VIDEO - LH&R Live/Airegin

[JSngry]

As horn solos...eh, ok. It wouldn't suck, but...

It's just SO nice to hear motherfuckers scat who can actually hear changes and sing them instead of just oobey-doobeying a bunch of semi-syncopated fumblefuxations. Especially at that tempo.

And when it gets to the fours, hey...

And - the way Annie Ross hops back in for the closing ensemble, singing lead like that, that's a chick who can drive my bus anytime, what with confidence skills like that. Possibly higher than a muffker at that. Still got that pocket, and lovin' it.

Pretenders be gone!

Skills baby, SKILLS.

[Mark Stryker]

As horn solos...eh, ok. It wouldn't suck, but...

It's just SO nice to hear motherfuckers scat who can actually hear changes and sing them instead of just oobey-doobeying a bunch of semi-syncopated fumblefuxations. Especially at that tempo.

And when it gets to the fours, hey...

And - the way Annie Ross hops back in for the closing ensemble, singing lead like that, that's a chick who can drive my bus anytime, what with confidence skills like that. Possibly higher than a muffker at that. Still got that pocket, and lovin' it.

Pretenders be gone!

Skills baby, SKILLS.

Word.

I'd only add that Jon Hendricks' time and phrasing -- 100% rooted in bebop -- are every bit as hip as his harmony, maybe hipper. Not only do most scat singers completely shuck through the harmony, their time is so square that it doesn't even matter what notes they're singing. I mean, I'll forgive vagueness and intonation is you're at least giving me swing. But with J.H. you get it all. He's a bad m.f. ...

In this clip with Mel Torme the difference is striking. I like Mel (more in other clips but he's a great musician), but you can hear in this duet with Hendricks how much more connected rhythmically he is the late swing era/Ella compared to Hendricks, who bebops his ass off. Jon is considerably more behind the beat and several times Mel sounds like he's rushing in comparison.

Edited August 26, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[Chuck Nessa]

Just Dandy!

[JSngry]

How does Hendricks end up not having his own mike?

Anyway, talk about time...just found this one. Definitely a "show piece", but there's so many ways this could go wrong, especially if the time starts getting all "show-y", but no, it stays in the pocket and builds, just like it should. The pocket is a good place to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EIm9OFQuAQ

[Mark Stryker]

How does Hendricks end up not having his own mike?

Anyway, talk about time...just found this one. Definitely a "show piece", but there's so many ways this could go wrong, especially if the time starts getting all "show-y", but no, it stays in the pocket and builds, just like it should. The pocket is a good place to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EIm9OFQuAQ

Ah, beat me to the punch. I've watched this clip a million times and it kills me everytime I hear it because it's just so take-care-of-business on every level, especially the swing. Could be the corniest shit in the world but it sounds like the hippest instead.

I've seen Jon Hendricks a few times over the years and even relatively recently, with the voice basically gone and the range very limited, he still gets over because it's NEVER not in the pocket. It don't mean a thing and all that ...

He was at the Detroit Jazz Festival around 2005 and after his set he came over to hear Aretha Franklin, who was closing the festival that year. I was standing not too far away from him with a good sight line to the stage. Aretha morphed from the most substantial music of her set and was into the real "showbiz" part of the night, moving all around, preening with back-up singers, hard funky rhythm and the whole bit. I sort of sidled up behind Hendricks (who I did not know) and leaned in and said to him, "You should do some of that in your show." I was joking but he turned to me and said, "Oh, we can do that. We can do that." He was serious, and I believed him.

Edited August 26, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[Mark Stryker]

Coda: Dave Lambert is making the changes too on "Airegin" ...

[JSngry]

Oh yes, absolutely. That was never in doubt!

[Larry Kart]

Perhaps it's a fine line, but for me on "Airegin" Hendricks sounds like he's imitating/reassembling licks from instrumentalists he's heard while Lambert is telling his own primarily (or significantly) vocal and musically coherent story. Like most vocalese (which this is not, strictly speaking), Hendricks here and elsewhere reminds me of this famous anecdote:

Boswell: I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

I didn't feel that way about Lambert here, though.

