Vocal jazz
Encyclopedia
Jazz
singing can be defined by the instrumental approach to the voice, where the singer can match the instruments in their stylistic approach to the lyrics, improvised or otherwise, or through scat singing
; that is, the use of nonsensical meaningless non-morphemic syllables to imitate the sound of instruments.
s’ and ceremonial chants, but whilst the blues
maintained a strong vocal tradition, with singers such as Ma Rainey
and Bessie Smith
heavily influencing the progress of American popular music in general, early jazz bands only featured vocalists periodically, albeit those with a more ‘bluesy’ tone of voice; one of the first ‘Jazz’ recordings, the 1917 Original Dixieland Jass Band
recordings featured one Sarah Martin as vocalist.
It was Louis Armstrong
who established singing as a distinct art form in jazz, realising that a singer could improvise in the same manner as instrumentalist, and establishing scat singing
as a central pillar of the jazz vocal art.
A frequently repeated legend alleges that Louis Armstrong
invented scat singing when he dropped the lyric sheet whilst singing on his 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies
". This story is false and Armstrong himself made no such claim. Jazz musicians Don Redman
, Cliff Edwards
, and Red Nichols
all recorded examples of scat earlier than Armstrong. However, the record Heebie Jeebies and subsequent Armstrong recordings introduced scat singing to a wider audience and did much to popularize the style. Armstrong was an innovative singer who whilst experimenting with all kinds of sound, improvised with his voice as he did on his instrument. In one famous example, Armstrong scatted a passage on I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas – he sings "I've done forgot the words!" in the middle of recording before taking off in scat.
The entrance of Billie Holiday
into the world of jazz singing in the early 1930s was a revelation. She approached the voice from a radical angle, explaining, in her own words,
Compared to other great jazz singers, Holiday had a rather limited vocal range of just over an octave
. Where Holiday's genius lay, however, was to compensate for this shortcoming, with impeccable timing, nuanced phrasing, and emotional immediacy, qualities admired by a young Frank Sinatra
.
With the end of prohibition
in the United States
, a more 'danceable' form of jazz music arose, giving birth to the 'Swing Era
', and with it big bands such as those led by Count Basie
, Benny Goodman
, Duke Ellington
, Tommy Dorsey
, Jimmie Lunceford
, Glenn Miller
, Artie Shaw
and Chick Webb
. Many of the great post war jazz singers sang with these bands in the infancy of their careers.
With the end of the 'Swing Era', the great touring Big bands of the past decade were no longer a viable option, and the demise of the typical big band singer was further complicated by the advent of be-bop as a creative force in jazz.
The rise of Be-bop saw a new style of jazz singer, one who could match instrumentalists for sheer technical skill, and this was evident in Ella Fitzgerald
’s rise to fame, the art of jazz singing was elevated to even higher rankings, allowing the notion of 'free voice' to exist, giving instrumental qualities to the voice through timbre
s, registers and tessitura
.
Around the same time, the ‘Long Playing’ Record was invented, ‘freeing’ musicians from the time constraints of the ‘Extended Player’ record. The LP
, being more expensive, was aimed at the adult audience who could afford to spend the extra money on records.
Frank Sinatra
, Nat King Cole
and Ella Fitzgerald
released some of the most popular early LP's recorded in a jazz vein.
Though she was constrained by her material, Ella Fitzgerald's 'Songbook' series introduced a great many people to jazz singing.
Many of the singers that had worked with the great big bands of the swing era were now solo artists, in the prime of their careers and many had achieved fame internationally.
Sarah Vaughan
, Mel Tormé
, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
, Billy Eckstine
, Joe Williams
, Dinah Washington
, Tony Bennett
, Anita O'Day
, Chris Connor
, June Christy
, Billie Holiday
, Nina Simone
, Dakota Staton
, and Carmen McRae
all greatly advanced vocal jazz at this period.
