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Vocal jazz
Vocal jazz or jazz singing is an 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 non-
morphemic syllables to imitate the sound of instruments.

Contents
The origins of jazz singing to 1950
1950s and 1960s
1970 to future
Vocal jazz ensembles
References
Further reading
External links

The origins of jazz singing to 1950
The roots of jazz music were very much vocal, with field hollers and ceremonial chants, but while 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 Sara 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 an instrumentalist, and along with American vocalist Adelaide Hall they established 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 while
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" in 1926 by Armstrong and "Creole Love Call" in 1927 by Duke Ellington and
Adelaide Hall subsequently introduced scat singing to a wider audience and did much to popularize the style.
Armstrong was an innovative singer who while 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.

Billie Holiday entered into the world of jazz singing in the early 1930s, explaining: I don't feel like I'm singing, I feel
like I'm playing the horn. Holiday had a comparatively limited vocal range of just over an octave, and compensated for
this shortcoming with 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 notable post war jazz singers sang with these bands in the
infancy of their careers.

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With the end of the Swing era, the 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 new jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald rise to fame, furthering the notion of "free voice" -
giving instrumental qualities to the voice through timbres, registers and tessitura.

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 the popularity of jazz.

Around the same time, the long-playing record (LP) was invented, freeing musicians from the time constraints of the
extended play record (EP). 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 LPs recorded in a jazz vein.
Though constrained by the material, Ella Fitzgerald's Songbook series introduced a great many people to jazz singing.

Eddie Jefferson is credited as an innovator of vocalese, a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental
composition or solo.

Many of the singers who had worked with the big bands of the swing era were now solo artists, in the prime of their
careers and many had achieved fame internationally.

Sarah Vaughan, Vic Damone, Mel Tormé, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, Tony Bennett, Billy Eckstine, Dean Martin, Joe
Williams, Dinah Washington, Anita O'Day, Julie London, Chris Connor, June Christy, Eartha Kitt, Nina Simone, and
Carmen McRae all advanced vocal jazz during this period.

1970 to future
Vocal jazz, since 1970, has been led by notable artists including Mark Murphy, Maxine Sullivan, Sarah Vaughan, Al
Jarreau, Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, Flora Purim, George Benson, Carol Sloane, Urszula Dudziak, Bobby McFerrin,
among others.

Other popular contemporary jazz vocalist include Diana Krall, Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Kurt Elling, Harry
Connick, Jr., young Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Jamie Cullum and Sylvia Brooks.

Vocal jazz has been mainly a mainstream, as opposed to avant­garde, phenomenon. However, some performers, such
as Jeanne Lee and Patty Waters, have performed within an avant garde vein.

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 directors decided to try transcribing Big band 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 hosted
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 directed this group until his retirement in the
Spring of 2012.

11 years later, in 1978, Lonnie Cline brought the jazz ensemble format to a small Idaho town and high school named
Mountain Home (Which won the Mt. Hood and Reno Jazz Festivals in 78, 79, and 80) before forming a sister group to
Hal's at Clackamas Community College. This group eventually took 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

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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 United States.

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.

References

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.
Williams, Iain Cameron. "Underneath A Harlem Moon ... the Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall". Continuum,
2003. ISBN 0826458939.
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" (http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=18803)
Mathew Bahl, "Vocal Jazz: 1969-2001" (http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=18726)
Mathew Bahl, "Vocal Jazz: 1917-1950" (http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=18804)

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