What makes a jazz singer?

[Teasing the Korean]

5 minutes ago, JSngry said:

So my rule is a seemingly simple but ultimately definitive solution - PUT IT WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT!!!!!!

Yeah, I agree.  And I realize that I may be missing weird juxtapositions that may occur if I simply filed A to Z.  But I don't think it would work for me, though I get where you're coming from.

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, jazzbo said:

A lot hinges on "what is jazz?" That's a question I keep answering, differently at times.

My answer is now that I don't care what I am told that it is or isn't. It is for me what I say it is to me, and if it means enough to me, I ain't calling it anything as reductive as a record store marker.

But....

 

3 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Yeah, I agree.  And I realize that I may be missing weird juxtapositions that may occur if I simply filed A to Z.  But I don't think it would work for me, though I get where you're coming from.

I mean, dude, I am TOTALLY out of shelf space now. Literally out of it. So shit just gets set down wherever it fits in any order. So yeah, I got to put it where I can find it, which right now is mostly grouped by when I bought it, when it came into the house, simple as that. And more than once, I forget everything I've brought into the house, and it's like OH!!!! and everything takes a detour and that's almost always fune, especially when it doubles in and out of itself.

Good free-form radio used to do that for me, but hell, when was the last time THAT happened, wight?

[Teasing the Korean]

7 minutes ago, JSngry said:

My answer is now that I don't care what I am told that it is or isn't. It is for me what I say it is to me, and if it means enough to me, I ain't calling it anything as reductive as a record store marker.

But....

 

I mean, dude, I am TOTALLY out of shelf space now. Literally out of it. So shit just gets set down wherever it fits in any order. So yeah, I got to put it where I can find it, which right now is mostly grouped by when I bought it, when it came into the house, simple as that. And more than once, I forget everything I've brought into the house, and it's like OH!!!! and everything takes a detour and that's almost always fune, especially when it doubles in and out of itself.

Good free-form radio used to do that for me, but hell, when was the last time THAT happened, wight?

I have a weird thing where my first copy of a record was in rough shape, and years later, I'm thrilled to find a copy in clean condition.  I bring it home, look at the old one, and it too is in perfect shape.  I upgraded long ago, but the first trashed copy is emblazoned onto my psyche!

[Rabshakeh]

36 minutes ago, JSngry said:

According to his biography, he was anything but excited about the project.

Really? That's funny. Anyway. He does a good job on that record. Master craftsmen can work even when anything but excited, it appears. 

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Hillbilly is neither.

Hillbilly is not really "Country" either, at least not in modern terms, endless lip service to the contrary.

Where would this record go, why, and why not?

 

I'd just call this Country? By Hillbilly I understand pre-war fiddle, blues and folk tunes by Southern white performers. George Jones is surely right dead centre at the heart of country music at its finest.

Regardless, I like a record shop that files all that stuff together with blues and folk and the rest, ideally with lots of long out of print 60s reissues of the pre-war people, and a couple of off the beaten track records from the 90s by blues guys from random cities I have never visited.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

For the first album anyway, she mostly got old charts from him and they adjusted keys and such. Didn't really do any new writing, not to any significant extent.

Apparently riddle was not the happiest of people. He was appalled at Ronstadt's naivete about what it was that she thought she was doing. Maybe things got bettweer with subsequent projects, I don't know. But she herseld is hard to lsiten to on those records.

At least Rod Stewart sings them like pop songs. He understands pop songs. So cringey as it is, at least it still sounds like a pop song, not som ekid trying to be Jo Staffitzgerrest or some whit.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

I'd just call this Country?

This is on the same record. Is it Country? 

 

[Rabshakeh]

15 minutes ago, JSngry said:

This is on the same record. Is it Country? 

 

Don't think so. It's not 'Hillbilly' either.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

Hillbilly I understand pre-war fiddle, blues and folk tunes by Southern white performers. 

And then what happened, all hillbillies were raptured of the face of the earth? Really?

 

7 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Don't think so. It's not 'Hillbilly' either.

