Fitzgerald won Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for 'All That Jazz' on February 20, 1991, her final competitive GRAMMY.
On February 20, 1991, Ella Fitzgerald won the GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for her album All That Jazz, which proved to be her final competitive GRAMMY Award win. At age 73, she continued to demonstrate the vocal command and interpretive artistry that had defined her seven-decade career, despite serious declines in her health, including vision loss from diabetes and worsening cardiovascular problems.
This win capped an unparalleled run of GRAMMY recognition spanning from the award's inception in 1958 through the early 1990s, a stretch of over three decades during which Fitzgerald remained one of the most consistently honored performers in the history of American recorded music. Her thirteen competitive GRAMMY Awards, along with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy, represent one of the most extensive award hauls of any vocalist in any genre.
Shortly after this win, Fitzgerald's declining health forced her into retirement from public performance; she gave her final concert in 1993 and underwent leg amputations due to complications from diabetes shortly thereafter. This GRAMMY thus stands as a fitting capstone to an active recording career that fundamentally shaped American jazz and popular vocal music throughout the twentieth century.