[Mark Stryker]

Perhaps it's a fine line, but for me on "Airegin" Hendricks sounds like he's imitating/reassembling licks from instrumentalists he's heard while Lambert is telling his own primarily (or significantly) vocal and musically coherent story. Like most vocalese (which this is not, strictly speaking), Hendricks here and elsewhere reminds me of this famous anecdote:

Boswell: I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

I didn't feel that way about Lambert here, though.

Interesting. You're proposing a distinction between a "lick"-based solo (Hendricks) versus more organic melodic creation (Lambert) that in instrumental terms might equate to, say, Sonny Stitt vs. Warne Marsh. I'm not sure I agree, at least to the implication that Hendricks is not as coherent here -- he's still telling a story, though I would agree that he references more common practice vocabulary than Lambert does. Moving from melody to rhythm, Hendricks swings harder to me, deeper in the pocket and more lightning triplets and bebop curlicues. (Though make no mistake Lambert is swinging pretty damn hard too.) Returning to my Stitt analogy, even there are certainly times when you know what Stitt's going to play, it doesn't matter (at least to me), because the time, phrasing, swing and command of the vocabulary are so great. Of course, I don't listen to Stitt for the same things as I listen to Marsh for and vice-versa.

Leaving that aside, I don't understand how Lambert is more "vocal" in conception compared to Hendrick's "instrumental" conception? Scatting is by definition singing without words in an instrumental fashion, yes? On that level at least I don't hear any difference betweeen the two singers.

Am I missing something?

On another front, generally speaking I have always felt at any given moment there are only anywhere from 5 to 10 people on the planet who should be allowed to scat sing. I think we can all agree that both Lambert and Hendricks passed the audition.

Edited August 26, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

...Hendricks sounds like he's imitating/reassembling licks from instrumentalists he's heard...

That's what most instrumentalists (the overwhelming majority, actually) do too. But most vocalists don't have the skills to do it this fluently. Would that they did, or at least that they'd recognize that they don't and either stop trying or else go to the skills store and get some.

As for the whole vocalese thing in general, I'm less interested as time goes on. But this clip ain't about vocalese, it's about scatting, and how most of the nonsense that passes for scatting is either some degree of inept and/or quite basic. What Hendricks and Lambert are doing here makes neither concession or excuses about dealing with the tempo and the idiom.

Whatever Walter Johnson told Connee Boswell about female dogs preaching on their hind legs is really not relevant to that, although it certainly is a clever tale of Old World fascinations of and with both gender and species. But these days, women regularly preach (and quite well), and dogs now routinely walk on their hind legs, at least if they want to do the laundry or work a chainsaw.

And you know they do.

Edited August 26, 2011 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

...Hendricks sounds like he's imitating/reassembling licks from instrumentalists he's heard...

That's what most instrumentalists (the overwhelming majority, actually) do too. But most vocalists don't have the skills to do it this fluently. Would that they did, or at least that they'd recognize that they don't and either stop trying or else go to the skills store and get some.

As for the whole vocalese thing in general, I'm less interested as time goes on. But this clip ain't about vocalese, it's about scatting, and how most of the nonsense that passes for scatting is eitehr some degree of inept and/or quite basic. What Hendricks and Lambert are doing here makes neither concession or excuses about dealing with the tempo and the idiom.

Whatever Walter Johnson told Connee Boswell about female dogs preaching on their hind legs is really not relevant to that, although it certainly is a clever tale of Old World fascinations of wand with both gender and species. But these days, women regularly preach (and quite well), and dogs now routinely walk on their hind legs, at least if they want to do the laundry or work a chainsaw.

To both Jim and Mark:

Yes, that's what most instrumentalists do, but to me Hendricks sounds like he's basically imitating some very licks-based saxophonists; and because he doesn't have much of a voice by jazz vocalists' standards, let alone much of a "voice" by the standards of a good jazz tenorman, the results seem to me to be interesting mostly because it can be done at all, a la you know what.

