(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
Now, the VOA Special English program, People in America. Today, Shirley Griffith and Steve Ember tell about the jazz singer, Ella Fitzgerald. She was known as America's first lady of song.
The year was nineteen thirty-three. The place was New York City. Ella Fitzgerald was sixteen years old. She had entered a competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She was going to dance. But she had just watched two dancers perform. They were better dancers than she.
So, instead of dancing, she sang a song called "Judy. " People watching the competition urged her to sing another song. She did. She won first prize - twenty-five dollars.
That competition at the Apollo Theater changed Ella Fitzgerald's life forever. Band leader Chick Webb was watching the competition. He hired Ella to sing with his band. He taught her about singing in public. He even showed her what kind of clothes to wear. In three years, she had her first hit record, "A-Tisket-a-Tasket":
Ella Fitzgerald was born in the southern city of Newport News, Virginia in nineteen seventeen. Her father left soon after her birth. Her mother took Ella and moved to New York City. Ella's mother died when Ella was fifteen years old.
The next year, Ella started singing with Chick Webb's band. She stayed with Chick Webb until he died in nineteen thirty-nine. Ella kept his band together after he died until World War Two started. Then most of the band members joined the armed forces. While she was with the band, Ella recorded almost one hundred fifty songs.
Ella Fitzgerald was greatly influenced by the experimental music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. It was called be-bop. She used be-bop rhythms in her singing. In nineteen forty-five, she recorded the song "Flying Home," using the be-bop method known as "scat". In scat, the singer's voice sounds like another instrument in the orchestra. Critics say it was the most influential jazz record of the time.
In nineteen forty-nine, jazz musician Norman Granz invited her to join his band. It was with his band in Berlin, Germany in nineteen sixty that Ella sang a famous song in a very different way. A man asked her if she knew the song "Mack the Knife. " Ella said she had heard it a few times but the band did not have the music for it. She said she would try to sing it anyway. This recording shows how she continued to sing "Mack the Knife" when she did not remember the words. The people listening loved it.
Norman Granz later became her manager. He started a new recording company just for her. It was his idea for Ella to record the now famous series of record albums called the "Songbooks." On each record, she sang works of a different songwriter.
She recorded songbooks of the music of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Critics say the best songbook is Ella singing the songs of George and Ira Gershwin. Ira Gershwin reportedly said: "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them. Here, she sings the Gershwin song, "I Got Rhythm":
Ella Fitzgerald also appeared in movies and on television. She became popular internationally. She performed in concerts around the world sometimes forty weeks a year. She also recorded for different record companies.
In the nineteen sixties, she began to sing more modern songs such as those written by the Beatles and Burt Bacharach. But she was not very successful with that kind of popular music. She returned to jazz in Nineteen seventy-three, again with Norman Granz. She also began performing with symphony orchestras.
Ella Fitzgerald was married two times. Both marriages ended in divorce. She raised three children who were not her own.
Ella lived quietly in Beverly Hills, California. Throughout her life she was a very private person. She wanted to be known only for her music. Her friends included members of the Duke Ellington band, Count Basie's band, and singers like Sarah Vaughn and Peggy Lee.
Ella Fitzgerald began to have health problems during the nineteen seventies. She had the disease diabetes which caused problems with her eyes. She had a heart operation in nineteen eighty-six. In nineteen ninety-three, the effects of diabetes led to operations to remove both her legs. She died June fifteenth, nineteen ninety-six.
People around the world loved Ella Fitzgerald's joyful singing. Critics said she had raised the American popular song to the level of art.
She won many awards. She received the National Medal of the Arts and a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime work. The University of Maryland named a performing arts center for her.
Ella Fitzgerald's wonderful voice lives on in her two hundred fifty albums. She won thirteen Grammy awards given each year for the best recordings. Her last Grammy was for the nineteen ninety record: "All That Jazz":
重点解析
1.urge 强烈要求
They urged Congress to approve plans for their reform programme.
他们敦促国会批准他们有关改革项目的计划。
2.armed forces 武装部队
Every member of the armed forces is a hero.
武装部队的每个人都是英雄。
3.influential 有影响力的
He had been influential in shaping economic policy.
他在制定经济政策方面曾起过很大作用。
4.She also began performing with symphony orchestras.
symphony orchestras 交响乐团
He was the first jazz clarinetist to play with symphony orchestras.
他是第一个和交响乐团合作的爵士单簧管演奏家。
5.She raised three children who were not her own.
raise 养育
My mother was an amazing woman. She raised four of us kids virtually singlehandedly.
我母亲是个了不起的女人。她几乎是独自抚养大了我们4个孩子。
6.She had a heart operation in nineteen eighty-six.
operation 手术
Charles was at the clinic recovering from an operation on his arm.
