jazz singer album recommendations?

[gggomez]

We have an amazing trumpeter vocalist in Australia Vince Jones. Doug De Vries guitar and Paul Grabowski on piano are outstanding.

[gggomez]

Helen Merril is missing from the above, what an album with Clifford Brown

[destinytot]

Joe Pesci (like Nancy Wilson, very 'Jimmy Scott')

[coolvinny]

Sarah + 2, with Kessel on guitar.

The Anita O'Day compilation album "Diva" is outstanding, with a nice mix of (mostly) combo jazz and some bigger band stuff.

[gggomez]

Some living talent:

Esperenza Spalding

Alma Micic

[Lazz]

Betty Carter was Sarah Vaughan's favourite.

My own favourite is Rachelle Ferrell.
Then there is Gretchen Parlato.
Both well and truly alive.

In the UK, we have Lianne Carroll and Claire Martin.
In Canada, we have Jennifer Scott.

And ok, we may be moving beyond orri​'s remit regarding stylistic era, but what about Concha Buika?

[destinytot]

Concha Buika - yay! An introduction:

[EddieLastra]

I really enjoy this album, just swings in a nice feel good way

Billie Holiday - 'Songs for Distingue Lovers"

Nice session line up with Ben Webster - sax, Harry 'Sweets' Edison - trumpet, Barney Kessel - guitar, Jimmy Rowles - piano, Red Mitchell - bass, Larry Bunker - drums

[MarkRhodes]

Julie London

I love that record. Great voice, and Barney Kessel's guitar set a new standard for accompaniment.

Here's perhaps my favorite tune by them:

[wintermoon]

I love that record. Great voice, and Barney Kessel's guitar set a new standard for accompaniment.

Here's perhaps my favorite tune by them:

nurse Dixie McCall!

[PMB]

One of the all-time great jazz vocal recordings is "Where is Love?" by Irene Kral - no strings or sugar, just remarkably telepathic accompaniment by pianist Alan Broadbent:

[MarkRhodes]

I love the way Mary Cleere Haran sang this Johnny Mercer tune. (I think Fred Hirsch is the pianist.)

[goldenwave77]

[E]ven though the practice was an important and irreplaceable part of my own personal apprenticeship, I am somewhat ambivalent about vocalese (there is no hyphen) and its proper place in the vocal jazz tradition.


It's all a matter of taste, I know, but I have little time for Manhattan Transfer

Vocalese tends to draw strong opinions...I like it, in limited doses, and I found that listening to Eddie Jefferson made me want to go back and re-listen to the classic solos that he was working off of.

Personally, I think that when instrumental jazz gets too far away from a "singing quality" it is in danger of losing its way: Great improvisors are often said to be "really singing" when they are playing well....and most of the music I really like and frequently play has the ability to be sung...the Allmann Brothers, Carlos Santana's guitar work, Hank Garland's bop guitar, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Jobim, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Chopin's piano works.

Conversely, there are a lot of jazz players....some Coltrane...some Pat Martino... whose playing of long strings of notes just leave me cold....I find little joy in what they're doing...the phrasing oftentimes doesn't seem to go anywhere....they seem to be playing a lot of notes for their own sake, and I can't believe they are really pre-hearing what they are playing....if they were....their phrasing would have more of a point to it.

On the other hand, there are tons of singers who don't seem to pay attention to the meaning of the words they are singing. Or you have the type of singer who gets so caught up in "singer-istic" tricks, that their delivery can suffer....I recently listened to a show about Mary Stallings on WKCR, and by the end of 20 minutes could not stand what I was listening to....her delivery is so drowning in melisma (I think this is the term), that both the melodic contour and the rhythmic sense of her lines were lost, or compromised....this extreme vocal embellishment is an unfortunate by-product of too many singers listening to Whitney Houston diva-type deliveries...every song ends up having too much of their "treatment" to it...it's like walking into an ice cream parlor, and deciding ahead of time, that no matter what flavor of ice cream you're ordering, it's going to have hot fudge and sprinkles, and a cherry, and walnuts, etc.

[John A.]

Les McCann and Eddie Harris - Swiss Movement

Joni Mitchell - Mingus, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

Dizzy Gillespie and the Double Six of Paris

George Benson - various versions of On Broadway and This Masquerade

Mel Torme - can't think of a specific album, but he's great.

Anything by Billy Eckstein, Big Joe Turner, Big Joe Wiliams,

Peggy Lee - Something Groovy

Getz/Gilberto

[mrcee]

Anita O'Day.

I agree with goldenwave above. A "singing quality" is always a plus for an instrumentalist.