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Vocalese
Vocalese is a style of jazz singing in which words are added to an instrumental soloist's improvisation. Definition Vocalese uses recognizable lyrics that are sung to pre-existing instrumental solos, as opposed to scat singing, which uses nonsense words such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos. In the "first wave" of vocalese creation, that sometimes took the form of a tribute to the original instrumentalist. The word "vocalese" is a play on the musical term " vocalise"; the suffix "-ese" is meant to indicate a sort of language. The term was attributed to Jon Hendricks by the jazz critic Leonard Feather to describe the first Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross album, '' Sing a Song of Basie''. Most vocalese lyrics are entirely syllabic, as opposed to melismatic. That may lead to the use of many words sung quickly in a given phrase, especially in the case of bebop. Notable vocalese performers King Pleasure recorded several pioneering examples of vocalese beginning in 1949. Vocales ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jon Hendricks
John Carl Hendricks (September 16, 1921 – November 22, 2017), known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz", while ''Time'' dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive". Al Jarreau called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been". Early years Born in 1921 in Newark, Ohio, Hendricks and his 14 siblings moved many times, following their father's assignments as an AME pastor, before settling permanently in Toledo. The house was often full of visiting jazz musicians, for whom Jon's mother provided meals. Hendricks began his si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer was an American vocal group founded in 1969 in New York City, performing music genres like a cappella, Brazilian jazz, Swing music, swing, vocalese, rhythm and blues, Pop music, pop, and standards. They have won eleven Grammy Award, Grammy Awards. There have been several incarnations and formations of the Manhattan Transfer, with each edition having different styles. The first and original rendition was in the 1960s, consisting of a mostly a cappella-tinged style; it featured Tim Hauser, Erin Dickins, Marty Nelson, Pat Rosalia, and Gene Pistilli. The second version of the group, formed in 1972, incorporating a more vocal jazz approach, consisted of Hauser, Alan Paul, Janis Siegel, and Laurel Massé. The third, and most commercially perceived, formation of the group happened in 1979, because Massé had to leave the group after being badly injured in a car crash and was replaced by Cheryl Bentyne. This edition of the Manhattan Transfer performed electron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling (born November 2, 1967) is an American jazz singer and songwriter. Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church. He sang in choirs and played musical instruments. He encountered jazz while a student at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. After college, he enrolled in the University of Chicago Divinity School, but he left one credit short of a degree to pursue a career as a jazz vocalist. Elling began to perform around Chicago, scat singing and improvising his lyrics. He recorded a demo in the early 1990s and was signed by Blue Note. He has been nominated for ten Grammy Awards, winning Best Vocal Jazz Album for '' Dedicated to You'' (2009) and '' Secrets Are the Best Stories ''(2021). Elling often leads the ''Down Beat'' magazine Critics' Poll. He had a longtime collaboration with pianist Laurence Hobgood, leading a quartet that toured throughout the world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annie Ross
Annie Ross (born Annabelle Allan Short; 25 July 193021 July 2020) was a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the influential jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. She helped pioneer the vocalese style of jazz singing, with a style described by critic Dave Gelly as "a kind of dreamy watchfulness that is a definition of 1950s hip." In 2010, she was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Kenneth Tynan, who wrote liner notes for Ross, called her "a fallen angel homoves us and then brushes off our sympathy with a shrug of her lips." Early life Ross was born in Surrey, England, the daughter of Scottish vaudevillians John "Jack" Short and Mary Dalziel Short (née Allan). Her brother was Scottish entertainer and theatre producer and director Jimmy Logan. She first appeared on stage at age three. At the age of four, she travelled to New York by ship with her family; she later recalled that they "got the cheapest ticket, which was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lambert, Hendricks And Ross
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross were an American vocalese trio formed by jazz vocalists Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross. From 1962 to 1964, Ross was replaced by vocalist Yolande Bavan. History The group formed in 1957 and recorded their first album ''Sing a Song of Basie'' (1958) for ABC-Paramount Records. The album featured versions of Count Basie standards and was successful enough that the Count Basie Orchestra collaborated with them on ''Sing Along With Basie'' (1959). ''Sing a Song of Basie'' was awarded a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. Beginning in 1959, the trio recorded three LPs with Columbia Records. They recorded a version of Ross's 1952 song " Twisted", featuring her lyrics set to a Wardell Gray melody. Their ''High Flying'' album won a Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Vocal Group in 1962. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross were voted Best Vocal Group in the ''DownBeat'' Readers Poll from 1959 to 1963. Before she married Jackie Paris in 1961, Canadian jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Pleasure
King Pleasure (born Clarence Beeks; March 24, 1922 – March 21, 1982) was an American jazz vocalist and an early master of vocalese, where a singer sings words to a well-known instrumental solo. Biography Born as Clarence Beeks in Oakdale, Tennessee, he moved to New York City in the mid-1940s working as a bartender and became a fan of bebop music. King Pleasure first gained attention by singing the Eddie Jefferson vocalese classic " Moody's Mood For Love", based on a 1949 James Moody saxophone solo to "I'm In The Mood For Love". Pleasure's 1952 recording, his first after signing a contract with the Prestige label, is considered a jazz classic; the female vocalist featured is Blossom Dearie. He and Betty Carter also recorded a famous vocalese version of "Red Top", a jazz classic penned by Kansas Citian Ben Kynard and recorded by Gene Ammons and others. Other notable recordings include a presciently elegiac version of " Parker's Mood", the year before Charlie Parker died in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lambert, Hendricks, And Ross
