"Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), The First Lady of Jazz, is known and revered for having allowed us to enjoy one of the most powerful, versatile and beloved voices of all time —a gift attested to by her five dozen studio albums, countless live recordings and almost three hundred singles—. In this monumental biography —and, by the way, the first of the singer in Spanish—, historian and musicologist Judith Tick offers a meticulous and exciting reconstruction of the artist's adventures; a vocalist who, for more than half a century, would become a true transformative force in American popular song.

Ella Fitzgerald compiles more than ten years of research carried out on Fitzgerald's professional career, a task for which Tick has been able to rely on sources not consulted until now, as well as interviews with family members and comrades in arms who, in turn, have substantially expanded what was known about her. The singer's eventful childhood in Yonkers (New York), the tragic death of her mother and the year she spent in a reformatory - for trying to earn a living, as a schoolgirl, fighting as a pimp and a criminal - an institution where, despite being the victim of all kinds of abuse, she began to stand out in her renowned choir and also dreamed of trying her luck as a dancer. Profiles from the African-American press of the time - neglected until today - give full account of her first professional attempts and bring us closer to the unpleasant experiences that Fitzgerald suffered in terms of racial discrimination, as well as her conflicts with the models of femininity (black and white) of the middle of the last century.

Tick's ambitious approach unravels the artist's career with new findings that reveal the obsolescence of the traditional vision that segregated vocal jazz from the mainstream of the genre: the instrumental one. As she navigated the choppy waters of show business that took her from jazz to pop, the singer was able to draw on a wide range of resources that would make her one of the pioneers of modernist vocal jazz with an astonishingly diverse repertoire. Thanks to the recovery of lost songs, reviews from African-American media and local press silenced by the popes of racist criticism even in the selection of their sources, archival material in private collections and recordings that have not yet seen the light of day, this intrepid and tireless historian reveals how Lady Ella left her indelible mark in performances as significant or more significant than her own studio recordings.

A masterful biography, in short, that celebrates a prodigious and equally powerful woman who established an unparalleled standard of excellence in singing and without distinction of gender that reduced her inestimable value in the slightest."