, Maxine Sullivan
, Sarah Vaughan
, Al Jarreau
, Carmen McRae
, Flora Purim
, George Benson
, Carol Sloane
, Urszula Dudziak
, Bobby McFerrin
, among many others. Some of the biggest influences on the Vocal Jazz style, all of whom approach the jazz voice in different ways, are Flora Purim
, George Benson
, The Manhattan Transfer
, Take 6
, The Real Group
, New York Voices
, Dianne Reeves
, Al Jarreau
, Bobby McFerrin
, Diane Schuur
and Helen Merryll. What follows are chronological descriptions of each group / artist’s contribution to the development of Vocal Jazz, and a short record of their achievements.
Other popular contemporary jazz vocalist would include Diana Krall
, Norah Jones
, Cassandra Wilson
, Kurt Elling
, Harry Connick, Jr.
, Amy Winehouse
, Erykah Badu
, Madeleine Peyroux
, and Jamie Cullum
.
Vocal jazz has been mainly a mainstream, as opposed to avant-garde, phenomenon. However, some performers, such as Jeanne Lee
and Patty Waters
, have performed within an avant garde vein.
released her first solo album in 1973, entitled Butterfly Dreams
, on LP
through Milestone Records
, and is most renowned for her remarkable vocal range. Her first exposure to mainstream audiences was through two recording collaborations with Chick Corea
, an important pianist and composer, entitled “Light as a feather” and “Return to Forever”, in 1972 and 1973, respectively, which stand to date as significant developments in the field of fusion jazz. Purim’s approach to Vocal Jazz included Latin Jazz
, using a ‘percussive’ element in her work.
Al Jarreau
made his first impressions on the world through the 1975 release of his “We Got By” album on Reprise Records
, which promptly won him a German Grammy award, as did his following 1979 release “Glow”. Jarreau’s music features elements of Pop
, Jazz
and R&B, and he is also the only person to hold Grammy awards for all three styles of music. Jarreau is renowned for being able to perfectly imitate the sound of Guitars, Electric Basses, Upright Basses and Percussion instruments, and tends to improvise performances using that talent rather than ‘sing songs’, as other singers do. Jarreau’s experience with performance and singing has its roots in his early childhood, where he and his brothers performed together in a close harmony group, later singing in the church choir.
Jazz Guitarist George Benson
shocked his audience in 1976 by releasing an album, “This Masquerade”, on Warner Brothers Music, on which he sang- to winning effect. Having released his first album twelve years prior, a collaboration with Jack McDuff
, entitled “The New Boss Guitar”, describable as “Soul
-Tinged Bebop
” , released through Riverside Records
. Benson’s guitar overshadowed his skill as a vocalist, and he appeared for many years as a sideman for some great names in Jazz, including Miles Davis
, Frank Sinatra
and Tony Bennett
, before going into the Studio with Tony LiPuma as producer- making an album that proceeded to win him a Grammy award for making the “Record Of The Year”, probably attributable to the close relationship between his singing style and his guitar playing- melodic and chromatically fluent, with a touch of blues influence, the emphasis on sensuous, soft vocal lines. Describing his music, Benson says “I really like when people kick up their heels and go crazy.”
Dianne Reeves
is well known for her fluent improvisational style that mixes Jazz with R&B Elements, for which she has won four Grammy awards since her first release in 1977, “Welcome To My Love”, on Alto Records. Born into a musical family, her father being a trumpet player and her mother a singer, Reeves has to date released eighteen solo albums, and appeared on twenty four other albums as a guest, and is best known as a live performer rather than a studio singer, having appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
, and the Berlin Philharmonic, singing in her own smooth improvisational scat style. Dianne Reeves was featured prominently as the vocalist performing in the studio adjacent to that of Edward R. Murrow in the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck.
Bobby McFerrin
has released nineteen Albums, and has received ten Grammy awards, since his first self-titled release in 1982, and has the first a cappella song on Billboard Magazine’s ‘Hot 100’ chart, “Don't Worry, Be Happy
” (1988) to his credit. He has since 1994 held the position of creative chair at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the USA’s largest chamber orchestra- McFerrin moves easily between the worlds of Classical Music and Jazz
, working as a conductor and releasing recordings of classical music, although it is his incredible four-octave
vocal range that earns him sold out unaccompanied and fully improvised world tours; McFerrin has the remarkable ability to turn concerts into large-scale ‘workshops’, where the audience plays an integral role.
