Jazz arrangements of vocal harmony tunes

[Rabshakeh]

Can anyone think of any good examples of doo wop or close harmony vocal songs played by jazz groups?

Given that these tunes are well known, have complex arrangements and are generally blues or gospel based, you'd think that they be frequent choices of tunes for smaller jazz grouos, despite being classed as 'lowbrow'. 

The main one that comes to mind for me is The Great Pretender by Lester Bowie. 

[JSngry]

Here's another one by Lester:

And one by Yusef:

 

[Rabshakeh]

I feel that there should be some good cool or west coast arrangements of doowop tunes, but maybe doowop wasn't regarded as sufficiently 'clever' at the time.

[JSngry]

Jack McDuff:

 

[soulpope]

Couldn`t resist 😎🤓 .... sorry for the aberration ....

[Rabshakeh]

Weird that there are so few. There seem to be more jazz versions of renaissance multi-part songs than jazz versions of doowop tunes.

[JSngry]

Not really. Objectively, they're all pretty much the same harmonically and melodically. Definitely rhythmically.  The distinction comes from the vocals, individually and group. 

[danasgoodstuff]

Bennie Wallace doing Twilight Time which was a hit for the Platters

[danasgoodstuff]

Related - Sam Cooke's You Send Me as played by P Sanders & Ed Kelly

[Rabshakeh]

24 minutes ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Bennie Wallace doing Twilight Time which was a hit for the Platters

That's a good one!

4 minutes ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Related - Sam Cooke's You Send Me as played by P Sanders & Ed Kelly

Raises the related question of why there are so comparatively few soul tunes adopted into the jazz repertoire. There are lots, but it tends to be a very specific list of tunes.

8 hours ago, JSngry said:

Not really. Objectively, they're all pretty much the same harmonically and melodically. Definitely rhythmically.  The distinction comes from the vocals, individually and group. 

That might explain it. Although the saxophone is known for it's 'voice-like' qualities, the fact is that attempts to map soul or gospel vocal styles directly to saxophone are, I think, mostly a smooth jazz thing, and not all that satisfying.

28 minutes ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Bennie Wallace doing Twilight Time which was a hit for the Platters

I should add that what I was particularly thinking of when starting this thread was groups with multiple horns playing the doo wop arrangements, not just the central melody. It's even harder to think of those.

[danasgoodstuff]

7 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

I should add that what I was particularly thinking of when starting this thread was groups with multiple horns playing the doo wop arrangements, not just the central melody. It's even harder to think of those.

Yes, I was disappointed the WSQ didn't do that on their R&B album, just take the voices directly from vocal group performances and transfer them to the horns.

Bill Frisell et al doing the Delphonics' La La La La La La Means I Love You, I love this but as far as I know there's no official hard copy product.  I think this was the final tune of an otherwise fairly standard (for them) set list.

[danasgoodstuff]

"@dukdukguus

11 years ago

No one plays a meaner wind-up music box through a Telecaster, into a DL4, then a DeLuxe Reverb than Frisell. Nobody."  from the YouTube comments

[JSngry]

15 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Yes, I was disappointed the WSQ didn't do that on their R&B album, just take the voices directly from vocal group performances and transfer them to the horns.

Bill Frisell et al doing the Delphonics' La La La La La La Means I Love You, I love this but as far as I know there's no official hard copy product.  I think this was the final tune of an otherwise fairly standard (for them) set list.

If the Delphonics count, then so do The Stylistics:

Both are really good songs. 

[danasgoodstuff]

4 hours ago, JSngry said:

If the Delphonics count, then so do The Stylistics:

Both are really good songs. 

Grant Green also did Betcha by Golly Wow and Freddie and Bobby Hutcherson each did nice renditions of People Make the World Go Round

Ray Charles rendition of One Mint julep is probably the best remembered now, but Freddie did it before that and the Clovers did it first, so I think it's squarely within this topic.