Ella Fitzgerald never stopped moving. That’s how the jazz singer became an icon

Review Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song By Judith Tick Norton: 592 pages, $40 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. The title of “Becoming Ella Fitzgerald,” Judith Tick’s incisive, doggedly researched new biography of the 20th century’s preeminent songstress, suggests action and movement. As Tick writes, “across her entire career, the artist was always ‘becoming Ella Fitzgerald.’” Her reign began as a swing singer with the great bandleader and drummer Chick Webb; took on a bop tenor as she fell under the influence of Dizzy Gillespie; and blossomed into refined pop elegance with her remarkable run of songbook albums produced by Norman Granz. Judith Tick’s “Becoming Ella Fitzgerald” is the first comprehensive biography written since the iconic jazz singer’s death. the Queen was more like a good fat Negro mammy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Even when Fitzgerald reached new creative and commercial heights with the “Cole Porter Songbook” album in 1956, some critics questioned whether she had the “emotional intelligence” to make Porter sing.