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross were an American vocalese trio formed by jazz vocalists Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross. From 1962 to 1964, Ross was replaced by vocalist Yolande Bavan. History The group formed in 1957 and recorded their first album ''Sing a Song of Basie'' (1958) for ABC-Paramount Records. The album featured versions of Count Basie standards and was successful enough that the Count Basie Orchestra collaborated with them on ''Sing Along With Basie'' (1959). ''Sing a Song of Basie'' was awarded a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. Beginning in 1959, the trio recorded three LPs with Columbia Records. They recorded a version of Ross's 1952 song " Twisted", featuring her lyrics set to a Wardell Gray melody. Their ''High Flying'' album won a Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Vocal Group in 1962. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross were voted Best Vocal Group in the ''DownBeat'' Readers Poll from 1959 to 1963. Before she married Jackie Paris in 1961, Canadian jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dave Lambert (American Jazz Vocalist)
David Alden Lambert (June 19, 1917 – October 3, 1966) was an American jazz lyricist, singer, and an originator of vocalese. He was best known as a member of the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Lambert spent a lifetime experimenting with the human voice, and expanding the possibilities of its use within jazz. Career Lambert's band debut was with Johnny Long's Orchestra in the early 1940s. Along with early partner Buddy Stewart, Lambert successfully brought singing into modern jazz (concurrently with Ella Fitzgerald). In the late 1950s he teamed with wordsmith and vocalese pioneer Jon Hendricks. The two were later joined by Annie Ross, and the lineup was a hit. After Ross left the group in 1962, Lambert and Hendricks went on without her by using various replacements, but the partnership ended in 1964. He then formed a quintet called "Lambert & Co." which included the multiple voices of Mary Vonnie, Leslie Dorsey, David Lucas, and Sarah Boatner. The group auditioned for RCA in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eddie Jefferson
Eddie Jefferson (August 3, 1918 – May 9, 1979) was an American 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. Jefferson himself claims that his main influence was Leo Watson. Perhaps Jefferson's best-known song is " Moody's Mood for Love" which was recorded in 1952 by King Pleasure and catapulted the contrafact into wide popularity (King Pleasure even cites Jefferson as a personal influence). Jefferson's recordings of Charlie Parker's " Parker's Mood" and Horace Silver's "Filthy McNasty" were also hits. Biography Jefferson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. One of his most notable recordings, "So What", combined the lyrics of artist Christopher Acemandese Hall with the music of Miles Davis to highlight his skills, and enabled him to turn a phrase, into his style he calls jazz vocalese. Jefferson's last recorded performance was at the Joe Segal's Jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Miller
Roger Dean Miller Sr. (January 2, 1936 – October 25, 1992) was an American singer-songwriter, widely known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs and his chart-topping country hits " King of the Road", "Dang Me", and " England Swings". After growing up in Oklahoma and serving in the U.S. Army, Miller began his musical career as a songwriter in the late 1950s, writing such hits as " Billy Bayou" and "Home" for Jim Reeves and "Invitation to the Blues" for Ray Price. He later began a recording career and reached the peak of his fame in the mid-1960s, continuing to record and tour into the 1990s, charting his final top-20 country hit " Old Friends" with Price and Willie Nelson in 1982. He also wrote and performed several of the songs for the 1973 Disney animated film ''Robin Hood''. Later in his life, he wrote the music and lyrics for the 1985 Tony Award−winning Broadway musical ''Big River (musical), Big River'', in which he played Pap Finn in 1986. Miller died fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scat Singing
Originating in vocal jazz, scat singing or scatting is vocal Musical improvisation, improvisation with Non-lexical vocables in music, wordless vocables, Pseudoword#Nonsense syllables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice solely as an Musical instrument, instrument rather than a Speech, speaking medium. This is different from vocalese, which uses recognizable lyrics that are sung to pre-existing instrumental solos. Characteristics Structure and syllable choice Though scat singing is improvised, the melodic lines are often variations on Musical scale, scale and arpeggio fragments, lick (music), stock patterns and riffs, as is the case with instrumental improvisers. As well, scatting usually incorporates musical Musical form, structure. All of Ella Fitzgerald's scat performances of "How High the Moon", for instance, use the same tempo, begin with a chorus of a straight reading of the lyric, move to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Gates
Giacomo Gates (born September 14, 1950) is an American jazz vocalist. Career Gates was born and raised in Connecticut. His father was a classical violinist. He made his public debut as a vocalist at the age of six. Soon after, he picked up guitar. In his youth he listened to jazz stations broadcasting from New York City, learned about jazz from disc jockeys, and played along on guitar. When he was ten, he bought his first jazz album, '' Time Out'' by Dave Brubeck. Between radio and his record collection, he listened to many of the biggest names in jazz. He took a particular interest in vocalists, such as Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra. As he got older, he admired Mose Allison, Cab Calloway, Betty Carter, Babs Gonzales, Al Hibbler, Eddie Jefferson, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, Carmen McRae, Mark Murphy, Anita O'Day, Louis Prima, Martha Raye, Keely Smith, Sarah Vaughan, and Joe Williams. After graduating from high school, he went to college bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
