YMMV / Ella Fitzgerald

• Awesome Moments: Ella's Scatting ability was legendary, to the point she often incorporated sung versions of Charlie Parker's "Ornithology" into her performances of "How High The Moon."^note "Ornithology" is a contrafact built on the chord progression for "How High The Moon"
• Funny Moments:
  • On one recording of "Summertime" it is quite obvious that Ella is getting fed up with having to sing the song all the time and starts riffing on the lyrics. It's pretty funny and you can hear the audience laughing along with her.
    Ella: They say, "Summertime - the living's easy." What makes it easy? You have to go out and work. So you go out and you do a day's work. It's so warm, it's so hot, and you perspire. Yes, you perspire, and you perspire. And what do you get? Perspiration! But you don't mind it, because it's summertime and the living's easy! So you say, um, "Let's go down and dig the real cool sounds at Mr. Kelly's". You come in Mr. Kelly's and you taste a while. Yes, Daddy, you drink a while, and you drink. Whaddaya get? The check. You don't mind it, 'cause it's summertime, the living's easy! What do you care, your daddy's rich, you got a good-lookin' mother. Imagine everybody with a good-lookin' mother and a rich daddy. Ho ho! Summertime, that's what the song says, the livin's easy! Oh yeah!
  • On the live album Ella in Berlin, Ella flubs the lyrics halfway through "Mack the Knife": "What's the next chorus to this song now?/This is the one now I don't know." She improvises some new lyrics and pokes fun at her flub: "Now Ella and her fellas/We're making a wreck, what a wreck of 'Mack the Knife.'" She tops it off with an impression of Louis Armstrong. This doubles as a Funny Moment and an Awesome Moment.
  • Ella's Signature Song was "How High The Moon." A number or recordings have her riffing on the lyrics. At least according to some legends this was a Take That! at another singer (sometimes reported as Sarah Vaughan) who was asked repeatedly throughout a set by a drunken audience member to do the song, but they didn't know the lyrics:
    How high the moon
    is the name of this song
    How high the moon
    Though the words may be wrong
    We're singing it
    Because you ask for it
    So we're swinging it just for you
• Signature Song: "Summertime" or "How High The Moon". Her performance of the latter from Ella In Berlin was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2002.