So, you don't like jazz vocals...

[BERIGAN]

I don't think I have seen a thread just on this topic. I often see people say like when a Mosaic set comes out,(Woody Herman for example) that they hope there won't be a lot of vocals. Why is this? Do you dislike male and female vocalists equally? Is Billy Eckstine easier for you to take than say Jimmy Scott? Do you dig rock vocals more than Jazz vocals?(No, I don't know why this looks like Larry King asked all these questions)

[Hardbopjazz]

I often wonder why we don't see more talk here on jazz vocals. I can get into vocals. When I was a musician, a lot of times when I was trying to learn a new standard, I would track down a vocal version of it. For some reason that helped me to remember the changes better.

I can dig groups like Lambert Hendrick and Ross, as well as Billie Holiday.

Why it seems we don't like vocals here is beyond me. I've gotten that feeling too.

Edited August 26, 2005 by Hardbopjazz

[JSngry]

When I don't like "jazz" vocals, it's because it's usually not "jazz" at all. It's some lameass lounge-y/cabaret singer trying to perform the musical equivalent of walking into the first day of a calculus class aiming to review the multiplication tables.

Otherwise, a good singer and a good song well-sung (whatever that means, I know it when I hear/feel it) are always welcome here. Always.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Here's something I wrote on the subject a while back in response to someone who wasn't a fan of singers and who was interested in singers who worked with great instrumentalists.

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Sometimes, when you start learning jazz it's more than a full-time job to check out the instrumentalists (and rightly so), but later you get to come back and dig the singers. For me, at least, they have been a major inspiration. If you dig them from the start, so much the better.

My personal favorites are Shirley Horn and Abbey Lincoln. Check my discographies to see the sort of master musicians they work with (Stan Getz, Hank Jones, Charlie Haden, Kenny Barron, Buck Hill, Gary Bartz, Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones, Pat Metheny, Cedar Walton, Toots Thielemans, etc.).

Kevin Mahogany has at least 2 recent issues on Enja with people like Kevin & Robin Eubanks, Mike Mossman, Arthur Blythe, Marvin Smith, etc. Very good for a transitional instrumental/vocal thing.

I would also recommend Billie Holiday. Maybe start with some of the Verve stuff. Others might call this heresy and push the early Vocalions and Brunswicks (CBS of the 1930's with Teddy Wilson and Lester Young - they're great, too), but sometimes the Verve stuff sits better with non-vocalist people. Nothing wrong with Ben Webster, Harry Edison, Barney Kessel, etc. I own and love it all, anyway.

Some (like me) dig Sarah Vaughan, others not. She certainly was a great, very musically hip singer. I sometimes find Ella Fitzgerald to be a little too perfect and not "intimate" enough. But I like her nonethless. Dinah Washington might grate on your nerves, but the EmArcy record with Clifford Brown, Clark Terry and Maynard Ferguson is amazing. Betty Carter, more often than not, is not my cup of tea, though I have several albums and have seen her live. She always works with great musicians.

Carmen McRae has some fantastic things out. I especially like some of her later things including the Monk album (with Rouse, Clifford Jordan, George Mraz, etc.) which is apparently hard to find these days. She also did a tribute to Sarah Vaughan with the Shirley Horn trio accompanying. Did I mention that Shirley is one of the greatest piano players in jazz? She scares me she's so good.

Oh, and the Tony Bennett/Bill Evans album is perhaps the single greatest vocal jazz album ever. Really. Listen to it, don't imagine it. It's not at all schmaltzy or anything like that. It's perfect. Oh, and the Coltrane/Johnny Hartman one too. I could go on and on. Here's a list of fairly straight-ahead jazz vocal masterpieces:

Tony Bennett/Bill Evans [Fantasy]

Shirley Horn: You Won't Forget Me [Verve]

Abbey Lincoln: You Gotta Pay The Band [Verve] w/Stan Getz

Carmen McRae: Sings Monk [RCA]

Billie Holiday: Songs For Distingue Lovers [Verve]

Dinah Washington: Dinah Jams [EmArcy]

Sarah Vaughan: In The Land Of Hi-Fi [Capitol] w/Cannonball Adderley

Betty Carter: The Audience With Betty Carter [betCar]

Kevin Mahogany: Songs And Moments [Enja]

John Coltrane/Johnny Hartman [impulse]

Annie Ross/Gerry Mulligan [Pacific Jazz]

Chris Connor/Maynard Ferguson [Roulette]

Carol Sloane: The Songs Carmen Sang [Concord] w/Phil Woods

Chet Baker: Sings [Pacific Jazz]

Ella Fitzgerald: Ella In Berlin [Verve]

and two of my favorite newer albums:

Claire Martin: Old Boyfriends [Honest]

Janis Siegel/Fred Hersch: Slow, Hot Wind [Varese Sarabande]

Feel free to request details or further info.

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As for the discussion on the Woody Herman Mosaic or something like that, it's a matter of intent - the great thing about the Herman band was NOT the vocalists. So a lot of people want to buy the set to hear the amazing instrumentals and the vocal tracks are "in the way".

Mike

Mike

[king ubu]

Why should I like jazz vocals if I don't like jazz, anway?

What was I doing on that jazz board again?.... oh yeah, there was the babe thread... then I found out about the goofy stuff on the web thread...

[Chuck Nessa]

Have you spent much time with singers?

[king ubu]

Nice list, Mike! I have about half of the albums and each of those is indeed a masterpiece!

I like "cornier" stuff, too, such as Mel Tormé, and yes, Sinatra, but I'm sure the later is not a jazz singer (though he is good at what he does), and Tormé probably has pros and cons... his Bethlehems and early Verves, though, are definitely good albums, regardless if he's to be considered a jazz singer or not.

And let me throw in Helen Merrill... maybe the album with Getz and the Kuhn trio, or the one with Brownie, if just one should be recommended... or her early collaboration with Gil Evans!

[Dave James]

I think the majority of us here enjoy jazz vocals, but as Jim points out, the key word here is "jazz". There's lots of stuff out there passing for jazz that couldn't much further from it. Having said that, if I have to make a choice, I much prefer instrumentals. To me, words tend to get in the way of the music and the music is why I'm listening in the first place. The only kind of vocals I absolutely refuse to listen to are scats and vocalese. Really don't care for those approaches at all.

But an hour of so spent with the likes of Billie, Anita O'Day, Helen Merrill, June Christy or, yes, even the Four Freshman, is time well spent.

HB - As I'm sure has been mentioned before, Ben Webster used to say you couldn't really play a ballad unless you knew the words to the tune.

Up over and out.

Edited August 26, 2005 by Dave James

[JSngry]

I think the majority of us here enjoy jazz vocals, but as Jim points out, the key word here is "jazz". 

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I actually have come to prefer many a "pop" (as in pre-rock material) singer to many a "jazz" singer. It's a different intent, a different esthetic, and a different discipline. And I enjoy it immensely when done well.

[JSngry]

Have you spent much time with singers? 

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Oh yeah...

Kinda like going swimming with a paralyzed fish...

[Ron S]

I actually have come to prefer many a "pop" (as in pre-rock material) singer to many a "jazz" singer. It's a different intent, a different esthetic, and a different discipline. And I enjoy it immensely when done well.

Doesn't this post belong in the "Is Jazz Overly Intellectualized?" thread?

[JSngry]

Nah, it belongs in the "Shop Talk" thread.

[rostasi]

Have you spent much time with singers? 

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Oh yeah...

Kinda like going swimming with a paralyzed fish...

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HAHAHAHAHA!

I'm still more of a "sound" guy - I like unique sounding voices...like Dakota Staton or Andy Bey

and, yes, he's not "jazz", but I love Kevin Ayers' voice too.

I melt into a pool of goo when I hear Sarah Vaughan -

I cannot do anything else when her voice comes out of the speakers -

life goes into suspension. I adore her.

Strong vocal dislikes: Sheila Jordan...

and this annoying trend that's been going for a coupla decades

of singing like one's in a heroin-induced stupor - a la Rickie Lee Jones.

Edited August 26, 2005 by rostasi

[Chrome]

For me, a bad lyric, the actual words, can throw off a song in a way a "bad" musical phrase can't ...

[BeBop]

For the most part, I don't enjoy listening to vocalists. And then there's Mr. Five-by-Five: Little Jimmy Rushing.

[tooter]

I am firmly in the camp that never listens to jazz vocalists from choice. I listen to jazz for the improvisation and there is often little or none of this in a jazz vocal performance. Because they are singing the words they have to follow the melody - maybe they don't but they do. I agree that words just seem a distraction mostly. On the other hand, I dislike scat even more. There no sense to this, so it must be just blind prejudice.

