The Joy Of Ella Fitzgerald's Accessible Elegance
Nana had a big wooden box of a television in the corner of her apartment along Van Aken Boulevard in Cleveland, Ohio, known as "the Widow's Block." Brick with plenty of sunlight, there were four or five buildings of 100 or so units that housed most of our grandmothers after their husbands passed in the late '60s, '70s and even '80s. Close to the places the elegant women knew – church, grocery, movie theater, drug store, Chinese restaurant and confectionary – they played bridge, hosted dinners and maintained their friendships.
But even with that, few things tickled Nana more than when Ella Fitzgerald appeared on that chunky tube encased in heavy mahogany. With creamy perfection, the woman known as "The First Lady of Song" would bop, scat and sing. Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Rodgers & Hart and Gershwin — alongside current hits — were the milieu of a woman who won her first Grammy Award the very first time they were given out. Those classics played as Marguerite Shannon Gleason fell in love, lived, married, raised two boys and buried a husband too young.
Even more than the songs, though, Nana thrilled to see what the bespectacled songstress was wearing. Having always dressed for church in matching pastel coats and short-sleeved dresses, pocketbook in the crook of her arm, Nana didn't let her fashion sense slip because she was getting along inin 1976 — and another unreachable design plateau beckoned. But if '70s fashion was about the body, Ella's success — and unstoppable allowed her access to made her happy. Feathers, sequins, chiffons, it was body consciousness in a succulent, fun way that gave license to me and my Nana to "have fun" with our clothes, love them like she did and watch the world fall in step.
