Eddie Jefferson was a celebrated jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 vocalist and lyricist

Lyricist

A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...

. He is credited as an innovator of vocalese

Vocalese

Vocalese is a style or genre of jazz singing wherein lyrics are written for melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation. Whereas scat singing uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos, vocalese uses lyrics, either...

, a musical style in which lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

 are set to an instrumental composition or solo. Perhaps his best-known song is "Moody's Mood for Love

Moody's Mood for Love

"Moody's Mood for Love" is jazz saxophonist James Moody's 1949 instrumental solo based on Jimmy McHugh's 1935 song "I'm in the Mood for Love" with lyrics later added by Eddie Jefferson.-History:...

", though it was first recorded by King Pleasure

King Pleasure

King Pleasure was a jazz vocalist and an early master of vocalese, where a singer sings words to a famous instrumental solo....

, who cited Jefferson as an influence. Jefferson's songs "Parker's Mood" and "Filthy McNasty" were also hits.

Biography

Jefferson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. One of his most notable recordings, “So What”, combined the lyrics of artist Christopher Acemandese Hall with the music of Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 to highlight his skills, and enabled him to turn a phrase, into his style he calls jazz vocalese.

Jefferson's last recorded performance was at the Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase

The Jazz Showcase

The Jazz Showcase is a jazz club in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1947 by Joe Segal, who still owns and operates the venue. Many famous musicians play at the Showcase on tour, including Chris Potter, Frank Morgan, Danilo Perez, Larry Coryell, Paul Wertico, Marbin, James Carter, Stu Katz, Ira...

 in Chicago and was released on video by Rhapsody Films. He shared the stand with Richie Cole

Richie Cole (musician)

Richie Cole is a jazz alto saxophonist composer and arranger born in Trenton, New Jersey, U.S. and is a graduate of Ewing High School, Ewing New Jersey....

 (alto sax), John Campbell

John Campbell (jazz pianist)

John Campbell is a jazz pianist born July 7, 1955 in Bloomington, Illinois. He studied piano privately as a youth, then attended University High School and, briefly, Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois before moving to Chicago in the mid 70s, then to New York in the...

 (piano), Kelly Sill (bass) and Joel Spencer (drums). The performance was part of a tour that Jefferson and Cole led together. Their opening night in Detroit

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 was at Baker's Keyboard Lounge

Baker's Keyboard Lounge

Baker's Keyboard Lounge located on 20510 Livernois Street in Detroit, Michigan, claims to be the world's oldest operating jazz club, operating since May 1934.-Early History:...

, a jazz club built in the 1930s that has played host to famous musicians including musicians who spanned the genre with artists as diverse as Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...

 and Sonny Stitt

Sonny Stitt

Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...

.

A previously unreleased live recording from July 1976 was released in August 2009, Eddie Jefferson at Ali's Alley, with drummer Rashied Ali

Rashied Ali

Rashied Ali, born Robert Patterson was an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz drummer best known for playing with John Coltrane in the last years of Coltrane's life.-Biography:...

.

Eddie Jefferson was shot and killed at Baker's Keyboard Lounge on May 8, 1979, aged 60. He had left the club with fellow bandleader

Bandleader

A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....

 Cole around 1:35 a.m. and was shot while walking out of the building. A late-model Lincoln Continental

Lincoln Continental

The Lincoln Continental is an automobile which was produced by the Lincoln division of Ford Motor Company from 1939 to 1948 and again from 1956 to 2002...

 was spotted speeding away from the scene. The driver was later picked up by Detroit police and identified as a disgruntled dancer with whom Jefferson once worked and had fired from a gig. The suspect was charged with murder, but was later acquitted in a Detroit trial. External Link submitted below

Discography

• 1961: Letter from Home (Riverside)
• 1965: The Jazz Singer (Inner City Records
  Inner City Records
  Inner City Records, an American jazz record label now based in Elmsford, New York, was founded in 1976 by Irv Kratka, owner of Music Minus One, and Eric Kriss, an independent producer. Affiliated labels included Guitar World and Classic Jazz...
  
  )
• 1968: Body and Soul (Prestige)
• 1969: Come Along with Me (Prestige)
• 1974: Things Are Getting Better (Muse)
• 1976: Still on the Planet (Muse, reissued in 1990 as Godfather of Vocalese)
• 1976: The Live-Liest (Muse)
• 1977: Main Man (Inner City)

External links

• Eddie Jefferson's Artist Page

ref>http://dlxsimg.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?sort=dc_ti;bbdbid=962;xc=1;size=100;c=aict;c=cfai;c=dhhcc;c=djg;c=hcc;c=heartic;c=hfhcc;c=hmcc;c=map;c=mbd;c=ntgl;c=rcn;c=sampleic;c=vmc;c=wpaic;back=back1309987071;subview=detail;resnum=5;view=bbentry;lastview=bbthumbnail;cc=vmc;entryid=x-53921;viewid=53921, WSU Virtual Motor City Collection.