Diane Schuur
is renowned for her re-workings of popular music into jazz-style, as with her 2005 release, “Schuur Fire”, where, for instance, Duran Duran
’s “Ordinary World” is reworked into Latin Jazz
. Blinded shortly after birth by a hospital complication, Schuur’s 3½ octave
range has earned her a place playing with the Count Basie Orchestra
, filling the shoes Billie Holiday
left behind, for which she won a Grammy Award
. Given her blindness, Schuur is forced to put all of her energy into her singing in order to communicate with her audience- which she, with her bluesy vibrato, manages to do better than most sighted singers.
Betty Carter
, known for her total commitment to the art of jazz singing, a singer whom Carmen McRae called "the only real jazz singer," went outside the boundaries of accepted vocal jazz. Her improvisational skills allowed her the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct melodies in interesting and challenging ways. She was an innovator, a singer who constantly took risks.
Take 6
, a vocal harmony group composed of a Bass, a Baritone
and four Tenor
s , founded by Claude McKnight released their first, self-titled, album straight at the top, on Warner Brothers Music, combining gospel
, R&B, soul
and jazz
arrangements, and setting the standard for contemporary male harmony groups. The group focuses on more ‘percussive’ elements in their music, going as far as to create ‘vocally produced instrumental jazz’ on a whim.
New York Voices
formed through an Ithaca
college alumni group and released their first, self-titled album on GRP Records
in 1989, and won a Grammy award for their 1996 collaboration with the Count Basie Orchestra
, “Count Basie Orchestra with New York Voices Live at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild”. Initially a sestet, the New York Voices have, through numerous member-changes become a quartet, who, aside from performing, give jazz clinics at schools and universities. The New York Voices have to date released six albums, all blends of classical, pop
, R&B, Brazil
ian and American Jazz.
charts for voices. This idea was first tried by Hal Malcom at Mt. Hood Community College in 1967 with a group called Genesis. The group continues to host the oldest vocal jazz festival in the United States, the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival. Hal Malcom directed the group for 23 years until passing it to his former student, Dave Barduhn, who continues to direct the group to this day.
13 years later, in 1980, Lonnie Cline formed a sister group at Clackamas Community College
eventually taking the name Mainstream, which it performs under today. Mainstream was a new type of ensemble, one that moved away from performing the big band arrangements and other jazz standards and began to learn and perform a wide variety of music, including jazz, rock, pop, funk, and fusion. The idea was looked down upon at first but eventually was adopted by many and is now popular in high schools across the country.
A vocal jazz ensemble usually consists of the choir, normally made up of 8-16 singers, and a Rhythm section
most often consisting of a pianist, a bassist, a guitarist, and a drummer. Singers either each hold a microphone or sing with area microphones. Vocal Jazz ensembles also often sing a cappella
.
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...
singing can be defined by the instrumental approach to the voice, where the singer can match the instruments in their stylistic approach to the lyrics, improvised or otherwise, or through scat singing
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
; that is, the use of nonsensical meaningless non-morphemic syllables to imitate the sound of instruments.
The origins of jazz singing to 1950
The ‘roots’ of jazz music were very much vocal, with ‘field hollerField holler
Field Hollers as well as work songs were African American styles of music from before the American Civil War, this style of music is closely related to spirituals in the sense that it expressed religious feelings and included subtle hints about ways of escaping slavery, among other things...
s’ and ceremonial chants, but whilst the blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
maintained a strong vocal tradition, with singers such as Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues....
and Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
heavily influencing the progress of American popular music in general, early jazz bands only featured vocalists periodically, albeit those with a more ‘bluesy’ tone of voice; one of the first ‘Jazz’ recordings, the 1917 Original Dixieland Jass Band
Original Dixieland Jass Band
The Original Dixieland Jass Band were a New Orleans, Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz single ever issued. The group composed and made the first recordings of many jazz standards, the most famous being Tiger Rag...
recordings featured one Sarah Martin as vocalist.
