African American artists.

 

Summertime

Summertime was one of the first compositions Gershwin wrote for Porgy and Bess, his most ambitious musical to date. He expressed his desire to place African American culture at the centre of his opera. George Gershwin wrote the music, while DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics.

The original version of Summertime was performed by a classically trained opera singer. The first verse starts with the famous words, "Summertime, and the livin' is easy, fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high," conjuring up images of summer in terms of nature.

The mother, singing to her baby, then says, "Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good-lookin', so hush, little baby, don't you cry."

There have been various interpretations of the lyrics, especially in the second verse, which begins, "One of these mornings, you're going to rise up singing, then you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky."

While some critics saw it as a melancholy song, others interpreted it as a song of hope, with the mother believing her baby would one day rise up from their life of poverty.

 

Modern-day appreciation

In modern times, Heyward has been credited with writing the "finest set of lyrics in the history of the American musical theatre". However, in his lifetime, his genius went largely unrecognised. This was perhaps because he was a novelist and poet, rather than a songwriter. Writing lyrics for Porgy and Bess was the only time he ventured into the world of musical theatre.

Summertime's greatness went largely unrecognised until Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong released their album, Porgy and Bess, in 1959. Their cover version propelled the song into the limelight. It became a staple of jazz sets and was soon a global hit.

Porgy and Bess was later turned into a film, featuring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge in the leading roles. Sadly, George Gershwin did not live to see his music gain the accolade it deserved. Tragically, he lost his battle against a brain tumour on 11th July 1937, at the age of just 38.

Summertime remains legendary today, more than 80 years after it was written.

Many people today choose to simply appreciate it as a wonderful, atmospheric song, symbolising the long days of summer sunshine and the joy this brings after a harsh winter.