Scat singing
Originating in vocal jazz, scat singing or scatting is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all.[2][3] In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice solely as an instrument rather than a speaking medium. This is different from vocalese, which uses recognizable lyrics that are sung to pre-existing instrumental solos.
Characteristics
Structure and syllable choice
Though scat singing is improvised, the melodic lines are often variations on
The deliberate choice of scat syllables is also a key element in vocal jazz improvisation. Syllable choice influences the pitch
Humor and quotation
Humor is another important element of scat singing. Bandleader Cab Calloway exemplified the use of humorous scatting.[11] Other examples of humorous scatting include Slim Gaillard, Leo Watson, and Bam Brown's 1945 song "Avocado Seed Soup Symphony," in which the singers scat variations on the word "avocado" for much of the recording.[12]
In addition to such nonsensical uses of language, humor is communicated in scat singing through the use of musical quotation. Leo Watson, who performed before the canon of American popular music, frequently drew on nursery rhymes in his scatting. This is called using a compression.[13] Similarly, Ella Fitzgerald's scatting, for example, drew extensively on popular music. In her 1960 recording of "How High the Moon" live in Berlin, she quotes over a dozen songs, including "The Peanut Vendor," "Heat Wave," "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."[14]
History
Origins
Improvisational singing of nonsense syllables occurs in many cultures, such as diddling or lilting in Ireland, German yodeling, Sámi joik, and speaking in tongues in various religious traditions.
Although
Jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton credited Joe Sims of Vicksburg, Mississippi, as the creator of scat around the turn of the 20th century.[23] In a conversation between Alan Lomax and Jelly Roll Morton, Morton recounted the history of scat:[2]
Lomax: "Well, what about some more scat songs, that you used to sing way back then?"
Morton: "Oh, I'll sing you some scat songs. That was way before Louis Armstrong's time. By the way, scat is something that a lot of people don't understand, and they begin to believe that the first scat numbers was ever done, was done by one of my hometown boys, Louis Armstrong. But I must take the credit away, since I know better. The first man that ever did a scat number in history of this country was a man from Vicksburg, Mississippi, by the name of Joe Sims, an old comedian. And from that,New Orleans. And found it was pretty good for an introduction of a song."
Lomax: "What does scat mean?"
Morton: "Scat doesn't mean anything but just something to give a song a flavor."[2]
Morton also once boasted, "Tony Jackson and myself were using scat for novelty back in 1906 and 1907 when Louis Armstrong was still in the orphan's home."[24] Don Redman and Fletcher Henderson also featured scat vocals in their 1925 recording of "My Papa Doesn't Two-Time No Time" five months prior to Armstrong's 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies."[25]
Heebie Jeebies
It was Armstrong's February 1926 performance of "Heebie Jeebies," however, that is considered the turning point for the medium.
"I dropped the paper with the lyrics—right in the middle of the tune. . . And I did not want to stop and spoil the record which was moving along so wonderfully . . . So when I dropped the paper, I immediately turned back into the horn and started to scatting . . . Just as nothing had happened . . . When I finished the record I just knew the recording people would throw it out . . . And to my surprise they all came running out of the controlling booth and said—'Leave That In.'"[17]
Armstrong's "Heebie Jeebies" became a national bestseller and, consequently, the practice of scatting "became closely associated with Armstrong."[19] The song would serve as a model for Cab Calloway, whose 1930s scat solos inspired George Gershwin's use of the medium in his 1935 opera Porgy and Bess.[27]
Widespread adoption
Following the success of Armstrong's "Heebie Jeebies," a number of popular songs featured scat singing. In June 1927, Harry Barris and Bing Crosby of bandleader Paul Whiteman's "The Rhythm Boys" scatted on several songs including "Mississippi Mud," which Barris had composed.[28]
On October 26, 1927, Duke Ellington's Orchestra recorded "Creole Love Call" featuring Adelaide Hall singing wordlessly.[29] Hall's wordless vocals and "evocative growls" were hailed as serving as "another instrument."[30] Although creativity must be shared between Ellington and Hall as he knew the style of performance he wanted, Hall was the one who was able to produce the sound.[29] A year later, in October 1928, Ellington repeated the experiment in one of his versions of "The Mooche," with Getrude "Baby" Cox singing scat after a muted similar trombone solo by Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton.[31]
During the Great Depression, acts such as The Boswell Sisters regularly employed scatting on their records, including the high complexity of scatting at the same time, in harmony.[32] An example is their version of "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)."[32] The Boswell Sisters' "inventive use of scat singing was a source for Ella Fitzgerald."[32] As a young girl, Fitzgerald often practiced imitating Connee Boswell's scatting for hours.[33]
Fitzgerald herself would become a talented scat singer and later claimed to be the "best vocal improviser jazz has ever had," and critics since then have been in almost universal agreement with her.[1] During this 1930s era, other famous scat singers included Scatman Crothers[34]—who would go on to movie and television fame[34]—and British dance band trumpeter and vocalist Nat Gonella[35] whose scat-singing recordings were banned[c] in Nazi Germany.[35]
Later development
Over the years, as jazz music developed and grew in complexity, scat singing did as well. During the
Free jazz and the influence of world musicians on the medium pushed jazz singing nearer to avant-garde art music.
