Vocalese
Encyclopedia
Vocalese is a style or genre of 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...

 singing
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

 wherein 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 written for melodies
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

 that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 or improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

. Whereas 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...

 uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solo
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

s, vocalese uses 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...

, either improvised or set to pre-existing instrumental solos. The word "vocalese" is a play on the musical term "vocalise
Vocalise
A vocalise is a vocal exercise without words, which is sung on one or more vowel sounds.-In classical music:Vocalise dates back to the mid-18th century...

" and the suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...

 "-ese", meant to indicate a sort of language.

The inventor and most prolific practitioner of vocalese was Eddie Jefferson
Eddie Jefferson
Eddie Jefferson was a celebrated jazz vocalist and lyricist. He is credited as an innovator of vocalese, a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental composition or solo. Perhaps his best-known song is "Moody's Mood for Love", though it was first recorded by King Pleasure, who cited...

, whose rendition of Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul" became a hit on its own. Pioneers of vocalese include 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....

 and Babs Gonzales
Babs Gonzales
Babs Gonzales , born Lee Brown, was an American jazz vocalist of the bebop era most notable for penning the song "Oop-Pop-A-Da", which was originally recorded and performed by his own band and was later made famous by Dizzy Gillespie . Babs was also once the chauffeur for Errol Flynn...

, Jefferson's former dance partner.

The best-known practitioners are probably Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, which was made up of Jon Hendricks
Jon Hendricks
Jon Hendricks is an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists...

, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross
Annie Ross
Annie Ross is an English jazz singer, and actress, best known as a member of the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.-Early years:...

. Ross's 1952 lyrics for the song "Twisted", a blues improvisation by saxophonist
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

 Wardell Gray
Wardell Gray
Wardell Gray was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who straddled the swing and bebop periods.Today often overlooked, Gray's playing displays a unique style, an unmatched tone and a strong presence.-Early years:...

, are considered a classic of the genre. Other performers known for vocalese include Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough is an American bebop and cool jazz pianist, composer and vocalese singer.He worked with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, and his adventurous style was an influence on Mose Allison, among other singers...

, Giacomo Gates
Giacomo Gates
Giacomo Gates is an American jazz vocalist. He works to interpret old jazz standards, practices vocalese singing, and is active in jazz education...

http://www.giacomogates.com/, 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...

, 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...

, Mark Murphy
Mark Murphy (singer)
Mark Murphy is an American jazz singer based in New York. He is most noted for his definitive and unique vocalese and vocal improvisations with both melody and lyrics...

, Roger Miller
Roger Miller
Roger Dean Miller was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known for his honky tonk-influenced novelty songs...

, 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...

, and 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...

, whose Grammy-winning version of Weather Report
Weather Report
Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter...

's "Birdland" featured lyrics by Jon Hendricks.

Some performers, notably Slim Gaillard
Slim Gaillard
Bulee "Slim" Gaillard was an American jazz singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist, noted for his vocalese singing and word play in a language he called "Vout"...

, Harry Gibson
Harry Gibson
Harry "The Hipster" Gibson was a jazz pianist, singer and songwriter.Gibson played New York style Stride piano and boogie woogie while singing in a wild, unrestrained style. His music career began in the late 1920s, when as the young Harry Raab, his birth name, he played stride piano in Dixieland...

, Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

, and Leo Watson
Leo Watson
Leo Watson was an American jazz vocalese singer, drummer, trombonist and tiple player born in Kansas City, Missouri, perhaps best known as a band member of The Spirits of Rhythm which included guitarist Teddy Bunn...

, combine vocalese improvisations with scat singing.

Most vocalese lyrics are entirely syllabic, as opposed to melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...

tic. This may lead to the use of many words sung quickly in a given phrase
Phrase (music)
In music and music theory, phrase and phrasing are concepts and practices related to grouping consecutive melodic notes, both in their composition and performance...

, especially in the case of 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...

.

Outside of jazz

Vocalese has also been used in genres of music apart from jazz. Examples include Annie Haslam
Annie Haslam
Annie Haslam is an English progressive rock vocalist and songwriter.Originally a fashion student, she began studying under opera singer Sybil Knight in 1970 and developed her five-octave vocal range...

's singing in "Mother Russia
Mother Russia (Renaissance song)
Mother Russia is the closing song on Renaissance's 1974 album Turn of the Cards. It also appears on the 1976 live album Live at Carnegie Hall, the compilation Tales of 1001 Nights, Vol...

", "Prologue" and "Rajah Khan" (also from Prologue
Prologue (Renaissance album)
Prologue was a 1972 album by progressive rock band Renaissance.-Information about the album:In 1972, Renaissance's then-new management disbanded the lineup at the time , retaining only Haslam and Tout to build a new band around. The new members added at this point were Camp, Sullivan, and...

).

An example applied to classical music is Flanders and Swann's Ill Wind in which lyrics are set to the Rondo from Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4
Horn Concerto No. 4 (Mozart)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 495 was completed in 1786.- Structure :The work is in three movements:*I. Allegro moderato*II. Romance *III. Rondo 6/8...

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