Some of you may not know that this year, in 3,200 post offices around the country and at USPS.com, the Postal Service is selling a special CD for Valentine's Day: Love Letters From Ella. It contains 10 Love Songs sung by the fabulous Ella Fitzgerald. The CD, which was originally released in 2007, also comes with a full reproduction of the Ella Fitzgerald Postage stamp. It contains 10 songs including Our Love Is Here to Stay, Witchcraft, and Cry Me a River (in which she is accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra), and it costs only $10.99. 
Valentine's Day is right around the corner, so if you're having trouble coming up with a gift idea for that special someone, why don't you pick up one of these before they're gone? In addition to supporting the creative efforts of the USPS to increase our revenue, you would also be giving (or keeping for yourself) a romantic collection of timeless music.
Some of you may not know much about Ella Fitzgerald and her contributions to American music. Since it is Black History Month, I'll take this opportunity to give you a little information about her, and if this piques your interest, visit http://www.ellafitzgerald.com/.
She is much more than the woman whose voice shattered the glass in the famous, "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" commercial: she is known as the First Lady of Song. Her amazing three-octave voice and gift for improvisation sold over 40 million albums and earned her 13 Grammy awards, The National Medal of Art, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors, and the love and admiration of millions of fans all. All of this was achieved in a time when, at least early on in her career, segregation and racial discrimination were prevalent, legal barriers to her success. But Ella Fitzgerald was accustomed to hardship.In the Yonkers, New York environment in which she was raised, life was difficult for her mother, a laundress, and her step-father, a ditch digger; both parents died when she was a teen-ager. Ella's anger and depression over this these traumatic losses led to her acting out, getting in trouble. She was sent to a reform school and then to the Colored Orphan Asylum, from which she escaped.
Surviving as a homeless teenager alone on the streets of New York during the Great Depression and then being able to rise from that time of darkness is not only a testament to Ella's talent as a singer, but also to her tenacity and strength. As luck or fate would have it, her career took off after at age 17 she won $25 in a talent contest at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Her popularity became widespread in 1939 when, at 21, she sang the hit A-Tisket, A-Tasket. Her greatest contribution to the world of music was her interpretation of the Great American Songbook (jazz standards written by various songwriters between 1920 through 1960) on a series of 8 albums between 1956-1964. All 10 songs on Love Letters from Ella cd belong to the GAS. Her career spanned 59 years until her last public appearance in 1993. That year, due to complications from diabetes, she had both legs amputated below the knee. Three years later in 1996, Ella Fitzgerald died. She is buried in the Sanctuary of the Belles section of Inglewood Park Cemetary in Inglewood, California. Her legacy, however, remains alive and continues to transcend gender, race, and time.