查尔斯在诊所，进行手臂的术后恢复。
参考译文
现在播放的是VOA慢速英语栏目《美国人物志》。今天，雪梨·格里菲斯和史蒂夫·恩贝尔将讲述爵士歌手艾拉·费兹杰拉的故事。她被称为是美国爵士乐第一夫人。
那年是1933年。地点是在纽约市。艾拉·费兹杰拉当时16岁。她参加了在黑人住宅区阿波罗剧院里举办的一场比赛。她准备跳舞。但是她观看了两名舞者的表演。他们跳的都比她好。所以她决定不跳舞，转而演唱歌曲《Judy》。观看比赛的人怂恿她再唱一首。她唱了，并获得了一等奖，奖金25美元。这场在阿波罗剧院的比赛改变了艾拉·费兹杰拉的一生。乐团领班奇克·韦伯也在观看这场比赛。他雇艾拉和他的乐团一起唱歌。他教艾拉在公共场所演唱。他甚至还告诉艾拉该穿什么样的服装。三年里，她出了自己的第一张流行唱片《A-Tisket-a-Tasket》。
1917年，艾拉·费兹杰拉出生于弗吉尼亚州，纽波特纽斯的一个南部城市。她的父亲在她出生后就离开了家，她的母亲带着艾拉搬到纽约市。艾拉的妈妈在她15岁的时候去世了。 第二年，艾拉开始在奇克·韦伯的乐团唱歌。她一直和奇克·韦伯待在一起，直到1939年，韦伯去世。韦伯去世后，艾拉继续和他的乐团一起，直到二战爆发。然后团内的大部分队员都参军去了。和乐团一起的时候，艾拉录制了将近一百五十首歌曲。艾拉·费兹杰拉受到了查理·帕克和迪兹·吉莱斯皮实验音乐的极大影响。这被称为比波普爵士乐。她在她的歌里使用了比波普爵士乐韵律。1945年，她录制了歌曲《Flying Home》，其中就使用了一种被称为拟声唱法的比波普爵士乐方法。在这种拟声唱法中，歌手的声音听起来像是管弦乐队中的一种乐器。评论家认为这是那个时代最具影响力的爵士唱片。
1945年，爵士音乐家诺曼·格兰茨邀请她加入他的乐团。正是1960年，在和他的乐团一起在德国柏林演出时，艾拉以一种非常不同的方式演唱了一首很有名的歌曲。一个男人问她是否知道《Mack the Knife》这首歌。艾拉说她听过几次，但是乐队没有这首曲子。她说她可以试着演唱。这段录音展现了艾拉如何在不记得歌词的情况下，还能继续演唱《Mack the Knife》。听这首歌的人都爱上了它。之后，诺曼·格兰茨成为了她的经纪人。他为她成立了一家新唱片公司。为艾拉录制现在正流行的音乐唱片系列正是他的主意，这场唱片是《Songbooks》。在每张唱片中，她都会演唱一名不同歌曲作者的作品。她录制的音乐包括科尔·波特、欧文·柏林、艾灵顿公爵、杰罗姆·柯恩、约翰尼·默瑟以及哈罗德·阿兰的作品。评论家认为艾伦最好的唱片集是演唱乔治和伊拉·格什温的歌曲。报道称，伊拉·格什温说：“我们没有意识到我们的歌曲有多么美妙，直到听到了艾拉·费兹杰拉的演唱。”这是她演唱格什温的作品《I Got Rhythm》。
艾拉·费兹杰拉也参演过电影和电视剧。她也受到了国际欢迎。她在世界各地的演唱会中演唱，有时甚至一年40周都在演唱。她还为不同唱片公司录制歌曲。1960年代，她开始演唱更多的现代歌曲，比如披头士和伯特·巴哈拉赫写的那些歌曲。但是她并没有在那样的流行歌曲中取得成功。1973年，她再一次和诺曼·格兰茨重返爵士舞台。她还开始和交响乐团一同演出。艾拉·费兹杰拉结过两次婚。两次婚姻都以离婚终止。她抚养了三个非亲生的孩子。艾拉在加利福尼亚的比佛利山庄里安静的生活着。纵观她的一生，她是一个非常内向的人。她只想让别人知道她的音乐。她的朋友包括艾灵顿公爵乐团、贝西伯爵乐团的成员以及一些歌手，比如萨拉·沃恩和佩吉·李。1970年代，艾拉·费兹杰拉开始出现一些健康问题。她患有糖尿病，疾病造成了眼睛问题。1986年，她进行了心脏手术。1993年，由于糖尿病，她接受双腿切除手术，1996年6月15日去世。全世界的人都喜欢艾拉·费兹杰拉欢乐的歌唱。评论家称她将美国流行乐提高至了与艺术同级。她获得过很多奖项，包括国家艺术奖章和肯尼迪中心终身荣誉奖。马里兰大学有一所以她名字命名的表演艺术中心。艾拉·费兹杰拉美妙的歌声永存于她的两百五十张专辑中。她获得过13座格莱美最佳专辑奖。她最后一次获格莱美奖是因其1990年的专辑《All That Jazz》。
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