The bop revival of the 1970s renewed interest in bop scat singing, and young scat singers viewed themselves as a continuation of the classic bop tradition. The medium continues to evolve, and vocal improvisation now often develops independently of changes in instrumental jazz.[27]
During the mid-1990s, jazz artist John Paul Larkin (better known as
Vocal bass
Vocal bass is a form of scat singing that is intended to vocally simulate instrumental
Use in hip hop
Many
Historical theories
Some writers have proposed that scat has its roots in
Others have proposed that scat singing arose from jazz musicians' practice of formulating riffs vocally before performing them instrumentally.[40] (The adage "If you can't sing it, you can't play it" was common in the early New Orleans jazz scene.[40]) In this manner, soloists like Louis Armstrong became able to double as vocalists, switching effortlessly between instrumental solos and scatting.[40]
Scat singing also resembles the Irish/Scottish practice of lilting or diddling, a type of vocal music that involves using nonsensical syllables to sing non-vocal dance tunes.[43]
Critical assessment
Scat singing can allow jazz singers to have the same improvisational opportunities as jazz instrumentalists: scatting can be rhythmically and harmonically improvisational without concern about the lyric.[44] Especially when bebop was developing, singers found scat to be the best way to adequately engage in the performance of jazz.[36]
Scatting may be desirable because it does not "taint the music with the impurity of denotation."[45] Instead of conveying linguistic content and pointing to something outside itself, scat music—like instrumental music—is self-referential and "d[oes] what it mean[s]."[46] Through this wordlessness, commentators have written, scat singing can describe matters beyond words.[45][47] Music critic Will Friedwald has written that Louis Armstrong's scatting, for example, "has tapped into his own core of emotion," releasing emotions "so deep, so real" that they are unspeakable; his words "bypass our ears and our brains and go directly for our hearts and souls."[47]
Scat singing has never been universally accepted, even by jazz enthusiasts. Writer and critic Leonard Feather offers an extreme view; he once said that "scat singing—with only a couple exceptions—should be banned."[36] He also wrote the lyrics to the jazz song "Whisper Not," which Ella Fitzgerald then recorded on her 1966 Verve release of the same name. Many jazz singers, including Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Rushing, and Dinah Washington, have avoided scat entirely.[48]
See also
- Asemic writing – Wordless open semantic form of writing
- Chopper (rap) – Music style
- Gibberish – Nonsensical language
- Glossolalia– Phenomenon in which people speak words apparently in languages unknown to them
- Idioglossia
- List of scat singers
- Literary nonsense – Genre of literature
- Mumble rap – Microgenre of hip hop
- Lilting
References
Notes
- ^ In her 1949 performance of "Flyin' Home," Fitzgerald alternates the bilabial "b" and "p" plosives with the alveolar plosive "d".[7] The "b" and "p" sounds are formed similarly to the sounds of jazz wind instruments, which sound by the release of built-up mouth air pressure onto the reed, while the "d" sound is similar to the tonguing on jazz brass instruments.[7] William Stewart, a Seattle researcher, has proposed that this alternation simulates the exchange of riffs between the wind and brass sections that is common in big bands.[8]
- ^ Sarah Vaughan tends to use the fricative consonant "sh" along with the low, back of the mouth "ah" vowel. The "sh" closely resembles the sound of brushes, common in the bop era, on drum heads; the "ah" vowel resonates similarly to the bass drum.[9]
- ^ Scott 2017, p. 302: In 1930s "Nazi Germany, the records of British trumpeter and bandleader Nat Gonella were banned there and scat singing was a criminal offence."[35]
Citations
- ^ a b Friedwald 1990, p. 282
- ^ a b c Hill 2014
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 622
- ^ a b Friedwald 1990, p. 145
- ^ Berliner 1994, p. 125
- ^ Berliner 1994, pp. 125–126
- ^ a b Stewart 1987, p. 65
- ^ Stewart 1987, p. 66
- ^ Stewart 1987, p. 69
- ^ Stewart 1987, p. 74.
