GRAMMY win for 'A Perfect Match - Ella And Basie'

On March 24, 1981, Ella Fitzgerald won the GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for her album A Perfect Match - Ella And Basie, a live collaborative recording with the legendary bandleader and pianist Count Basie and his orchestra.

This pairing reunited two towering figures of American jazz whose careers had intersected for decades, and the resulting recording captured the electric chemistry between Fitzgerald's vocal virtuosity and the propulsive swing of the Basie band. The album was celebrated as a triumphant return to Fitzgerald's big-band roots, evoking the swing-era sound with which she first rose to fame in the 1930s.

This award reflects the esteem in which Fitzgerald continued to be held by her peers and by the recording industry well into her sixties, at a career stage when many performers of her generation had long since retired. The success of this collaboration also underscored the enduring commercial and artistic viability of big-band jazz vocal performance, a genre Fitzgerald had helped define decades earlier and continued to champion. Her sustained excellence across this period helped preserve and popularize traditional jazz vocal artistry for new generations of listeners during an era increasingly dominated by rock and pop music.