Jazz Vocals

[sgcim]

I saw Bob Dorough live at the Phil Woods Memorial Concert in East Stroudsburg PA. I couldn't wait until he got off the stage. I know he's done some great things in what was the music biz (Spanky and Our Gang), but I couldn't take that twangy effing voice he had.
Thank God they had Houston Person on after BD. That was the real schlitz...Accompanied by Bill Mays with Phil's rhythm section...

[joelf]

Didn't know about Spanky and Our Gang. I dig Bob. He had limitations and worked within them. He did have style, class and wit. Great guy, too.

On the Eddie Diehl tribute recording I made the last track after we play duets is Eddie, Bob, and Bill Takas, live from a defunct bistro, Zinno, spanking Buzzy for a nice long while. Bob fared nicely as pianist...

[MarkRhodes]

i know this thread is about popular singers who don't ring your bell

but many don't care for chet bakers vocals

to which i present..

his scatting is amazing!!..you may not like his timbre but his phrasing is 100%...beyond!

I loved Chet's singing.
He seemed to always want to make the lyric live. I am drawn to such singers. (Some singers, esp jazz singers, are technically dazzling to the point that, like some horn players, they think everything is a frame for their self-indulgent soloing / scatting. I am less drawn to those...)

[mr. beaumont]

I have very few singers who I flat out don't get into, but I also have very few that I really like too, if that makes sense?

[DanielleOM]

I have been listening to Julie London quite a bit lately. From what I have heard it seems she always found great guitar players.

[joelf]

(Some singers, esp jazz singers, are technically dazzling to the point that, like some horn players, they think everything is a frame for their self-indulgent soloing / scatting. I am less drawn to those...)

Yeah. That was sort of my beef and point about Eckstine. He certainly didn't do all that, but it was always more about his voice and vibratoed style than the song.

A song is a mini-drama. It takes hours of sweat and rewrites to get every brick and mortar in place. If a singer is confident in his/her creativity, craft, style, etc. they only have to present the song. Their stamp is on it anyway---no filigree or pyrotechnics needed. But I enjoy other approaches, too---don't get me wrong. Good is good, and we can enjoy and learn from anyone good.

Ella Fitzgerald has been accused of showboating and not 'understanding' the lyrics she sang. What malarkey! She had the chops and dimension to go anywhere, so why not? And the emotional range was wide. She can bring tears on ballads, and if that's 'not understanding' a lyric Lord let me not understand too...

[John A.]

Sometimes a thing looks good on paper, but though you try you can't make yourself like it---like certain singers, even ones you know are great. Sometimes you can put your finger on why, sometimes not. The following are credible, even wonderful singers whose work I just can't seem to embrace:

Billy Eckstine: I guess b/c he takes the same approach, with that wide vibrato, on every song, and it always seems to be more about him than the song. I have the guilties about this b/c he was an early champion of bebop with a great band---that he subsidized with his 'pop' vocals.

Mel Torme': a fabulous singer, musician and songwriter. I always found him a bit corny on the swing numbers, especially scatting. Like his ballads very much, though.

Bob Dorough: this kills me to say, b/c we recently lost him, and I've performed with him and he liked one of my songs. A great guy. I found that he didn't have much range, technically or emotionally. When he recorded some fine duets with Blossom Dearie to me she came off the way better singer. Wonderful songwriter, though (Love Came on Stealthy Fingers, for one).

Nobody shoot me please! I respect and admire all of these folks. It's just that...

Maybe others here have similar quirky opinions of fine singers? And let's be nice! Just respectfully state the singer and your reasons, please---OK?

Bob Dorough was more about his sense of humor and quirkiness than about him really being a singer, or at least that's the way he struck me. I saw him at Bradleys a bunch of times, and love what he did with Schoolhouse Rock, but I don't think I've listened to his actual records. I guess I feel the opposite of you about Blossom Dearie -- there's a twee cutseyness to her that I don't much care for.

The one singer who towers above all others in my reverse-pantheon of oh-my-god-I-can't-stand-it-ness is Whitney Houston. To me, she's just yelling, not singing. I fully acknowledge that others feel very differently, though, and wouldn't try to talk anyone into agreeing with me.

John

[joelf]

The one singer who towers above all others in my reverse-pantheon of oh-my-god-I-can't-stand-it-ness is Whitney Houston. To me, she's just yelling, not singing.John

I don't know her work enough to comment. I sure don't love screaming generally---unless there's a musical reason to be that dramatic. James Brown can do it at song peaks. He doesn't do it throughout. There's always a good reason, and it's well-placed, like in Please, Please, Please. You know it's coming, and that's half the fun.

I'm surprised to hear this about Whitney. She comes from good stock: mother Cissy is a gospel singer, and still around, I believe. I'm sure Whitney got started singing in the church as a child, then we know she turned pro pretty young. (Maybe those 'habits' influenced her musical decisions for the worse?) I'll have to listen and decide about the screaming...

[joelf]

No screaming here, maybe a bit dramatic---but it's a movie scene, a commercial one made to tug at the heartstrings perhaps in a cheap way, and a dramatic song. What an instrument! I can hear the possibilities, and I bet she dialed it back on other material...

[joelf]

I listened to a few of Whitney's ballads to see what she did. I agree with John. Maybe not yelling, but certainly overwrought. I couldn't get through the last ones. What a shame, b/c she was obviously very, very gifted. Probably got bad advice from 'friends', especially on material. The songs I heard were instantly forgettable. It's a sad story from every angle, especially the one where you peep that it could have, should have been artistically way different...

[grahambop]

But isn’t that the same with most pop singers nowadays when they sing anything resembling a ballad? Even the ones with good voices often end up shouting or over-emoting by the end of the song.

