jazz singer album recommendations?

**orri** · 11-16-2015, 09:03 AM

Hi,

Can you recommend great 'real' jazz albums with great jazz singers like Ella Fitzerard and Sarah Vaughan.

Much of the albums I find are really commercial and have strings and sugar.
If we compare to Wes, I want their Full House and Incredible Jazz Guitar albums and not the late commercial albums like Day in a Life with all those strings and sugar.

**MarkRhodes** · 11-16-2015, 10:05 AM

The duets of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong are classic. Oscar Peterson and Herb Ellis played on those sessions.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 11-16-2015, 10:21 AM

All things being equal, live recordings are going to have more of what you're looking for than studio.

**MarkRhodes** · 11-16-2015, 10:26 AM

Speaking of live, here is Ella doing "Mack the Knife" live in Berlin. She forgets the lyrics and how she handles that is something greater than would have happened had she remembered them! (Jim Hall on guitar.)

**goldenwave77** · 11-16-2015, 10:45 AM

Eddie Jefferson. He was a BIG influence on Manhattan Transfer. (I think their first album was dedicated to him.)

He takes classic instrumental solos and makes them into vocal-ese.....scary fluid/liquid phrasing....also Mel Torme and George Shearing's work.

**wintermoon** · 11-16-2015, 01:39 PM

Sarah Vaughan + 2 [Barney Kessel]
Sarah Vaughan After Hours [Mundell Lowe]
Carmen McRae Bittersweet [Mundell Lowe]
Beverly Kenney Sings For Johnny Smith

or just about any of Sarah's and Carmen's small group recordings

**MarkRhodes** · 11-16-2015, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by goldenwave77

Eddie Jefferson. He was a BIG influence on Manhattan Transfer. (I think their first album was dedicated to him.)

He takes classic instrumental solos and makes them into vocal-ese.....scary fluid/liquid phrasing....also Mel Torme and George Shearing's work.

My favorite example of this is King Pleasure's "Moody's Mood for Love."

James Moody's take on "I'm In The Mood For Love."

A live version of Moody with Dizzy (-great intro):

**rkwestcoast** · 11-16-2015, 03:13 PM

Check out Ella Fitzgerald Twelve Nights in Hollywood..............

Dates from 1961 - Ella with a quartet with H Ellis on guitar - has a really intimate club feel - for me one of her best...

**pubylakeg** · 11-16-2015, 03:20 PM

Billy Holiday's "Lady In Autumn" is probably my all time favourite Jazz vocal album.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...s=music&sr=1-1

John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is just a sublime listening experience, on a par with Trane's "Ballads" album.

http://www.amazon.com/John-Coltrane-...johnny+hartman

And although it's not a "Jazz" record, Sinatra's "...Sings For Only The Lonely" is just a masterpiece, from the point of the vocal performances and the orchestrations/arrangements.

Frank Sinatra, Nelson Riddle - Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely - Amazon.com Music

I guarantee none of these records will disappoint !

**MarkRhodes** · 11-16-2015, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by rkwestcoast

Check out Ella Fitzgerald Twelve Nights in Hollywood..............

Dates from 1961 - Ella with a quartet with H Ellis on guitar - has a really intimate club feel - for me one of her best...

A great record that I only discovered recently.

**orri** · 11-17-2015, 04:56 AM

Thanks everyone for your replies so far.

I'd also like to recommend everything I've heard with Joe Pass and Ella F.

for example this concert:

**Stanford J17** · 11-17-2015, 09:34 AM

I don't have much vocal jazz in my collection, but from what I have I would recommend those:

"Sophisticated Lady" - Ella and Joe
"I Remember You" - Tuck & Patti

Greets
Christoph

**Stuart Elliott** · 11-17-2015, 11:01 AM

I like two contemporary jazz singers.

Karrin Allyson Sweet Home Cookin' and Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane are two of my favorites. Guitarist Danny Embry has been her musical director.

Kevin Mahogany Double Rainbow and Songs and Moments are especially recommended

**Stanford J17** · 11-18-2015, 06:54 AM

I really like Cassandra Wilson.

**MarkRhodes** · 11-18-2015, 10:46 AM

Although she's not to everyone's taste, I love Blossom Dearie.

**Groyniad** · 11-18-2015, 11:39 AM

random recommendation

perfectly frank - tony bennett

on holiday - tony bennett

these were done in his most recent period of productivity - amazing straight ahead stuff

very serious recommendation - if you really want JAZZ singing

the peerless - Mark Murphy (anything by him)

**mrcee** · 11-18-2015, 01:21 PM

Ditto on Johnny Hartman and Coltrane.

**MarkRhodes** · 11-18-2015, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by mrcee

Ditto on Johnny Hartman and Coltrane.

I think this is as good as it gets:

destinytot · 11-18-2015, 01:57 PM

Al Jarreau (1965)

**hanktx** · 11-18-2015, 03:22 PM

Beverly Kenney - Sings For Johnny Smith

Cyrille Aimée & Diego Figueiredo - Smile

**jbernstein91** · 11-18-2015, 03:36 PM

Cecile McLorin Salvant:

**jbernstein91** · 11-18-2015, 04:03 PM

Kurt Elling:

**Lazz** · 11-18-2015, 04:59 PM

Originally Posted by goldenwave77

Eddie Jefferson. He was a BIG influence on Manhattan Transfer. (I think their first album was dedicated to him.)

He takes classic instrumental solos and makes them into vocal-ese.....scary fluid/liquid phrasing....also Mel Torme and George Shearing's work.

Eddie was a pioneer in a self-made field all his own who remained pissed-off at Clarence Beeks (the NY waiter who called himself King Pleasure) for ripping-off "Moody's Mood" and having a hit with it. But whatever - the act of re-creating someone else's improvisation on every gig seems essentially so far removed from any notion of "real" jazz that, even 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 an interesting and inconsequential coincidence though that both Kansas City's Leo Watson (the big vocal influence for Eddie J) and the relatively forgotten and unrecognised Richard Boone (the guy who really set the standard IMHO for melodic and linguistic improvisation) were both trombonists.

Richard Boone recordings are scarce and patchy - as in very hard-to-find and, when you do, containing stuff that really ain't so good alongside stuff that's simply impressively delightful and joyous. Best collection I ran into was from a private transcription library out of L.A. that I have failed to find trace of ever since. A CD called "The Singer" is still available out there on the net. It's a patchy one for sure, but the track "There's No Business Like Show Business" is worth the price of admission all on its own. There is also a single of "Boone's Blues" (with "Rhythm" on the flipside) released in the late '60s and which first hipped me to him while knocking me off my feet.

Here it is:

Both sides can be found on the 1967 Japan-only CD release "Basie's Beat".

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