Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things

In 1934, Norma Miller was one of the rowdy teenagers in the balcony of Harlem’s Apollo Theater who booed an aspiring dancer named Ella Fitzgerald. The 17-year-old Ella had made the cut for the theater’s popular Amateur Night, then was too intimidated to dance, so she made the last-minute decision to sing in public for the first time. As Miller recalls in the documentary Ella Fitzgerald: Just One Of Those Things, her voice immediately silenced the catcalls and the hall fell silent enough “to hear a mouse piss on cotton.”

Ms. Miller is one of the many remarkable interviews included in this compact new 90-minute biography of America’s most beloved jazz singer. It traces Fitzgerald’s life and career from that first appearance to her final years in a largely chronological journey (with one generous a flashback to fill in her tumultuous childhood), and unless you’re an Ella scholar, you’ll be surprised at many things you didn’t know.

That said, Fitzgerald’s life — once her career took off — was remarkably free of the dramas of tragic romance, substance abuse, or other gossip-worthy twists that often plagues famous performers. (That explains the lack of a major Hollywood biopic.) So director Leslie Woodhead keeps things interesting with performance snippets, previously unseen footage, and a remarkable roster of worshipful experts, including Smokey Robinson, Tony Bennett, Laura Mvula, Johnny Mathis, and many others. Fitzgerald’s only child, Ray Brown Jr., gave Woodhead a thoughtful and touching interview. Then, of course, there’s Norma Miller, who died in December at age 100 and merits a documentary of her own.

Just One of Those Things is not a flashy film, and it’s sometimes clumsy, burying important facts in subtitles that should have been included in Sharon D. Clarke’s voiceover narration. The film’s most important achievement is to put Fitzgerald’s career in cultural and historical context — a revealing radio interview she gave, speaking up sensibly on civil rights, for example, was not broadcast at the time, thought to be too controversial. The film might have benefited from a few more minutes of length to allow a couple performances to run longer, but there’s plenty of Ella here nonetheless.

Grade: B. Not rated, but PG equivalent. Available June 26 via streaming via Grail Moviehouse’s Sofa Cinema program.

(Photo: Getty Images)