BROWSE:
Related Resources at the Library
- Performing Arts Webcasts
- Concerts, Events at the Library
- American Memory Performing Arts Collections
- LC Presents Music, Theater & Dance
- Performing Arts Reading Room
- Music from the Library's Shop
Feedback or Questions
Feedback or questions about this encyclopedia? Contact us.

Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald. Carl Van Vechten, photographer. June 19, 1940. About this image
|| About the Collection ||
Ella Fitzgerald, “The First Lady of Song,” was a jazz singer, a stylist, and a pop singer. Boasting an instrument of wide range, unerring pitch, and a combination of musicality and inventiveness that few, if any, other singers could match, Fitzgerald is the standard against which singers of popular songs are measured. Fitzgerald is also set apart by both the quantity and quality of her song choices—estimated at 2,309 recordings of 1,117 songs. She is also credited as being one of the progenitors of scat singing and the recording of themed and “songbook” albums, which feature songs by single composers and/or lyricists. A particular highlight of the Ella Fitzgerald Collection is the extraordinary arrangements created for her by over fifty of the finest practitioners of that art and craft.
|| Collection Details ||
General
- Span Dates
- 1956-1992
- Bulk Dates
- 1960-1985
- Major Language(s)
- English
- Repository
- Music Division, Library of Congress
Physical Collection
- Number of Items
- 23,500
- Number of Containers
- 285
- Linear Feet
- 176
- Contents
- Full scores, short scores/piano-conductor scores, parts, lyric sheets, piano-vocal scores of songs arranged for and performed and/or recorded by Ella Fitzgerald.
- Processing History
- Processed, finding aid available.
- Transfers
- Betamax and VHS videocassettes transferred to MBRS
- Provenance
- The Collection was a gift from the Fitzgerald 1989 Trust in 1997. Researchers may obtain single-copy reproductions of the unpublished material in the collection, provided they have obtained written permission of the Donor and/or the appropriate third-party owner(s) of the intellectual property.
Access/Copyright
- Access Permissions
- Permitted, subject to PARR policies and procedures
- On Microfilm?
- No
- Copyright Info
- http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
- Preferred Citation
- Ella Fitzgerald Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.
Subject(s)
Names Associated with Collection
- Bergman, Buddy
- Bulling, Erich
- Byers, Billy
- Carson, Tee
- Carter, Benny
- DeVol, Frank
- Doggett, Bill
- Donahue, Gus
- Ellington, Duke
- Feller, Sid
- Flanagan, Tommy
- Garcia, Russ
- Hefti, Neal
- Hillery, Art
- Holman, Bob
- Hughart, Jim
- Jenkins, Gordon
- Johnson, J. J.
- Jones, Jimmy
- Lipman, Joe
- Mancini, Henry
- May, Billy
- Paich, Marty
- Pierce, Nat
- Previn, Andre
- Riddle, Nelson
- Smith, Paul T.
- Spence, Johnnie
- Weston, Paul
- Wilson, Gerald