Lambert OTOH seems to me to invent from and with his voice -- I particularly like the way he gets that back and forth rhythmic and timbral phrasing thing going from, so it seems, the back and front of his chest and belly. This is kind of Pres-like, or better maybe Wardell-like, but to me the difference between Lambert and Hendricks is that Lambert's "instrument" is his voice plus his hipness and Hendricks' is almost entirely his hipness.

As for the vocalese thing, as I may have implied (and in fact believe), the way L-H-R sing here springs historically and conceptually from the vocalese concept (fitting words to recorded jazz solos), whether not they're actually scat singing. I am willing to listen to contrary evidence.

BTW, speaking of scat singing that's almost beyond belief, check out the great Leo Watson.

[JSngry]

Yes, that's what most instrumentalists do, but to me Hendricks sounds like he's basically imitating some very licks-based saxophonists; and because he doesn't have much of a voice by jazz vocalists' standards, let alone much of a "voice" by the standards of a good jazz tenorman, the results seem to me to be interesting mostly because it can be done at all, a la you know what.

Sorry dude, you lose me there. I don't know what that means. I'd know Hendicks' voice (and "voice") anywhere. If this is a subjective matter, fine. Otherwise, HUH?

As for the vocalese thing, as I may have implied (and in fact believe), the way L-H-R sing here springs historically and conceptually from the vocalese concept (fitting words to recorded jazz solos), whether not they're actually scat singing. I am willing to listen to contrary evidence.

No...what they're doing here is pure scat singing, singing a solo in an instrumental vocabulary with no lyrics in mind. Vocalese doesn't enter into it at all. For a predecessor, look no further than Dizzy, especially on that Salle-Pleyel big band date where him & Kenny Hagood go back and forth. Dizzy, like Hendricks & Lambert, can actually sing the vocabulary, make the changes, shade the accents, get the phrasing in the pocket. Hagood, fine as he is as a balladeer, is basically clueless as to what to do. As are most singers who try to scat.

Truth be told, they both remind me in concept of Benny Green at least as often as not.

[Mark Stryker]

...Hendricks sounds like he's imitating/reassembling licks from instrumentalists he's heard...

That's what most instrumentalists (the overwhelming majority, actually) do too. But most vocalists don't have the skills to do it this fluently. Would that they did, or at least that they'd recognize that they don't and either stop trying or else go to the skills store and get some.

As for the whole vocalese thing in general, I'm less interested as time goes on. But this clip ain't about vocalese, it's about scatting, and how most of the nonsense that passes for scatting is eitehr some degree of inept and/or quite basic. What Hendricks and Lambert are doing here makes neither concession or excuses about dealing with the tempo and the idiom.

Whatever Walter Johnson told Connee Boswell about female dogs preaching on their hind legs is really not relevant to that, although it certainly is a clever tale of Old World fascinations of wand with both gender and species. But these days, women regularly preach (and quite well), and dogs now routinely walk on their hind legs, at least if they want to do the laundry or work a chainsaw.

To both Jim and Mark:

Yes, that's what most instrumentalists do, but to me Hendricks sounds like he's basically imitating some very licks-based saxophonists; and because he doesn't have much of a voice by jazz vocalists' standards, let alone much of a "voice" by the standards of a good jazz tenorman, the results seem to me to be interesting mostly because it can be done at all, a la you know what.

Lambert OTOH seems to me to invent from and with his voice -- I particularly like the way he gets that back and forth rhythmic and timbral phrasing thing going from, so it seems, the back and front of his chest and belly. This is kind of Pres-like, or better maybe Wardell-like, but to me the difference between Lambert and Hendricks is that Lambert's "instrument" is his voice plus his hipness and Hendricks' is almost entirely his hipness.

As for the vocalese thing, as I may have implied (and in fact believe), the way L-H-R sing here springs historically and conceptually from the vocalese concept (fitting words to recorded jazz solos), whether not they're actually scat singing. I am willing to listen to contrary evidence.

BTW, speaking of scat singing that's almost beyond belief, check out the great Leo Watson.

