Episode Notes 

Ella Fitzgerald “The First Lady of Song” is one of the foremothers of Jazz, known for her crystal-clear voice and the innovation of scat singing. In this episode, we focus on Ella, her contributions to jazz, and the overall American songbook. 

Find more information at s.si.edu/collected. 

Guests  

Margo Jefferson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and a 2022 recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction. Her most recent book is Constructing a Nervous System: a memoir (2022). She is a professor of Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University. https://arts.columbia.edu/profiles/margo-jefferson  

Fath Davis Ruffins was a curator of African American History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH). She began working at the museum in 1981, and between 1988 and 2005, she was the head of the Collection of Advertising History at the NMAH Archives Center. Ruffins was the original project director of Many Voices, One Nation, an exhibition that opened at NMAH in June 2017. She was leading a museum project on the history and culture of the Low Country region of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida.   https://profiles.si.edu/display/nruffinsf1102006  

Judith Tick, PhD is the Matthews Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Music History at Northeastern University in Boston. Tick is a leading scholar of the study of gender and women’s history in music. Her most recent book is the 2023 biography Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: the Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song.