Of course it's not. But it's on the same record as that BB King George Jones record. What bin in the record store does it go, and why? 

[Rabshakeh]

11 minutes ago, JSngry said:

And then what happened, all hillbillies were raptured of the face of the earth? Really?

Record industry decided it was offensive and started using "country and western" is my understanding.

11 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Of course it's not. But it's on the same record as that BB King George Jones record. What bin in the record store does it go, and why? 

I don't know. The discount bin?

[JSngry]

That's where I got mine. On cassette no less 

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

Record industry decided it was offensive and started using "country and western" is my understanding.

And just like that POOF they were all gone! 

[JSngry]

 

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

 

I love Kay Starr. Caught her once live -- dynamite. She did a great album a good while back with Red Norvo.

[dicky]

"He's fucking Rod Stewart. There has never been any real depth there, just projection of personality and a voice that met the demands of that quite well."

Something tells me you're not really acquainted with the 10 albums Rod recorded btw 1968 & 1972. If you are and still feel that way then we just strongly disagree. 

[GA Russell]

Steve Allen defined a jazz singer to be a singer who either...

a) sings jazz, or

b) sings in front of a jazz band.

[JSngry]

32 minutes ago, dicky said:

"He's fucking Rod Stewart. There has never been any real depth there, just projection of personality and a voice that met the demands of that quite well."

Something tells me you're not really acquainted with the 10 albums Rod recorded btw 1968 & 1972. If you are and still feel that way then we just strongly disagree. 

I was alive then, heard them then, and have changed since then. So yes, we just strongly disagree 

[dicky]

2 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I was alive then, heard them then, and have changed since then. So yes, we just strongly disagree 

Fair enough

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

I love Kay Starr. Caught her once live -- dynamite. She did a great album a good while back with Red Norvo.

 

[JSngry]

 

[Brad]

To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, “I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.”

[mikeweil]

12 hours ago, GA Russell said:

Steve Allen defined a jazz singer to be a singer who either...

a) sings jazz, or

b) sings in front of a jazz band.

Edited March 12, 2023 by mikeweil

[Teasing the Korean]

18 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

A good example of what's involved in being a jazz singer, because she's almost singing it "straight" but definitely is not: Trumpeter is Joe Wilder.

 

Thanks, I didn't have a chance to listen yesterday.  I am not familiar with her.   I just listened.  That was good.

So I'm clear, are you saying that this meets your criteria for jazz singing, even though she is not radically changing the melody?

Edited March 12, 2023 by Teasing the Korean

[Larry Kart]

Yes. it's the meaningful (storytelling, if you will) plasticity of her phrasing. And while she doesn't literally alter the melody, the nuances of her timbral variations more or less do that. Further, it's her intimacy; she's inside the song. Musically and emotionally.

[Teasing the Korean]

9 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Yes. it's the meaningful (storytelling, if you will) plasticity of her phrasing. And while she doesn't literally alter the melody, the nuances of her timbral variations more or less do that. Further, it's her intimacy; she's inside the song. Musically and emotionally.

I would agree.  And the idea of being "inside the song" emotionally is a big part of what makes a great singer. There are singers with technically good voices who don't at all connect with me, it's like they are singing the lyrics phonetically without paying attention to what they are saying.  One of the main reasons that Sinatra connects with me - At least Capitol and early Reprise Sinatra - is how he sounds like he has lived the lyrics.  

[Larry Kart]

The way Frank reads the lyrics of "Willow Weep for Me"! It's an object lesson in how to weave vowel sounds into a tapestry of feeling. And thanks to Ann Ronell for giving him the pallet to work with. Nelson Riddle too.

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

The way Frank reads the lyrics of "Willow Weep for Me"! It's an object lesson in how to weave vowel sounds into a tapestry of feeling. And thanks to Ann Ronell for giving him the pallet to work with. Nelson Riddle too.

A couple of others that always come to mind are Frank's Capitol versions of "I See Your Face Before Me" and "A Cottage for Sale;" and the Reprise version of "Serenade in Blue."