NPR

The World Of Ella Fitzgerald: A Turning The Tables Playlist

Listen to a selection of marvelous music from the First Lady of Song, plus music by artists who have felt her influence.
Ella Fitzgerald, photographed in 1940.

Listen to this playlist on Spotify or Apple Music.

That Ella Fitzgerald — — would pull back the stage curtain ever so discreetly before her concerts, eyeball the audience and say to her band, "I hope they like me," is one of the more exasperating mysteries of life. And yet, there she was — the First Lady of Song — year after year, peeping and fretting. But Fitzgerald's performance anxiety is likely the reason why millions of people bought her records and clamored to hear her in person: She channeled the jitters into a kind of musical perfectionism that sounded so much better than good. Her swinging, her scatting! To paraphrase the

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