Few artists of her generation were more respected than Ella Fitzgerald, who died on 15 June, 1996 , aged 79.

With a vocal range spanning three octaves, she was renowned for her purity of sound, near faultless phrasing and her ‘horn-like’ scat singing.

Over a 57 year career her unique style saw her awarded 13 Grammy Awards and the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But it was the Great American Songbook, the period of American songwriting during the 1930s - 1960s , which truly cemented her popualrity - she was regarded as one of the Songbook’s most supreme interpreters.

Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born on 25 April, 1917 in Virginia , USA . Her father disappeared from her life when she was only three, and she was brought up in New York by her mother and stepfather.

The death of her mother in 1932 ended what she has described as her “warm family life”, and she lived briefly with an aunt, and then in an orphanage, before running away in 1934.

A series of successes in local talent contests eventually led to her joining a band led by drummer Chick Webb in 1935, where she recorded her first big solo hit “A Tisket, A Tasket” in 1938, and quickly established herself as the band’s principal singer.

The group had disbanded by 1942 and Ms Fitzgerald embarked on her solo career, signing with the Decca label and recording several popular hits.

With the demise of the Swing Era during this time Ms Fitzgerald’s vocal style changed dramatically and she began including voice instrumental scat singing in most performances.

In 1948, she was coaxed into performing at one of Norman Granz’s Jazz At The Philharmonic shows at the Carnegie Hall, where she created something of a sensation. By 1950, she was touring regularly with the JATP shows.

By 1955 she had left the Decca label and Granz, now her manger, created the jazz company Verve around her. For Granz she recorded the Great American Songbook albums, which are now regarded as some of the finest recorded versions of classic American songs by the likes of artists such as Gershwin and Kern.

Plagued by diabetes-related health problems Ms Fitzgerald made her final public recording in 1989 and her last public performance in 1993.

The success of the Songbooks took her out of the jazz nightclubs and into the hearts of a non-jazz audience.

With her light, sweet voice she dominated the world of jazz and popular music for almost half a century and her death brought to an end one of greatest careers in popular music.

Next only to Louis Armstrong, she was regarded both by her peers and her global audience with the kind of affectionate veneration achieved by very few artists in any field.

But perhaps the greatest accolade came from fellow singer Johnny Mathis who said: “She was the best there ever was. Amongst all of us who sing, she was the best.”