Dinah Washington R3, Sat 26 Feb 4.00pm

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Speak Low

Vaughan after hours club

Streisand big production recording star

Holiday :cool2:

The Composer well that's what he thought eh

Jazz Piano Walter Bishop Jr bebop pianist takes the song round the block[ed chords] and grooves and Jimmy garrison on bass showing why he joined Coltrane

Jazz Group Shelley Manne giving it the West Coast crisp and punchy bop treatment, especially Conte Candoli on trumpet

Another Jazz Group Hank Mobley giving it that NYC Blue Note hard bop sound [Wynton kelly again] :cool2:

[Serial_Apologist]

a jazz singer is an artist that fits in the music of a jazz performance and also inspires it .... not many do the latter, many more can fit in .....

In the light of that view, Calum, it's interesting that Norma Winstone has spoken of feeling uncomfortable fronting a band, preferring to "fit in".... I've got quite a few recordings of her in which she quite clearly manages to inspire what else is going on around her, too.

S-A

[Lateralthinking1]

A lot to follow up here - I confess I am pleased with the positive comments on Cleo Laine - I've always liked her as a singer and as a person.

[Pianorak]

The Composer well that's what he thought eh

You sure that wasn't Lotte Lenya?

[Ian Thumwood]

Pianorak

What I find staggering in these lists which seek out to rank singers is that they are so rooted in the past that they totally over-look the fact that there is something of a renaissance in jazz singing at the moment. Whilst the likes of Diana Krall get a lot of the media attention (I was under-whelmed when I heard her live last year) there can be no getting away from the fact that there exists at this point in time a wealth of great jazz singers in a level of abundance hitherto not really experienced.

For me, Dianne Reeves has got to be in the top four along with Ella, Billie and Betty Carter. I've seen her on about four occasions and always been blown away by the quality of her voice and the sheer magnitude of her jazz chops. Granted she has also made some more commercial offerings, but she is extremely technicall assured. Form this latter perspective, she is probably only excelled by the Italian singer Roberta Gambarini - cited by All About Jazz website as having a technique in excess of Ella's. There are quite a few records where she guests with other musicians although I think there are probably only about 3 under her own name. The two that I have heard are master-classes.

Moving on to the more idiocyncratic, I would have to put a call in for Cassandra Wilson who has made some terrific recordings on the Blue Note label over the years. Disc like "New moon daughter" and "Belly of the sun" take on a huge country blues influence and both are discs that I wouldn't be with out. The more "straight aheas" "Loeverly" is also very good. More recently, I've been listening to the Brazilian singer Luciana Souza who is a bit like a latin Joni Mitchell. "The New Bossa" is very pleasing ( a more contemporary take of the Getz / Gilberto disc?) but "Tides" is exceptional. I've also heard Liz Wright on two occasions and been bowled over by the quality of her voice.


Whilst some of the record labels have been pushing a lof of pretty "safe" girl singers, I don't think the more "musical" artists should be over-looked and it you can handle the works of the likes of Norma Winstone or Sheila Jordan, the names I have suggested shouldn't be too difficult to appreciate. I would have to argue that Betty Carter is , for me, the ultimate jazz singer but readily appreciate that her work may be a bit too difficult to get into given her propensity to discard melody when performing standards. Definately something of a "marmite" singer, but I live her uncompromising approach - probably represents what jazz is about than any other singer.

[Quarky]

"Never got Sarah Vaughan. Not distinctive enough for me. "

I think I know what you mean. To my mind there are three types of great Jazz singers:
1. Great Singers who were brought up in the Jazz idiom and who have the gift to project their inner feelings in to the song - Dinah Washington, Peggly Lee
2. Great Jazz musicians whose instrument is their voice - Sarah, Ella
3. The current crop of Jazz singers that we don't know much about but have to rely on Ian and Calum to inform us.

To my great regret, I have a blind spot in regard to Billie Holiday.

[Pianorak]

. . . what jazz is about . . .

Many thanks, Ian. The problem is I really do not know "what jazz is about". It was rather stupid of me to say "the current crop of white female singers blah, blah" as I haven't heard of, let alone listen to, any you mention.
While I can listen to, for instance, any number of Beethoven or Mozart Sonatas in one sitting - I find listening to jazz rather tiring after a while. Maybe it's because with "classical" music you have a logical progression: Exposition, development, recapitulation and variations thereof. Jazz seems to be "circular", going round and round in circles (but not Theme and Variations) and after a while my mind just switches off because I am lost. I'm thinking here of << Dexter Gordon "Take the 'A' Train" and "Body and Soul"; Thelonious Monk: "The London Collection: Volume Two"; and Art Tatum: "The V-Discs". >>, tapes I recently rediscovered. Maybe I should just go with the flow and not try and discover patterns.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yes pianorak the flow is where it is at .... do you listen to Indian Classical music sitar/sarod/flute improvisations? [that said it has both form and formality of discipline]

my apologies for neglecting to mention Norma Winstone and Sheila Jordan, and I would add Carmen MacRae too ....

..and yes the youtube claims it was Weill singing Speak Low ... it should be clear that Streisand is in no way a jazzbird ... i have to say that not getting Billie is a character flaw and you damned in all eternity

Ms L Sousa is a delightful singer of Brazilian Song but not a jazzbird in my view but Ian is right to raise the names of Betty Carter and Diane Reeves [who made one really good jazz album for the soundtrack of Goodnight & Good Luck]

my intent in posting all those versions of Speak Low was to highlight the graduations around the 'jazzness'; clearly Bishop, Manne and Mobley are using the tune, Billie always lives it and the Divine One [Vaughan] is flaming it in a night club [wondrous technique, gorgeous voice, cold heart i find] ... and into the theatrical or showbiz ... the composer and Streisand

[Billie and Mobley would be my desert island picks ... there is a version by Rollins that alas is not on youtube; nor one by Dinah] [i find the least appealing in jazz terms to be the two divas, Streisand and Vaughan, though from a show or song book perspective they do greatly entice me]

[Lateralthinking1]

I doubt that I would be overly keen on Streisand as a person and I can't think of her as a jazz singer. What I would say is that at her peak she had an ability to find the mystery of a song, often supported by the arrangements. She made those songs interesting and in fact often chose (less well known) standards that had precisely that quality.

[Ian Thumwood]

Calum

Luciana Souza is definately jazz. I don't think she has a great range but what she does with her voice is interesting and definately not a case of singing anything "straight." The two albums I mentioned are worth checking out but "Tide" , with all it's hipness, would be a good starting point to countering your argument. Also worth noting that she has cropped up on a host of other records (including the pianist Aaron Goldberg who you mentioned last week) and is also regularly employed as an "instrument" within Maria Schniecer's enembles. In my opinion, pretty difficult not to think of her as a jazz singer.

Ian

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... i do have many of her albums Ian, i prefer to think of her as a singer of Brazilian song forms, yep in jazzy company she holds her own [ but her pitch can be a problem] but i find her at her best singing on albums like Brazilian Duos ...

here is Tide which i had not heard before

George Garzone is on some of her albums and she is on his Alone

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i had forgotten that Harold Land is on the Dinah Jams album ...here he is balladeering with the lady