What really bugs me are the jazz instrumentalists who try to sing too. Chet was bad enough - I always got the impression that he sang because he was bored with playing the trumpet - but as a good example of what I mean, I remember hearing Milt Jackson "singing" a dirge like tune in a reedy warble. Perhaps others have encountered this performance, although he may well have tried it more than once. There are many others of course. But I always thought Grady Tate did reasonably well on the odd occasion when I have heard him.

[WD45]

I'm still more of a "sound" guy ...

Same here. I have to concentrate to hear vocals in any kind of music. I actually have a preference for vocal music in another language, as to not be distracted by the words. I know that may seem silly, but that is how it is. I just find it easier to attach to the emotion purely as sound.

Edited August 26, 2005 by WD45

[rostasi]

I'm still more of a "sound" guy ...

Same here. I have to concentrate to hear vocals in any kind of music. I actually have a preference for vocal music in another language, as to not be distracted by the words. I know that may seem silly, but that is how it is. I just find it easier to attach to the emotion purely as sound.

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Not silly. I'll take great "sounding" vocals in another language or even "nonsense"/experimental vocals over most bland English language ballads.

[RDK]

I'm undeniably a "song" guy, so I tend to dig most vocalists (provided they're good, of course - I just finished listening to a painfully bad vocal by Hampton Hawes; now there's a dude who shouldn't sing). I also think that the human voice is the most expressive of instruments.

None of that means, obviously, that I don't love and appreciate instrumental jazz as well.

[BruceH]

I just don't like jazz vocals that are like Chet Baker.

[Alexander]

Love instrumental jazz. Love jazz with vocals. Love vocalese. Love scatting. Love Sinatra, Bennett, Billie, Ella, Sarah, etc. Love Chet both singing AND playing. There's very little I won't listen to...

For some people, this must seem VERY shallow. My collection covers everything from rock to Bach and back again. When I was younger, I HATED people who claimed to like "everything" or "all kinds of music." I didn't think it was possible. Anyone who claimed to like "everything" was either lying or didn't know very much about music.

Since then, I've developed my theory of the "cultural gag reflex." The theory is that most people's dislike of certain kinds of music is, in fact, extramusical. Many people claim not to like hip hop or country because of the cultural baggage these genres carry with them. Therefore, whenever I dislike something, I immedately question my reaction. Why don't I like it? Is it really a question of taste, or is it a question of cultural programming?

Edited August 26, 2005 by Alexander

[dave9199]

Lots & lots of bad lyrics.

[Jazz Kat]

Because I'm jelous of them. All they have to bring to gigs and shows is their voice box

Vocals are lame/

[Jazzmoose]

I like vocals. And if Andy Bey isn't jazz, I guess I like nonjazz vocals as well.

Anyway, that doesn't mean I like ALL jazz vocals. I think Woody Herman's croaking is a distraction. I don't even like his 'announcements'. Hey, we'll figure out who the soloist is; shut up already! Also, Chet Baker's vocals creep me out big time. Since these are two vocalists who seem to come up in any discussion of vocalists here, it's no surprise to me that people get the idea that more people dislike them than actually do. (I think I got lost halfway through that sentence, but hopefully it makes sense!)

On the other hand, I'll listen to Ella, or Sarah,or Anita all O'Day. Er...I mean...

As for the gender difference, yeah, I tend to prefer female vocalists. The higher ranges seem more musical to me for some reason. But then, when Sarah goes low....wow!

Frank Sinatra is fantastic, I don't care what you call him. Same with Billy Eckstine. Bob Dorough always brings a smile. But in general, I prefer the female singers.

[Big Deal]

I'm glad to see this topic as vocal jazz is something I've had a hard time with for a long time. I listen to Bob Parlocha on the way home from work at night and he always has a few vocals on during an hour, and try as I might, I just can't seem to find the desire to listen for longer than 20 seconds. And I have tried. Jazz is something that I have liked for a long time, but until the last few years it wasn't the main focus of my listening time. So, I always thought that I would "grow" into a new appreciation for vocals. It just hasn't happened. As a side note, when I listen to classical music, I dislike opera, and the more gospel side of blues bothers me too. Must be some connection there somewhere.