It was Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
who established singing as a distinct art form in jazz, realising that a singer could improvise in the same manner as instrumentalist, and establishing scat singing
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
as a central pillar of the jazz vocal art.
A frequently repeated legend alleges that Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
invented scat singing when he dropped the lyric sheet whilst singing on his 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies
Heebie Jeebies (composition)
"Heebie Jeebies" is a composition written by Boyd Atkins which achieved fame when it was recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1926. The recording on Okeh Records by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five includes a famous chorus in which Louis does scat singing....
". This story is false and Armstrong himself made no such claim. Jazz musicians Don Redman
Don Redman
Donald Matthew Redman was an American jazz musician, arranger, bandleader and composer.Redman was announced as a member of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame on May 6, 2009....
, Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards , also known as "Ukelele Ike", was an American singer and voice actor who enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standards and novelty tunes. He had a number-one hit with "Singin' in the Rain" in 1929...
, and Red Nichols
Red Nichols
Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader.Over his long career, Nichols recorded in a wide variety of musical styles, and critic Steve Leggett describes him as "an expert cornet player, a solid improviser, and apparently a workaholic, since he is...
all recorded examples of scat earlier than Armstrong. However, the record Heebie Jeebies and subsequent Armstrong recordings introduced scat singing to a wider audience and did much to popularize the style. Armstrong was an innovative singer who whilst experimenting with all kinds of sound, improvised with his voice as he did on his instrument. In one famous example, Armstrong scatted a passage on I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas – he sings "I've done forgot the words!" in the middle of recording before taking off in scat.
The entrance of Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
into the world of jazz singing in the early 1930s was a revelation. She approached the voice from a radical angle, explaining, in her own words,
- I don't feel like I'm singing, I feel like I'm playing the horn.
Compared to other great jazz singers, Holiday had a rather limited vocal range of just over an octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
. Where Holiday's genius lay, however, was to compensate for this shortcoming, with impeccable timing, nuanced phrasing, and emotional immediacy, qualities admired by a young Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
.
With the end of prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, a more 'danceable' form of jazz music arose, giving birth to the 'Swing Era
Swing (genre)
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...
', and with it big bands such as those led by Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, Jimmie Lunceford
Jimmie Lunceford
James Melvin "Jimmie" Lunceford was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era.-Biography:...
, Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
, Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw
Arthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....
and Chick Webb
Chick Webb
William Henry Webb, usually known as Chick Webb was an American jazz and swing music drummer as well as a band leader.-Biography:...
. Many of the great post war jazz singers sang with these bands in the infancy of their careers.
With the end of the 'Swing Era', the great touring Big bands of the past decade were no longer a viable option, and the demise of the typical big band singer was further complicated by the advent of be-bop as a creative force in jazz.
The rise of Be-bop saw a new style of jazz singer, one who could match instrumentalists for sheer technical skill, and this was evident in Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
’s rise to fame, the art of jazz singing was elevated to even higher rankings, allowing the notion of 'free voice' to exist, giving instrumental qualities to the voice through timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
s, registers and tessitura
Tessitura
In music, the term tessitura generally describes the most musically acceptable and comfortable range for a given singer or, less frequently, musical instrument; the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding texture or timbre...
.
1950s and 1960s
The birth of Rock & Roll as a distinct genre, and a new generation of teenagers having different tastes than their previous adult audience caused a significant decline in Jazz’s popularity.Around the same time, the ‘Long Playing’ Record was invented, ‘freeing’ musicians from the time constraints of the ‘Extended Player’ record. The LP
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
, being more expensive, was aimed at the adult audience who could afford to spend the extra money on records.
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
and Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
released some of the most popular early LP's recorded in a jazz vein.
Though she was constrained by her material, Ella Fitzgerald's 'Songbook' series introduced a great many people to jazz singing.
Many of the singers that had worked with the great big bands of the swing era were now solo artists, in the prime of their careers and many had achieved fame internationally.