Hmm. While it's true that Hendricks doesn't have much in the way of a traditional vocal instrument, the skills with which he manipulates it -- rhythmic, harmonic and melodic understanding -- qualify as more than hipness. Those are musical skills. So is his intonation which is mostly spot-on, except when he pushes and/or gets tired. I hear Hendricks in the line of jazz singers and instrumentals who don't have conventional voices or tones but find ways to overcome weakness or, in some cases, make virtues of them.

On the other point, I don't see how the actual scat singing here stems from the vocalese concept. In the solos, the cats are blowing like any other scat singers -- except WAY better.

Thanks for the tip on Leo Watson -- don't know the work at all.

Edited August 26, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Vocalese is simply singing a previously created melody as verbatim as possible. Scatting is simply vocally improvising.

Other than that both involve the voice and both function in the "jazz" idiom, I don't see any meaningful similarities, although one huge difference is that somebody can be able to sing a vocalese piece really well and not be able to scat worth even half-a-damn. I think I'd put Annie Ross in that category, and no insult is meant at all. It's just two totally different disciplines with only partially overlapping skill sets.

[Larry Kart]

Unfortunately, the Leo Watson clips on YouTube aren't representative. He got better and far more far out in the '40s. There's a good Watson album, but its pricey.

Jim -- My vocalese/scat point was both conceptual and historical, though I think your vocalese definition does need some refinement; it's "putting words to an improvised recorded jazz solo." The "recorded" part is important because a key part of the pleasure of listening to a vocalese performance, if you respond at all, is that you already know the solo to which the words have been set.

In any case, there was scat singing long before there was vocalese, but once vocalese emerged, the singers who got into it, like Ross and Hendricks, tended to be touched by their vocalese experiences when they sang scat, for better or for worse. By contrast, a scat singer who seemingly wasn't touched by vocalese, e.g. Sarah Vaughan, did not to my mind attempt to mirror instrumental licks but improvised with and from her vocal instrument.

That Watson album:

http://www.amazon.com/Original-Scat-Man-Leo-Watson/dp/B00000JQL1/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1314396106&sr=1-1

[JSngry]

Unless one has an incredibly photographic (audiographic?) memory, a solo would have to be recorded in order to put words to it, so that's an implicit afaic.

But with this, I could not disagree more:

...there was scat singing long before there was vocalese, but once vocalese emerged, the singers who got into it, like Ross and Hendricks, tended to be touched by their vocalese experiences when they sang scat...

The implication there is that nobody was vocally mimicking/undertaking bebop solos until somebody had the notion to put words to them, and...that does not compute. You had plenty of (attempted) bebop scatting before vocalese came along, even if most of it was not particularly good, Dizzy being the exception that proved the rule.

Dizzy exemplified the old-school maxim that if you can sing it, you should be able to play it & if you can play it, you should be able to sing it. And to the best of my knowledge, Dizzy never did any vocalese. But he sure did plenty of bebop scatting. and why not? And why not others do the same, other than it's pretty damn hard to sing all the chromatics and extended, altered intervals found in the bebop language. The voice is not built to do that without the infliction of some external, directed, discipline. Couple the innate difficulty of the task with the path of significantly less resistance for a singer to just sing those damn songs, and you're down to a minute subsection of bebop-inclined musicians who would actually make the effort to sing with the same skills as an instrumentalist. But every old-school horn player worth a damn I've know can sing their lines, if not as "professionally" as they can play them.

I'd wager that Jon Hendricks (and maybe Dave Lambert) was learning to sing Bird solos a long time before thinking about putting words to them. He was once a what, tenor player? So I've no doubt whatsoever that he was already scatting like that long before the vocalese thing came his way. It's unnatural to think otherwise, in my opinon.

As far as Annie Ross goes, if I've ever heard her scat, even in a basic manner, it's not made an impression on me one way or the other. I really don't even consider the possibility. But she can do some vocalese, even if she sounds less at ease doing it as a single than she does in a group. In that regard, she's a good lead player in the section, not the jazz player.

[JSngry]

Now that I think about it, the notion that vocalese led to bebop-based scatting strikes me as akin to suggesting that the invention of banana pudding is what led to people eating plain bananas.

