Connee Boswell performed in the 1920s and 1930s with her siblings as The Boswell Sisters. One of the greatest jazz vocalists of her day, she had a profound influence on Ella Fitzgerald who said, "My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it.... I tried so hard to sound just like her."

After the death of her mother, Ella's grades dropped. She started skipping school and got involved in criminal activities, working for a mafia numbers runner and serving as a police lookout at a local brothel. She never talked publicly about this time in her life. When the authorities caught up with her, she was placed in an orphanage in the Bronx.

On November 21, 1934, in one of the earliest Amateur Nights at the Apollo Theater, she intended to go on stage and dance but was intimidated by a local dance duo called the Edwards Sisters and opted to sing instead. Performing in the style of Connee Boswell, she sang "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection" and won first prize.

The advent of bebop led to new developments in Fitzgerald's vocal style, influenced by her work with Dizzy Gillespie's big band. It was during this period that Fitzgerald started including scat singing as a major part of her performance repertoire. While singing with Gillespie, Fitzgerald recalled, "I just tried to do [with my voice] what I heard the horns in the band doing."

There's absolutely no reason Ella's warm yet ultra-cool voice should blend so effortlessly with Louis' gravelly growl. They're the opposite poles of jazz singing. But it's magic.

For you maybe I'm a fool, but it's fun
People say you rule me with one wave of your hand
Darling, it's grand; they just don't understand
Living for you is easy living
It's easy to live when you're in love
And I'm so in love

On March 15, 1955, Fitzgerald opened at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner to book her and promised to attend every performance. The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career. "After that," she said, "I never had to play a small jazz club again."

Ella in Berlin, one of her best-selling albums, includes a Grammy-winning performance of "Mack the Knife" in which she forgets the lyrics after the first stanza but improvises new lyrics magnificently to compensate.

In 1972, Ella performed during halftime of Super Bowl VI where the Miami Dolphins faced off against the Dallas Cowboys in New Orleans. She and trumpeter Al Hirt performed "Mack the Knife" as a tribute to Louis Armstrong, who had passed away the year before.

She, along with Dizzy Gillespie, Houstonian Illinois Jacquet, jazz impresario Norman Granz and Georgiana Henry were arrested on Oct. 7, 1955, for shooting dice in Fitzgerald's dressing room at the Music Hall. Ella later said of the incident, "They took us down, and then when we got there, they had the nerve to ask for an autograph."