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross were a vocalese trio formed by jazz vocalists Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross.-History:The group formed in 1957 and recorded their first album Sing a Song of Basie for Paramount Records...
, Billy Eckstine
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
, Joe Williams
Joe Williams (jazz singer)
Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...
, Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...
, Chris Connor
Chris Connor
Chris Connor was an American jazz singer.-Biography:She was born as Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, Missouri to Clyde and Mabel Loutsenhizer. She studied and became proficient on the clarinet, having studied for 8 years throughout junior high and high school...
, June Christy
June Christy
June Christy , born Shirley Luster, was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, Dakota Staton
Dakota Staton
Dakota Staton , also known by the Muslim name Aliyah Rabia for a period, was an American jazz vocalist who found international acclaim with the 1957 No...
, and Carmen McRae
Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...
all greatly advanced vocal jazz at this period.
1970 to future
Vocal Jazz, from 1970 onward, was, and is, led by several big names, including Mark MurphyMark Murphy
Mark Murphy may refer to:*Mark Murphy , American ice hockey player who plays for the DEG Metro Stars *Mark Murphy , retired American football player, now President and CEO of the Green Bay Packers...
, Maxine Sullivan
Maxine Sullivan
Maxine Sullivan , born Marietta Williams, was an American blues and jazz singer.She was born in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and married jazz musician John Kirby in 1938 , and stride pianist Cliff Jackson in 1956...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau
Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
, Carmen McRae
Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...
, Flora Purim
Flora Purim
Flora Purim is a Brazilian jazz singer known primarily for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became prominent for her part in Chick Corea's landmark album Return to Forever...
, George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
, Carol Sloane
Carol Sloane
Carol Sloane is an American jazz singer born in Providence, Rhode Island, who has been singing professionally since she was 14, although for a time in the 1970s she worked as a legal secretary in Raleigh, North Carolina. She currently lives in Stoneham, Massachusetts.One of her early efforts was...
, Urszula Dudziak
Urszula Dudziak
Urszula Bogumiła Dudziak-Urbaniak is a leading Polish jazz vocalist. She has worked with such artists as Krzysztof Komeda, Michał Urbaniak , Gil Evans, Archie Shepp, and Lester Bowie...
, Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...
, among many others. Some of the biggest influences on the Vocal Jazz style, all of whom approach the jazz voice in different ways, are Flora Purim
Flora Purim
Flora Purim is a Brazilian jazz singer known primarily for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became prominent for her part in Chick Corea's landmark album Return to Forever...
, George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
, The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer is an American vocal music group. There have been two manifestations of the group, with Tim Hauser being the only person to be part of both...
, Take 6
Take 6
Take 6 is an American a cappella gospel music sextet formed in 1980 on the campus of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. The group sings in a contemporary style, integrating R&B and jazz influences into their devotional songs and has 10 Grammy wins, 10 Dove Awards, one Soul Train Award and two...
, The Real Group
The Real Group
The Real Group is a professional a cappella group from Sweden, consisting of five members: Emma Nilsdotter, Katarina Henryson, Anders Edenroth, Morten Vinther Sørensen, and Anders Jalkéus....
, New York Voices
New York Voices
New York Voices is an American vocal music group. The group was formed in 1987 from an Ithaca College alumni group. The original group consisted of Darmon Meader, Peter Eldridge, Kim Nazarian, Caprice Fox and Sara Krieger. They released their first, self-titled album on GRP Records in 1989...
, Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves is an American jazz singer. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado.-Early life:Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan to a very musical family. Her father, who died when she was two years old, was also a singer. Her mother, Vada Swanson, played trumpet. A cousin, George Duke, is a...
, Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau
Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
, Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...
, Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur is an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Deedles", she has won two Grammy Awards, headlined many of the world's most prestigious music venues, including Carnegie Hall and The White House and has toured the world performing with such greats as Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, B. B...
and Helen Merryll. What follows are chronological descriptions of each group / artist’s contribution to the development of Vocal Jazz, and a short record of their achievements.
Other popular contemporary jazz vocalist would include Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
, Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...
, Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. Described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating country, blues and folk music into her...
, Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling is an American jazz vocalist, composer, lyricist and vocalese performer. Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling first became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church...
, Harry Connick, Jr.
Harry Connick, Jr.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. is an American singer, big-band leader/conductor, pianist, actor, and composer. He has sold over 25 million albums worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with...
, Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse
Amy Jade Winehouse was an English singer-songwriter known for her powerful deep contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize...
, Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu
Erica Abi Wright , better known by her stage name Erykah Badu , is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, cerebral musical...
, Madeleine Peyroux
Madeleine Peyroux
Madeleine Peyroux is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Peyroux is noted for her vocal style, which has been compared to that of Billie Holiday....
, and Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.- Early...
.
Vocal jazz has been mainly a mainstream, as opposed to avant-garde, phenomenon. However, some performers, such as Jeanne Lee
Jeanne Lee
Jeanne Lee was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers which included Gunter Hampel, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, and many...
and Patty Waters
Patty Waters
Patty Waters is a jazz vocalist, best known for her free jazz recordings in the 1960s for the ESP-Disk label. Although she has rarely recorded since then, she is more and more recognized as a vocal innovator whose influence extends beyond jazz....
, have performed within an avant garde vein.
Contemporary jazz vocalists
Brazilian-born Flora PurimFlora Purim
Flora Purim is a Brazilian jazz singer known primarily for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became prominent for her part in Chick Corea's landmark album Return to Forever...
released her first solo album in 1973, entitled Butterfly Dreams
Butterfly Dreams
- Personnel :* Flora Purim - vocals* Joe Henderson - flute, tenor saxophone* George Duke - electric and acoustic piano, clavinet, synthesizer* David Amaro - electric and acoustic guitar* Ernie Hood - zither* Stanley Clarke - electric and acoustic bass...
, on LP
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
through Milestone Records
Milestone Records
Milestone Records is a United States based jazz record label, founded in 1966 by Orrin Keepnews and Dick Katz in New York City. The company was incorporated into Fantasy Records in 1972, since then it has been used for reissues as well as for new recordings....
, and is most renowned for her remarkable vocal range. Her first exposure to mainstream audiences was through two recording collaborations with Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
, an important pianist and composer, entitled “Light as a feather” and “Return to Forever”, in 1972 and 1973, respectively, which stand to date as significant developments in the field of fusion jazz. Purim’s approach to Vocal Jazz included Latin Jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
, using a ‘percussive’ element in her work.
Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau
Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
made his first impressions on the world through the 1975 release of his “We Got By” album on Reprise Records
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
, which promptly won him a German Grammy award, as did his following 1979 release “Glow”. Jarreau’s music features elements of Pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, 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...
and R&B, and he is also the only person to hold Grammy awards for all three styles of music. Jarreau is renowned for being able to perfectly imitate the sound of Guitars, Electric Basses, Upright Basses and Percussion instruments, and tends to improvise performances using that talent rather than ‘sing songs’, as other singers do. Jarreau’s experience with performance and singing has its roots in his early childhood, where he and his brothers performed together in a close harmony group, later singing in the church choir.
Jazz Guitarist George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
shocked his audience in 1976 by releasing an album, “This Masquerade”, on Warner Brothers Music, on which he sang- to winning effect. Having released his first album twelve years prior, a collaboration with Jack McDuff
Jack McDuff
"Brother" Jack McDuff was an American jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who was most prominent during the hard bop and soul jazz era of the 1960s, often performing with an organ trio.-Career:...
, entitled “The New Boss Guitar”, describable as “Soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
-Tinged Bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
” , released through Riverside Records
Riverside Records
Riverside Records was a United States record label specializing in jazz. Founded by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer under his firm Bill Grauer Productions, Inc. in 1953, the label was a major presence in the jazz record industry for a decade...
. Benson’s guitar overshadowed his skill as a vocalist, and he appeared for many years as a sideman for some great names in Jazz, including 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,...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
and Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, before going into the Studio with Tony LiPuma as producer- making an album that proceeded to win him a Grammy award for making the “Record Of The Year”, probably attributable to the close relationship between his singing style and his guitar playing- melodic and chromatically fluent, with a touch of blues influence, the emphasis on sensuous, soft vocal lines. Describing his music, Benson says “I really like when people kick up their heels and go crazy.”
Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves is an American jazz singer. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado.-Early life:Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan to a very musical family. Her father, who died when she was two years old, was also a singer. Her mother, Vada Swanson, played trumpet. A cousin, George Duke, is a...
is well known for her fluent improvisational style that mixes Jazz with R&B Elements, for which she has won four Grammy awards since her first release in 1977, “Welcome To My Love”, on Alto Records. Born into a musical family, her father being a trumpet player and her mother a singer, Reeves has to date released eighteen solo albums, and appeared on twenty four other albums as a guest, and is best known as a live performer rather than a studio singer, having appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
, and the Berlin Philharmonic, singing in her own smooth improvisational scat style. Dianne Reeves was featured prominently as the vocalist performing in the studio adjacent to that of Edward R. Murrow in the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck.
Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...
has released nineteen Albums, and has received ten Grammy awards, since his first self-titled release in 1982, and has the first a cappella song on Billboard Magazine’s ‘Hot 100’ chart, “Don't Worry, Be Happy
Don't Worry, Be Happy
"Don't Worry, Be Happy" is a song by musician Bobby McFerrin. Released in September 1988, it became the first a cappella song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a position it held for two weeks. On the UK Singles Chart, the song reached number 2 during its fifth week on the chart...
” (1988) to his credit. He has since 1994 held the position of creative chair at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the USA’s largest chamber orchestra- McFerrin moves easily between the worlds of Classical Music and 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...
, working as a conductor and releasing recordings of classical music, although it is his incredible four-octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
vocal range that earns him sold out unaccompanied and fully improvised world tours; McFerrin has the remarkable ability to turn concerts into large-scale ‘workshops’, where the audience plays an integral role.
Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur is an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Deedles", she has won two Grammy Awards, headlined many of the world's most prestigious music venues, including Carnegie Hall and The White House and has toured the world performing with such greats as Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, B. B...
is renowned for her re-workings of popular music into jazz-style, as with her 2005 release, “Schuur Fire”, where, for instance, Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
’s “Ordinary World” is reworked into Latin Jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
. Blinded shortly after birth by a hospital complication, Schuur’s 3½ octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
range has earned her a place playing with the Count Basie Orchestra
Count Basie Orchestra
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie. The band survived the late '40s decline in big band popularity and went on to produce notable collaborations with singers such as Frank Sinatra and Ella...
, filling the shoes Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
left behind, for which she won a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
. Given her blindness, Schuur is forced to put all of her energy into her singing in order to communicate with her audience- which she, with her bluesy vibrato, manages to do better than most sighted singers.
Betty Carter
Betty Carter
Betty Carter was an American jazz singer renowned for her improvisational technique and idiosyncratic vocal style...
, known for her total commitment to the art of jazz singing, a singer whom Carmen McRae called "the only real jazz singer," went outside the boundaries of accepted vocal jazz. Her improvisational skills allowed her the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct melodies in interesting and challenging ways. She was an innovator, a singer who constantly took risks.
Take 6
Take 6
Take 6 is an American a cappella gospel music sextet formed in 1980 on the campus of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. The group sings in a contemporary style, integrating R&B and jazz influences into their devotional songs and has 10 Grammy wins, 10 Dove Awards, one Soul Train Award and two...
, a vocal harmony group composed of a Bass, a Baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
and four Tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
s , founded by Claude McKnight released their first, self-titled, album straight at the top, on Warner Brothers Music, combining gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
, R&B, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and 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...
arrangements, and setting the standard for contemporary male harmony groups. The group focuses on more ‘percussive’ elements in their music, going as far as to create ‘vocally produced instrumental jazz’ on a whim.