- ^ Crowther & Pinfold 1997, p. 129
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 627
- ^ Friedwald 1990, p. 140
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 623
- ^ a b c Crowther & Pinfold 1997, p. 32
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 618
- ^ a b c d Edwards 2002, pp. 618–619
- ^ a b Edwards 2002, p. 619
- ^ a b Gioia 2011, p. 59
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 619
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 620
- ^ Friedwald 1990, p. 16
- ^ Nicholson 1993, p. 89
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 620
- ^ Edwards 2002, p. 619
- ^ Giddins 2000, p. 161
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Robinson 2007
- ^ Hendricks 2003, p. 66
- ^ a b Williams 2003, p. 113
- ^ Hentoff 2001
- ^ Lawrence 2001, p. 136
- ^ a b c Wilson 1981, p. 4
- ^ Nicholson 1993, pp. 10–12.
- ^ a b New York Times 1986
- ^ a b c Scott 2017, p. 302
- ^ a b c Crowther & Pinfold 1997, p. 130
- ^ Crowther & Pinfold 1997, p. 135
- ^ a b c Edwards 2009, p. 114
- ^ Godfrey 2010
- ^ a b c d Berliner 1994, p. 181
- ^ Berliner 1994, p. 68
- ^ Higgins 1985
- ^ Ó Nualláin 2002, pp. 306–307
- ^ Crowther & Pinfold 1997, p. 132
- ^ a b Grant 1995, p. 289
- ^ Leonard 1986, p. 158
- ^ a b Friedwald 1990, p. 37
- ^ Giddins 2000, p. 162
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-226-04381-4.
- Crowther, Bruce; Pinfold, Mike (1997). Singing Jazz. London: ISBN 0-87930-519-3.
- Edwards, Brent Hayes (2002). "Louis Armstrong and the Syntax of Scat". available online.
- Edwards, Paul (2009). How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC. ISBN 978-1-4481-3213-3.
- ISBN 0-684-18522-9.
- ISBN 0-306-80987-7.
- ISBN 978-0-19-539970-7.
- Godfrey, Sarah (April 15, 2010). ""How to Rap" and Grading Hip-hop's Professors". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 8, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
- Grant, Barry Keith (1995). "Purple Passages or Fiestas in Blue? Notes Toward an Aesthetic of Vocalese". In Gabbard, Krin (ed.). Representing Jazz. Durham, North Carolina: ISBN 978-0-8223-1594-0.
- ISBN 0972678506.
- Hentoff, Nat (April 1, 2001). For the Love of Ivie. Archived from the original on January 19, 2019. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
{{cite book}}
:|website=
ignored (help) - ISBN 0-932360-63-7.
- Hill, Michael (2014). "Library of Congress Narrative. Jelly Roll Morton and Alan Lomax". Monrovia Sound Studio.
- Leonard, Neil (Spring–Summer 1986). "The Jazzman's Verbal Usage". JSTOR 2904558.
- Lawrence, A. H. (2001). Duke Ellington and His World. New York: ISBN 0-415-93012-X.
- Nicholson, Stuart (1993). Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz. ISBN 0-306-80642-8.
- Ó Nualláin, Sean (2002). "On Tonality in Irish Music". In McKevitt, Paul; Ó Nualláin, Sean; Mulvihill, Conn (eds.). Language, Vision and Music. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 306–307. ISBN 9027297096.
- Pressing, Jeff (1988). "Improvisation: Methods and Models". In ISBN 978-0-19-850846-5.
- Robinson, J. Bradford (2007). "Scat Singing". In Macy, L. (ed.). New Grove Dictionary of Music Online. Retrieved October 30, 2007.
- "Scatman Crothers Dies at 76". The New York Times. New York City. November 23, 1986. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
An early master of the technique of improvising nonsense syllables to a jazz melody, Mr. Crothers said: 'I told him to call me Scatman because I do a lot of scat singing.'
- Scott, Derek B. (2017). Musical Style and Social Meaning. ISBN 9781351556866.
- Stewart, Milton L. (1987). "Stylistic Environment and the Scat Singing Styles of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan". Jazzforschung/Jazz Research. 19: 61–76. ISSN 0075-3572.
- Williams, Iain Cameron (2003). Underneath A Harlem Moon: The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-5893-9.
- Wilson, John S. (June 19, 1981). "Musical: 'Heebie Jeebies,' A Boswells Life In Song". The New York Times. p. 4.
External links
Video examples: