"Jazz" albums by "Pop" Singers

[Teasing the Korean]

My recent thread about Johnny Mathis's first album got me thinking about this. I'd like to talk about singers who are generally considered pop singers who might have made one or two jazzy records in their career and surprised you with the results.

Artists like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Julie London and Peggy Lee don't really count, because even if you consider them pop singers, a substantial amount of their catalogs had some sort of jazz content or flavor.

A few examples I'm thinking of:

Johnny Mathis - First album (with Gil Evans, Teo Macero and John Lewis) and Open Fire, Two Guitars

Patti Page - The East Side, The West Side (with Pete Rugolo)

Jo Stafford - Jo + Jazz

I've heard that Doris Day made a "jazz" record but I never heard it.

Thoughts?

[Dan Gould]

My recent thread about Johnny Mathis's first album got me thinking about this. I'd like to talk about singers who are generally considered pop singers who might have made one or two jazzy records in their career and surprised you with the results.

Artists like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Julie London and Peggy Lee don't really count, because even if you consider them pop singers, a substantial amount of their catalogs had some sort of jazz content or flavor.

A few examples I'm thinking of:

Johnny Mathis - First album (with Gil Evans, Teo Macero and John Lewis) and Open Fire, Two Guitars

Patti Page - The East Side, The West Side (with Pete Rugolo)

Jo Stafford - Jo + Jazz

I've heard that Doris Day made a "jazz" record but I never heard it.

Thoughts?

I have the Doris Day album - its better than you'd expect.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Perry Como - Como swings (and it did - I got it because my mother loved him, but played it a lot myself)

Barry Manilow - can't remember the titles (I think my missus has one or two knocking about, but I really can't be asked to get up off my arse) but do remember that they weren't nearly as good as they could have been - Manilow was heavily influenced in his youth by Cal Tjader.

Astrud Gilberto - Gilberto/Turrentine (can't say I like her much, but this is greatly redeemed by Mr T)

Hoagy Carmichael - Hoagy sings Carmichael (completely beautiful - a treasure)

Bobby Darin - That's all; This is Darin; Darin at the Copa; From Hello Dolly to Goodbye Charlie

Does Della Reese count as a jazz singer? I kind of think she does, but I kind of think she doesn't, too. But "Della Reese live" is one hell of an album.

Ditto to Earl Grant - does he count as a jazz singer or not? For that matter, does he count as a jazz organist? His album "Nothin' but the blues" is excellent.

Same goes for Ruth Brown. Oh, some wonderful stuff in her catalogue.

Lena Horne? Lou Rawls? Maybe these two are a bit more jazz-oriented than you're looking for.

But Keely Smith's another I wouldn't like to classify one way or another. Plenty of good stuff there.

Some vocal groups also

Hi-Los

Four Freshmen

Andrews Sisters

Mills Brothers

Inkspots

Kirby Stone Four

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the great Charles Brown - not exactly a pop singer - well, he sang black pop. But the two albums of his that Housteon Person produced for Muse are great from a jazz point of view as well as a pop/R&B angle. And so is most of his stuff, for that matter. Good albums for Mainstream, Verve and Rounder.

MG

[Larry Kart]

My recent thread about Johnny Mathis's first album got me thinking about this. I'd like to talk about singers who are generally considered pop singers who might have made one or two jazzy records in their career and surprised you with the results.

Artists like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Julie London and Peggy Lee don't really count, because even if you consider them pop singers, a substantial amount of their catalogs had some sort of jazz content or flavor.

A few examples I'm thinking of:

Johnny Mathis - First album (with Gil Evans, Teo Macero and John Lewis) and Open Fire, Two Guitars

Patti Page - The East Side, The West Side (with Pete Rugolo)

Jo Stafford - Jo + Jazz

I've heard that Doris Day made a "jazz" record but I never heard it.

Thoughts?

I have the Doris Day album - its better than you'd expect.

The album Dan refers to probably is the one Day made with the Andre Previn Trio (Red Mitchell, Frank Capp) in 1961, but from the very first (her Les Brown recordings in 1944, when she was 20) there was a considerable overlap between Day's virtues as a singer -- great, flowing time/phrasing; subtle control of her innately attractive vocal timbre; genially sexy, witty warmth of interpretation, etc. -- and what were at the time common jazz virtues. On the two-CD Sony anthology "Doris Day: Golden Girl," there are a number of performances from the late '40s, early '50s (in particular, "It's Magic," "That Old Feeling," Again," "The Very Thought of You" and "Too Marvelous For Words" --those last two with Harry James and small groups drawn from his band, from the film "Young Man With a Horn") that withstand comparison with, say, the ballads that Stan Getz was recording for New Jazz at the time. In fact, Day probably was more rhythmically relaxed than Getz was.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Allen Lowe included Doris Day's recording of "We'll be together again" with Les Brown in "That Devilin' tune". I WAS impressed.

I seem to remember her putting out an LP called "Semtimental journey" which harked back to her days with the big bands. I can imagine that was pretty good, but I never heard it. Well, after all, Doris Day was as naff as you could get.

MG

[Nate Dorward]

Chaka Khan's done a couple. Or is that too far afield from what you're looking for?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Chaka Khan's done a couple. Or is that too far afield from what you're looking for?

No farther afield than Charles Brown - just a different era

MG

[Dan Gould]

My recent thread about Johnny Mathis's first album got me thinking about this. I'd like to talk about singers who are generally considered pop singers who might have made one or two jazzy records in their career and surprised you with the results.

