A good selection of vocal jazz available locally

A good selection of vocal jazz available locally

By Paul W. Blair

JAKARTA (JP): What makes a vocalist a jazz singer? I'd say
it's the ability to imitate the phrasing and even the timbre of a
wind instrument played in the jazz style.

The breathing, pacing and delivery of a jazz singer tends to
resemble that of a jazz saxophonist or trumpet player rather than
more conventional vocalists. Jazz singers are likely to use the
song as a point of departure, much as any jazz improviser does.
Yet scatting -- wordless vocalizing -- isn't a necessary element.
While some of the singers mentioned below do scat, others never
do.

Maybe the most acceptable definition would simply be this:
jazz singers are singers who jazz listeners most enjoy listening
to.

As it happens, there's quite a good assortment of jazz vocal
cassettes at local music shops, all but one issued in Indonesia
on the Jakarta-based Legend label, which has secured the local
rights to issue recordings that originally appeared on such U.S.
labels as Prestige, Riverside, Pablo, Milestone and Fantasy.

Cassettes, I maintain, are a wise buy for those who want to
sample unfamiliar music since they're less than one-fourth the
cost of the average compact disc, which usually sound only
marginally better and may contain only the same amount of music.
Remember to punch out the two little tabs on the rims, so you
won't accidentally record over the music; local producers never
do that for you in advance. And do try to put a label of your own
on each tape; Indonesian-made cassettes usually come without any
indication of what's on them.

First-class jazz singing started, of course, with Louis
Armstrong. While the eleven tunes on Mack the Knife certainly
aren't Louis at his creative peak of a decade or two earlier,
they're all brightened by his particular brand of magic. This set
was recorded live at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, soon after
Louis' appearance in High Society, and includes two songs
featured in that movie: Now You Has Jazz and High Society
Calypso.

Joe Turner, in his later years, had almost no teeth and no
vocal range left. In addition, he'd ballooned so much that he had
to perform sitting down. Yet his huge hollow voice remained as
compelling as ever, the epitome of the Kansas City blues style he
helped to established in the Thirties.

On The Midnight Special, recorded in 1979, Turner is hampered
not at all by the totally undistinguished band backing him. The
last track, Stoop Down Baby, a loping medium-tempo blues in which
Turner strings together a series of totally unrelated but
outrageously salacious blues couplets, is worth the price of the
album all by itself.

Two cassettes on Legend preserve the good times enjoyed by an
enthusiastic crowd at Marla's Memory Lane Supper Club in Los
Angeles over the course of two nights in May, 1986. On the
bandstand were two distinctive jazz vocal stylists: Etta James
(probably better known to the general public as an R&B star) and
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, along with a real crackerjack of a band
kicked along by organ player Jack McDuff.

Of the two cassettes (Blues in the Night and The Late Show), I
prefer the former because it includes two masterful vocal
performances by Cleanhead (Kidney Stew and a hilarious Railroad
Porter Blues) plus a fine duet with Ms. James on Please Send Me
Someone to Love. Both tapes are good, though. Play them loud on a
decent stereo and you'll feel part of the crowd at Marla's
yourself.

Don't confuse Etta James with Etta Jones, a singer with a far
less heated style whose Don't Go To Strangers (1960) contains
several songs that jazz singers rarely attempt: I Love Paris, On
the Street Where You Live and even Yes Sir, That's My Baby. She
brings something different to each one with a style somewhat
reminiscent of late-period Billy Holiday. The title song is
especially compelling, as is the tasty instrumental backing which
highlights Frank Wess' flute. This one is highly recommended,
too.

The white Mississippi-born singer-pianist Mose Allison has had
a large and loyal following ever since the Fifties when he began
performing blues originally recorded by black artists. These
days, he records mostly original material (his White Boy Who
Stole the Blues on a recent album is a wry comment on that
earlier practice). But Mose Allison's Greatest Hits collects
songs from 1957-59: his versions of Sonny Boy Williamson's
Eyesight to the Blind, Willie Dixon's The Seventh Son, Percy
Mayfield's Lost Mind and thirteen more, including some pop
standards like Blueberry Hill and Don't Get Around Much Anymore.
I honestly can't imagine anyone not liking what Mose does.

Jazz phrasing

No singer in this survey better illustrates my point about
jazz phrasing than Abbey Lincoln. To hear the way she moves from
one note to another, much as a trumpet soloist might,
deliberately smearing a bit here and there and carefully altering
her vocal tone from phrase to phrase, is to understand that the
best jazz, vocal and instrumental, involves a certain degree of
subtlety that singers like Dianne Schuur lack completely. While
Abbey Lincoln never over-sings a song, she always manages to get
her message across most feelingly.

The all-star group that accompanies her on Afro-Blue
(originally released in 1960) provides backing that's all the
more effective because it's so minimal. Songs include classics
like Softly As In a Morning Sunrise and Lost in the Stars, along
with several original Abbey Lincoln tunes that she turns into
instant classics. This is surely one of the finest vocal albums
ever. Grab it while you can.

Performances in Jakarta this week by Jon Hendricks & Company
have demonstrated how exciting vocal jazz can be. Works by the
vocal jazz forefather Eddie Jefferson are collected on Letter
From Home, which dates from 1962 and includes the words he penned
to fit such jazz standards as Billie's Bounce and A Night in
Tunisia. Though his lyrics were never as coherent, literate or
funny as those Hendricks has written over the years, this is a
set worth hearing because Jefferson's trick voice is so appealing
and his sense of time so keen.

There are eleven very good performances by Chris Connor on the
album Chris Connor Classics, recorded in 1986. The participation
of a hot quintet led by alto saxophonist Paquito d'Rivera makes a
fine contrast to Connor's essentially cool, no-strain approach.
Songs include Laura, Blame It On My Youth and We'll Be Together
Again.

On The Tony Bennett-Bill Evans Album, pianist Evans shares
equal billing with singer Bennett. He deserves it. Now well into
his fifth decade as a music great, Bennett is even finding an
audience among the MTV crowd. But some of his biggest fans insist
that this set of 1975 duo performances is his best. There are
splendid treatments of Young and Foolish, But Beautiful, My
Foolish Heart, The Touch of Your Lips and five other songs. It's
a pity that this pair only pooled their talents once.

Chet Baker played trumpet very well. But his breathy singing
voice won him even more attention. Chet Baker Sings collects a
dozen vocals from 1958, when his voice sounded especially boyish.
Nightbird (released on an Australian label called ESMMC and
available locally) captures Baker live on one 1986 night at
Ronnie Scott's London jazz club. It hardly sounds like the same
person, given the rigors of the life Baker led in the interim.
Actually, I prefer the latter because it includes a bit more
trumpet playing.

Finally, there's September Ballads, a set recorded in 1987 by
Mark Murphy. Here's a singer who seems to make a point of
avoiding the well-worn standards of repertoire. Instead, he
prefers to polish little-known gems by good composers. This
particular collection includes material by writers as diverse as
Michael Franks, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Willie Nelson and Steve
Allen, among others. Of all the singers working in the jazz field
today, I know of no one with better technical skills and -- even
more important -- more refined musical tastes than Mark Murphy.
Local listeners who enjoy this far-ranging collection will also
want to catch him some night next week when he performs at the
Jakarta Blue Note.

For an interesting sampling of jazz vocal styles -- nine
singers doing fourteen songs -- pick up The Jazz Vocals, a
locally-assembled anthology on Legend that includes two tracks
each by Mark Murphy, Chris Connor and Sarah Vaughan, as well as
contributions from Eddie Jefferson, Ella Fitzgerald, Flora Purim
and a host of others.