New York Voices
New York Voices
New York Voices is an American vocal music group. The group was formed in 1987 from an Ithaca College alumni group. The original group consisted of Darmon Meader, Peter Eldridge, Kim Nazarian, Caprice Fox and Sara Krieger. They released their first, self-titled album on GRP Records in 1989...
formed through an Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...
college alumni group and released their first, self-titled album on GRP Records
GRP Records
GRP Records is an American jazz record company, owned by Universal Music Group and operates through its Verve Music Group. The company's name has had different meanings. In its early days, it stood for "Grusin/Rosen Productions," after the founders...
in 1989, and won a Grammy award for their 1996 collaboration with the Count Basie Orchestra
Count Basie Orchestra
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie. The band survived the late '40s decline in big band popularity and went on to produce notable collaborations with singers such as Frank Sinatra and Ella...
, “Count Basie Orchestra with New York Voices Live at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild”. Initially a sestet, the New York Voices have, through numerous member-changes become a quartet, who, aside from performing, give jazz clinics at schools and universities. The New York Voices have to date released six albums, all blends of classical, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, R&B, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian and American Jazz.
Vocal Jazz ensembles
Throughout most of jazz history, most vocal music was performed by either a soloist or a very small group of singers, usually one to a part. In the mid 1960s, a few brave directors decided to try transcribing Big bandBig band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
charts for voices. This idea was first tried by Hal Malcom at Mt. Hood Community College in 1967 with a group called Genesis. The group continues to host the oldest vocal jazz festival in the United States, the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival. Hal Malcom directed the group for 23 years until passing it to his former student, Dave Barduhn, who continues to direct the group to this day.
13 years later, in 1980, Lonnie Cline formed a sister group at Clackamas Community College
Clackamas Community College
Clackamas Community College is a community college located in Oregon City, Oregon, United States. It is located at the junction of Oregon Route 213 and Molalla Avenue, nearly at the southern edge of the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area...
eventually taking the name Mainstream, which it performs under today. Mainstream was a new type of ensemble, one that moved away from performing the big band arrangements and other jazz standards and began to learn and perform a wide variety of music, including jazz, rock, pop, funk, and fusion. The idea was looked down upon at first but eventually was adopted by many and is now popular in high schools across the country.
A vocal jazz ensemble usually consists of the choir, normally made up of 8-16 singers, and a Rhythm section
Rhythm section
A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...
most often consisting of a pianist, a bassist, a guitarist, and a drummer. Singers either each hold a microphone or sing with area microphones. Vocal Jazz ensembles also often sing a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
.
Further reading
- Johnson, J. Wilfred. Ella Fitzgerald : An Annotated Discography : Including a Complete Discography of Chick Webb McFarland, 2001. ISBN 0-7864-0906-1
- Gourse, Leslie. The Ella Fitzgerald Companion London: Omnibus Press, 1998. ISBN 0-7119-6916-7
- Nicholson, Stuart. Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz London: Indigo, 1996. ISBN 0-575-40032-3
- Friedwald, Will. Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art. Da Capo Press, 1999.
- Granata, Charles. Sessions with Sinatra: Frank Sinatra and the Art of Recording. Chicago Review Press, 1999.
- Hamill, Pete. Why Sinatra Matters. Back Bay Books, 2003.
- Julia Blackburn, With Billie. ISBN 0-375-40610-7
- Donald Clarke, Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon. ISBN 0-306-81136-7
- Schuller, Gunther, Early jazz: its roots and musical development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
- Ward, Geoffrey C Jazz: A History of America's music New York: Knopf, 2000.
- Bauer, William R. Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002)
External links
- Mathew Bahl, "Vocal Jazz: 1951-1968"
- Mathew Bahl, "Vocal Jazz: 1969-2001"
- Mathew Bahl, "Vocal Jazz: 1917-1950"
- "The State of Jazz Vocals Today" by Ted Gioia, Jazz.com.
- 100 Greatest Jazz Vocalists
- 100 Greatest Jazz Vocalist Albums
- Bobby McFerrin
- Flora Purim
- Dianne Reeves
- Diane Schuur
- New York Voices
- Al Jarreau
- George Benson
- Take 6
- Genesis
- Sylvia Brooks
- http://www.gwensampe.com
- http://www.bettycarter.org