Artists like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Julie London and Peggy Lee don't really count, because even if you consider them pop singers, a substantial amount of their catalogs had some sort of jazz content or flavor.

A few examples I'm thinking of:

Johnny Mathis - First album (with Gil Evans, Teo Macero and John Lewis) and Open Fire, Two Guitars

Patti Page - The East Side, The West Side (with Pete Rugolo)

Jo Stafford - Jo + Jazz

I've heard that Doris Day made a "jazz" record but I never heard it.

Thoughts?

I have the Doris Day album - its better than you'd expect.

The album Dan refers to probably is the one Day made with the Andre Previn Trio (Red Mitchell, Frank Capp) in 1961

Oops, silly me - I was thinking of Dinah Shore, not Doris Day. I have her 1960 Capitol release, Dinah Sings Some Blues with Red. You haven't heard "I Ain't Got Nothin But The Blues" til you've heard Dinah sing it!

[marcello]

The Ruth Brown with Thad and Mel is real fine.

"Fine Brown Frame"

[JSngry]

Kay Starr? Or was she a jazz singer tuned pop singer?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Don't know much about Kay Starr - but that reminds me about Ella Mae Morse.

MG

[jazzbo]

Kay Starr. . . Ella Mae Morse. . . such beautiful ladies.

(Pardon my interjection!)

[Larry Kart]

Kay Starr? Or was she a jazz singer tuned pop singer?

Probably more the latter IMO. Lord knows she could swing and improvise. On the other hand, all this was heavily conditioned by her natural Country flavor (Southwestern variety). There's a 1975 Starr album with Jimmy Rowles and Red Norvo, "Back To The Roots" (GNP) that's a great one:

http://www.musicstack.com/album/kay_starr/back_to_the_roots

[Harold_Z]

Wasn't one of Kay Starr's early gigs with Jack Teagarden? Wingy Manone also?

[Rooster_Ties]

Chaka Khan's done a couple.

And Miles was even on one of them.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

JULIE LONDON W/ THE GERALD WILSON BIG BAND (LIBERTY)

have yet 2 listen to it but its siting right here

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

JULIE LONDON W/ THE GERALD WILSON BIG BAND (LIBERTY)

have yet 2 listen to it but its siting right here

Oh yes - I used to have that but flogged it when I was on the dole. Good session. Not outstandingly jazz-oriented, but good stuff.

How are you doing?

MG

[BruceH]

Kay Starr. . . Ella Mae Morse. . . such beautiful ladies.

Quite true! And both of them excellent singers.

Doris Day could have been a fine jazz singer if there'd been more money in it.

[JohnJ]

A more recent example is:

Boz Scaggs - But Beautiful

I must confess I rather like it.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Kay Starr. . . Ella Mae Morse. . . such beautiful ladies.

Quite true! And both of them excellent singers.

Doris Day could have been a fine jazz singer if there'd been more money in it.

I'm not sure that money was really the key point. A lot of those singers who came up with the big bands kept their styles - Sinatra and Fitzgerald for example. And a lot changed their styles - eg Como and Day. But I don't think Sinatra's income suffered for it. And I seriously doubt that Como's or Day's would have either. I think they changed because they wanted to.

Sinatra COULD have done jazz gigs, as Ella did, but what jazz venue could have afforded him? I think he stopped being a "jazz singer" simply because he was too popular to be one. And I suspect the same was true of Como and Day. But they changed to what I suppose was what they wanted to be, but he never felt he needed to.

MG

[Dan Gould]

Sinatra COULD have done jazz gigs, as Ella did, but what jazz venue could have afforded him? I think he stopped being a "jazz singer" simply because he was too popular to be one. And I suspect the same was true of Como and Day. But they changed to what I suppose was what they wanted to be, but he never felt he needed to.

I'm far from the most knowledgeable about Sinatra but I don't think its true that he changed in significant ways at all, beyond "maturing" into adult music and concerns. Sinatra as "jazz singer" is predicated on the "jazz" elements in his performance and in the accompaniment. Its also predicated on the lingering influence of jazz on singers throughout the generation or so we are talking about. It had nothing to do with where he appeared.

[JSngry]

Yeah, what should be understood is that being a "band singer" like so many of those cats were was a different art/craft than being a "jazz singer", although there certainly was plenty of common ground if so desired. But being a band singer meant knowing how to sing/shade/phrase/etc in and around the arrangement, knowing how to make an entrance & exit that worked with the setups for same provided by the arrangement, all sorts of things that have to do with being part of a band rather than being the "star". In a lot of probably subliminal ways, it probably got those singers to thinking in terms of ensemble rather than just soloist, and that's why so few of the band singers are really readily classifiable as jazz singers. And who cares, really, a song well sung is a song well sung, and if there's more than one way to skin a cat, hey, that's why it's got nine lives, right?

As for Day, it's really simple as to "what happened". By her own admission, she decided to focus more on her movie career than her singing career, and as a result let others make musical decisions for her. Well DUH, that's why she recorded so much popablum, although she almost always sounded good herself while doing it. She's expressed regret that she didn't give more personal discernment to her singing career, she knows how good she was and what she could have done. But crying over spilt milk just makes water under the bridge, no?

[Teasing the Korean]

This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to spark! Thanks all for the input.

[Teasing the Korean]

Bumping this old thread of mine.  I finally got around to picking up the Doris Day with Andre Previn album.  It is indeed very good, and I also like the fact that the song selection is a little bit unusual.  "Nobody's Heart" by Rodgers and Heart is such a great tune, and it is not recorded often.