[wintermoon]

gals like Patti Labelle, Whitney, Mariah Carey, Christiana Aguilera, etc are all part of the "vocal gymnastic" singers so prevalent nowadays.
listen to the average modern performance of the national anthem, flourish city...

[MarkRhodes]

I have been listening to Julie London quite a bit lately. From what I have heard it seems she always found great guitar players.

I love Julie's voice. It's good to know the greats were also mortal: here are outtakes from a failed recording of "The Man I Love." LANGUAGE ALERT: lots of cursing.

[joelf]

But isn’t that the same with most pop singers nowadays when they sing anything resembling a ballad? Even the ones with good voices often end up shouting or over-emoting by the end of the song.

Probably, and they doubtless are pressured by record companies to do it. Sell, sell, sell. They don't wanna lost the gig, let's face it...

[John A.]

gals like Patti Labelle, Whitney, Mariah Carey, Christiana Aguilera, etc are all part of the "vocal gymnastic" singers so prevalent nowadays.
listen to the average modern performance of the national anthem, flourish city...

I wouldn't put Patti LaBelle in that category.

John

[John A.]

No screaming here, maybe a bit dramatic---but it's a movie scene, a commercial one made to tug at the heartstrings perhaps in a cheap way, and a dramatic song. What an instrument! I can hear the possibilities, and I bet she dialed it back on other material...

No, almost never dialed it back, which is basically what I'm talking about. I agree, great instrument (good way of putting it), but I never cared for the way she used it. Also, the material absolutely stunk, but I don't think she had much to do with picking it. Old school soul/R&B is probably my favorite form of singing, and there are many shouters, belters, etc., whom I love, but there has to be contrast and subtlety along with the pyrotechnics.

John

[joelf]

Loudness is a big part of our world. The arts often chronicle the times they exist in.

These days especially it takes courage for a vocalist with a big deal recording contract to stand up to pressure to be a loud gymnast. Sensitivity and mature restraint are not the way of the world. I'm not making excuses for anyone here. You make your bed and lie in it. And the companies themselves are worried as hell, fearing extinction in the wake of free digital music everywhere. The pressure to sell according to what the market research people tell them works has increased geometrically---and it's applied directly to the artists.

Not that it's anything new: imagine what Lester Young went through introducing a non-gruff sound and a storytelling approach to a jazz world that largely was not doing that...

[arielcee]

Ella Fitzgerald. Sad to say since she's a great musician. Sometimes it just sounds too perfect though. That said I would take her over many many others.

Diana Krall. I guess I never totally understood what the big deal was.

[RobbieAG]

Regarding vocalists that I really DO like, I went to see Tony Bennett at the Durham Performing Arts Center (Durham NC) this past Sunday. It's amazing that at 93 years old, he's still touring and performing at the level he does. He's a class act and truly an inspiration! In his quartet, is guitarist Gray Sargeant who's playing I really enjoyed as well.

[joelf]

Ella Fitzgerald. Sad to say since she's a great musician. Sometimes it just sounds too perfect though.

That reminds me of what Lou Levy said about Stan Getz: 'If Stan has a flaw, it's that he's flawless'.

A perfect technique can lead to glibness and if that's all the person's got...

Ella moves me with ballads. Her technique disappears and I hear the emotion, the sadness. She gets a bad rap: 'she doesn't understand the lyrics she's singing'---some critic. What rot! Listen to Every Time We Say Goodbye from the Cole Porter Songbook and tell me you don't hear the heartbreak (I don't mean you)...

[44lombard]

about Blossom Dearie -- there's a twee cutseyness to her that I don't much care for.

The one singer who towers above all others in my reverse-pantheon of oh-my-god-I-can't-stand-it-ness is Whitney Houston. To me, she's just yelling, not singing. I fully acknowledge that others feel very differently, though, and wouldn't try to talk anyone into agreeing with me.

Blossom never shied away from the girlish timbre in her voice, and she certainly played it up heavily on mid-tempo and up-tempo numbers. But on slow numbers, while the girlishness is there, I find her delivery surprisingly erotic. "Someone to Watch Over Me" is sort of the epitome of this, but even "Surrey with the Fringe on Top", which has a lot of cutesy Oscar Hammerstein lines, is pretty sexy to me. When she bears down on a lower note in her range, all of a sudden she sounds very adult, and sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I like the contrast. I think she's like Chet--a singer with a relatively narrow range both in terms of actual pitches and in terms of the kind of material she can pull off. Both are twee, no doubt. Blossom's a bit more of an actor behind the mic than Chet.

A drag queen used to live across the street from my apartment, and every Saturday she'd leave her windows open and crank Whitney Houston so loud you could hear it five blocks away. I got to know Whitney's thing very well. She's the ultimate school talent show singer.

I wonder what people will think of Whitney in 100 years. And I wonder if she had come along 20 years earlier and been hooked up with writers like Bacharach and Van McCoy, if she would have made records that I would cherish. I might be able to tolerate the yelling if she had the Muscle Shoals rhythm section killing it behind her. And maybe their tastefulness as musicians would have rubbed off a bit.

[crusoe]

Joe and Ella. I always come back to their old tunes.
What do you like ?

[Cunamara]

There are so few jazz vocalists I can tolerate, not sure why. Maybe it's "vocalism" that bugs me. "Straight singers that do the song I tend to like. Ella was one of those, even when she was scatting- the song as written was always respected. Here's my former next door neighbor and my wife's former clarinet teacher:

[crusoe]

There are a few modern groups like the Avalon Jazz Band
which try to give it all an old swing feeling. I like it.

[MarkRhodes]

I loved Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong together, often w/ the Oscar Peterson trio (Herb Ellis on guitar).