What makes a jazz singer?

[JSngry]

Does he? Seems to me that he leads with the words and let's the melody follow along.

It's quite effective for him, imo. 

[Teasing the Korean]

13 hours ago, JSngry said:

Ok, here it is. From an interview with John McCowen, found in the recently released bookmagmagbook Sound American No. 29...

!!!

[danasgoodstuff]

Willie's duet album with Webb Pierce is pretty darn Honky Tonk, without much of the Western Swing element that's always there more or less overtly with Ray Price, speaking of whom I like his tribute to Bob Wills a great deal, coincidently also called San Antonio Rose, and Bob's band singer Tommy Duncan was an interesting pop/jazz/country hybrid, and as someone interjects between verses on Ray's SAR 'you sound like Tommy Duncan...You wish!'

[JSngry]

Pivoting to the type of "jazz singer" that gladly exists outside of/away from just "standards"... Abbey Lincoln for starters.

The latter, in particular...that IS a jazz singer and that IS jazz. As long as the must be such things, what else could it be.

Same for this. Branford falls down the proverbial elevator shaft but then comes back a few years later and is ready. That too is jazz.

But who needs Branford?

 

[AllenLowe]

On 8/1/2023 at 7:35 PM, Rabshakeh said:

I guess the question that I was trying to put across with the initial post is this: what is it that Armstrong invented and how was this form, and the form adopted by his successors, different to the surrounding non-jazz ecosystem?

I think that we can all hear what you are describing with respect to Armstrong, but I personally have a hard time analysing why it therefore feels natural to put Armstrong in a bag with e.g. Chris Connor and Joe Turner, and not with e.g. Al Green.

This is obviously true for all genres, where relationships between artists can sometimes be merely taxonomic or completely accidental. But it is perhaps more problematised here, because of the unusual split within the genre between vocal and instrumental forms (assuming that one believes vocal jazz is a genuine form of jazz, which I think we all do), which you don't find in most other musical genres.

The best analysis I can come up with is that Armstrong and Holiday, whether improvising or not, are capable of horn-like phrasing. I think that I would posit that, rather than ability to improvise, as the clearest marker of a top tier jazz vocalist. That's a personal view though and I don't think it fits most jazz singers that well.

these are difficult questions - but I think the essence of what Armstrong did was to destroy the concept of vocal realism in a Dadaesque way, to put an end to heart-on-sleeve emotionalism, creating a distance that actually made it more realistic, in the way it represented a kind of free-associating consciousness of melody and lyric; all while detaching melody from lyric in the same way that a modern artist might draw a human body that was both there and absent, in a type of free-floating spirit world of melody molded to lyric. Like with Joyce this was a much more compelling portrait of life as it is really experienced, of the way in which the mind freely associates experience with the consciousness of experience.

Even though now we have a certain awareness of artistic and aesthetic rationale of the type that I am reasonably certain Armstrong did not employ, in his way he knew all of it, it was ingrained in his soul and he drew, wittingly, upon a deep oral heritage that perceived of improvisation as a natural extension of life and hence consciousness. So it was being done elsewhere in black music, but not in the service of these kind of pop-conscious objects.

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by AllenLowe

[HutchFan]

20 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

these are difficult questions - but I think the essence of what Armstrong did was to destroy the concept of vocal realism in a Dadaesque way, to put an end to heart-on-sleeve emotionalism, creating a distance that actually made it more realistic, in the way it represented a kind of free-associating consciousness of melody and lyric; all while detaching melody from lyric in the same way that a modern artist might draw a human body that was both there and absent, in a type of free-floating spirit world of melody molded to lyric. Like with Joyce this was a much more compelling portrait of life as it is really experienced, of the way in which the mind freely associates experience with the consciousness of experience."

Even though now we have a certain awareness of artistic and aesthetic rationale of the type that I am reasonably certain Armstrong did not employ, in his way he knew all of it, it was ingrained in his soul and he drew, wittingly, upon a deep oral heritage that perceived of improvisation as a natural extension of life and hence consciousness. So it was being done elsewhere in black music, but not in the service of these kind of pop-conscious objects.

Very, very interesting, Allen.  Thanks for sharing those thoughts.

 

[hopkins]

This version of What's Going On performed by Chaka Khan has good rhythm and phrasing... she even scats. Is it Jazz, or just Jazzy ?

Edited August 4, 2023 by hopkins

[John L]

I guess that a pure "jazz singer" is, in a sense, potentially freed from the burden of actually delivering a song.   He or she can just scat along with jazz phrasing as another instrument in the band in a manner that is quite abstracted from the song itself.   

Most truly great singers in all genres use their voices not simply as a sort of jazz horn with limited range, but as vehicles to deliver songs and their lyrics to the listener.   Some such singers, such as Billie Holiday and Tony Bennett, can function that way effectively in a jazz context.   Does that make them actual "jazz singers?"   That question just strikes me as a game of semantics.  They are "singers," full stop. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by John L