Edited August 26, 2011 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

Unless one has an incredibly photographic (audiographic?) memory, a solo would have to be recorded in order to put words to it, so that's an implicit afaic.

But with this, I could not disagree more:

...there was scat singing long before there was vocalese, but once vocalese emerged, the singers who got into it, like Ross and Hendricks, tended to be touched by their vocalese experiences when they sang scat...

The implication there is that nobody was vocally mimicking/undertaking bebop solos until somebody had the notion to put words to them, and...that does not compute.

That vocalese led to bebop-based scat singing is not at all what I said or, I think, implied, because it's certainly not what I believe.

First, I think we can agree that there was scat singing (Armstrong anyone?) long before there was bebop scatting or any bebop to scat to or in the style of. Second, I don't think there's a whole lot of reason to divide pre-bop scat singing from bebop scatting, except perhaps for the coloration that placing the familiar "bop language" sounds in the foreground gives to bebop scat singing -- and I assume that those syllables/sounds and the actual music arose synergistically and simultaneously.

All I I'm saying is that the specific discipline/skill/style/whatever of vocalese -- the placing of words to a recorded solo in as mirror-like a manner as possible -- tended to have a significant affect on the scat singing of those who got into vocalese and also engaged in scat singing.

[Chuck Nessa]

WHATEVER! Dave Lambert was a musical MoFo!

[JSngry]

I don't think there's a whole lot of reason to divide pre-bop scat singing from bebop scatting...

Huh? That's a bit like saying that there's not much reason to divide pre-bop alto playing from bebop alto playing,,,bebop was bebop, no matter what the "instrument". And some spoke it more completely than others.

Really, check out Dizzy on that Salle-Pleyel big band date. That's nothing but pure bebop scat singing, and just as with bebop in general, there is a huge divide between it and what came before. Not a complete divide, but...there it is, Long before there was vocalese.

All I I'm saying is that the specific discipline/skill/style/whatever of vocalese -- the placing of words to a recording solo in as mirror-like a manner as possible -- tended to have a significant affect on the scat singing of those who got into vocalese and also engaged in scat singing.

No, I think that's wrong. I think it was the ability to hear/feel/sing bebop in general that allowed people who could scat bebop to sing the vocalese as well (or not) as they did. King Pleasure had a certain gift and appeal, but musically, he was nowhere near the musician that Jon Hendricks was. Same ting with Eddie Jefferson - beautiful soul, but his scatting was not particularly "literate". In both cases, these are guys who thought it would be a cool idea to put words to solos, so they went about learning the lines as best they could. Whereas with Hendricks and Lambert, they sound like people who were already capable of singing the lines, so putting words to them was like, hey, this is a potentially viable proposition. But if vocalese never existed, I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that they would still be able to throw down like they did on "Airegin". I have no doubt about that whatsoever, because you don't get to that level of vocal skills by dealing with words put to instrumental solos. You just don't. You get to that level of vocal skill the same way you do with any other instrument - by dealing with the notes, the phrases, the inflections. Not the words.

Now, having siad that, yeah, they both are not exactly fonts of limitless ideas. But I'll make the same wager that that would be the issue if neither of them ever sang a note in their lives.

Bottom line - to sing bebop, you learn bebop. To sing vocalese, you learn words and then hope for the best.

[paul secor]

Have to say that I enjoy LHR more for their vocalese than for the scatting. I did enjoy the first clip, but wouldn't want a steady diet of that.

[Larry Kart]

To quote from Chuck's book of wisdom: WHATEVER.

I'm done.

[JSngry]

Cool, but do revisit Dizzy's scatting. Quite the thing, it is.

[Hardbopjazz]

These videos were wonderful. I went and saw Jon and Annie in June at the Blue Note in NYC, albeit they can't do what they were doing in these videos, they made you fell good all over. And there was no autotune.

[JSngry]

Ok, here's the difference:

King Pleasure sounds like he's got the words and is having to get the music (which he does, well enough). Hendicks sounds like he's already got the music, totally fluent in pitch & rhythm, & is just adding words.