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Vocal Jazz
Vocal jazz or jazz singing is a genre within jazz music where the voice is used as an instrument. Vocal jazz began in the early twentieth century. Jazz music has its roots in blues and ragtime and can also traced back to the Dixieland jazz, New Orleans jazz tradition. Jazz music is characterized by Syncopation, syncopated rhythms, improvisation, and unique tonality and pitch deviation. In vocal jazz, this includes vocal improvisations called scat singing where vocalists imitate the instrumentalist's tone and rhythm. History Jazz singing originates from African-American Enslaved people, enslaved people who sang field hollers and work songs. Work songs and field hollers provided a mode of expression for enslaved people to challenge the oppressive structures of White supremacy, white power. They allowed emotional expression, helped pass the time, and coordinated labor movements. The musical elements of these songs involved a Call and response (music), call-and-response structure and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heebie Jeebies (composition)
"Heebie Jeebies" is a composition written by Boyd Atkins which achieved fame when it was recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1926. Armstrong also performed "Heebie Jeebies" as a number at the Vendome Theatre. The recording on Okeh Records by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five includes a famous example of scat singing by Armstrong. After the success of the recording, an accompanying dance was choreographed and advertised by Okeh. A popular legend (apparently originating from a 1930s claim by Richard M. Jones) says that Armstrong dropped his lyric sheet while recording the song and for lack of words to sing, began to improvise his vocals and thereby created the technique of scat singing. This story, though popular, may be apocryphal. Although Armstrong did not invent scat singing, because it was already practiced by many musicians in New Orleans during the early twentieth century, Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Johnny St. Cyr confirm in their accounts that he did drop the sheet music during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals: '' Chet Baker Sings'' (1954) and '' It Could Happen to You'' (1958). Jazz historian Dave Gelly described the promise of Baker's early career as " James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one". His well-publicized drug habit also drove his notoriety and fame. Baker was in and out of jail frequently before enjoying a career resurgence in the late 1970s and 1980s. Biography Early years Baker was born December 23, 1929, in Yale, Oklahoma, and raised in a musical household. His father, Chesney Baker Sr., was a professional Western swing guitarist, and his mother, Vera Moser, was a pianist who worked in a perfume factory. His maternal grandmother was Norwegi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Merrill
Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic; July 21, 1929) is an American jazz vocalist. Her first album, the eponymous 1954 recording ''Helen Merrill (album), Helen Merrill'' (with Clifford Brown on EmArcy), was an immediate success and associated her with the first generation of bebop jazz musicians. After an active 1950s and 1960s, Merrill spent time recording and touring in Europe and Japan, falling into obscurity in the United States. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was recorded by EmArcy, JVC and Verve Records, Verve, and her performances in America revived her profile. Early life and career Jelena Ana Milcetic was born in New York City, New York to Croats, Croatian immigrant parents. She began singing in jazz clubs in the Bronx in 1944 when she was fourteen. She had three sisters and a brother who died before she was born. By the time she was sixteen, Merrill had taken up music full-time. In 1952, Merrill made her recording debut when she was asked to sing "A Cigarette for Comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Connor
Mary Jean Loutsenhizer, known professionally as Chris Connor (November 8, 1927 – August 29, 2009), was an American jazz singer. Biography Chris Connor was born Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, Missouri, to Clyde Loutsenhizer and Mabel Shirley. She became proficient on the clarinet, having studied for eight years during middle school and high school. She sang with the college band at the University of Missouri, playing at functions in Columbia, Missouri. In 1949, Connor recorded two songs with Claude Thornhill's band: "There's a Small Hotel" and "I Don't Know Why". With Jerry Wald's big band she recorded "You're the Cream in My Coffee", "Cherokee", " Pennies from Heaven", "Raisins and Almonds", and "Terremoto". Connor and Thornhill reunited in 1952 for a radio broadcast from the Statler Hotel in New York City for which she sang " Wish You Were Here", " Come Rain or Come Shine", "Sorta Kinda", and "Who Are We to Say". She made her final recordings for HighNote: ''Haunt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
June Christy
June Christy (born Shirley Luster; November 20, 1925 – June 21, 1990) 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''. After her death, she was hailed as "one of the finest and most neglected singers of her time." Biography Early life Shirley Luster was born in Springfield, Illinois, United States. She moved with her parents Steve and Marie (née Crain) Luster to Decatur, Illinois, when she was three years old. She began to sing with the Decatur-based Bill Oetzel Orchestra at thirteen. While attending Decatur High School she appeared with Oetzel and his society band, the Ben Bradley Band, and Bill Madden's Band. Her first work outside of Decatur was with the Dick Cisne Orchestra of nearby Champaign, IL, performing as far away as Texas and Louisiana. After high school she ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peggy Lee
Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, and actress whose career spanned seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee created a sophisticated persona, writing music for films, acting, and recording conceptual record albums combining poetry and music. Called the "Queen of American pop music", Lee recorded more than 1,100 mastering (audio), masters and co-wrote over 270 songs. Early life Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, United States, on May 26, 1920, the seventh of the eight children of Selma Emele (née Anderson) Egstrom and Marvin Olaf Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her family were Lutheranism, Lutherans. Her father was Swedish-American and her mother was Norwegian-American. After her mother died when Lee was four, her father married Minnie Sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cool Jazz
Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz music inspired by bebop and big band that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and a lighter tone than that used in the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-war jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that of contemporaneous jazz idioms. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill suggest, "the tonal sonorities of these conservative players could be compared to pastel colors, while the solos of izzyGillespie and his followers could be compared to fiery red colors." The term ''cool'' started being applied to this music around 1953, when Capitol Records released the album ''Classics in Jazz: Cool and Quiet''. Mark C. Gridley, writing in the ''All Music Guide to Jazz'', identifies four overlapping sub-categories of cool jazz: # "Soft variants of bebop," in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington (; born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, one of the most popular black female recording artists of the 1950s. Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues". She was also known as "Queen of the Jukeboxes". She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Early life Ruth Lee Jones was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Alice and Ollie Jones, and moved to Chicago as a child. She became deeply involved in gospel music and played piano for the choir in St. Luke's Baptist Church while still in elementary school. She sang gospel music in church and played piano, directing her church choir in her teens and was a member of the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers. When she joined the Sallie Martin group, she dropped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop music, pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating Phrase (music), phrasing and tempo. Holiday was known for her vocal delivery and Jazz improvisation, improvisational skills. After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem where she was heard by producer John Hammond (record producer), John Hammond, who liked her voice. Holiday signed a recording contract with Brunswick Records, Brunswick in 1935. Her collaboration with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia Records, Columbia and Decca Records, Decca. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (, March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Sassy" and "List of nicknames of jazz musicians, The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". Early life Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, a carpenter by trade who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the church choir, migrants from Virginia. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Vaughan's entire childhood. Jake was deeply religious. The family was active in New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Vaughan began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played piano for rehearsals and services. Sarah and her family were a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April25, 1917June15, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, Intonation (music), intonation, absolute pitch, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. After a tumultuous adolescence, Fitzgerald found stability in musical success with the Chick Webb Orchestra, performing across the country but most often associated with the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Her rendition of the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. After taking over the band when Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start her solo career. Her manager was Moe Gale, co-founder of the Savoy, until she turned the rest of her career over to Norman Granz, who founded Verve Records to produce new records by Fitzgerald. With Verve, she recorded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
