Duke Ellington

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December 29th, 2009 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Duke Ellington

Scat singing, sometimes simply called scat, first came into being at the turn of the twentieth century and is largely used by jazz singers to spice up a song. It involves improvising certain parts or even all of a song using the voice, with or without the use of gibberish words of syllables. Although various artists have been doing scat early on, it was Louis Armstrong who has been given credit for setting the turning point for scat singing with his 1926 recording of the national bestseller “Heebie Jeebies.”

Thus, after Louis Armstrong set the pace for scat singing, many other jazz singers and artists followed suit. A specific example would be “Creole Love Call,” recorded on the 26th of October in 1927 by Duke Ellington’s Orchestra and featuring Adelaide Hall, who sang the song without using any words. Her performance has been described as being similar to a growl trumpeter. Ellington did it again in 1932, when he recorded one of his renditions of “The Mooche.” In this song, a low-key trombone solo done by Tricky Sam Nanton was followed by Baby Cox singing scat akin to the said trombone number. Also, groups like The Boswell Sisters frequently incorporated scat into their records, and even went further as to do scatting in harmony. An exceptional illustration would be their rendition of “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).”

However, before the World War II scat singing was regarded by some authorities as indecent, even reaching the point where it was banned from being broadcast over BBC radio in the late 1930s.

Nonetheless, scat singing continued to advance and become more complex, in tune with the development of jazz music. Eventually, the bop era arose and avant-garde scat singing became all the rage. Famous jazz singers who were important and employed scatting regularly during this period include Ella Fitzgerald, Annie Ross, Dizzy Gillespie, Anita O’Day, Eddie Jefferson, Jon Hendricks, Betty Carter, Babs Gonzales, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, and Joe Carroll. Among them, perhaps the most universally acclaimed would be Fitzgerald, who also once has deemed herself the best scat singer jazz has ever seen.

The 1960s saw traditional scat singing paving the way for the free-jazz movement, wherein scat singers began to incorporate sounds previously thought of as non-musical into their records. These sounds included cries, laughter, and screams. Bop was also revived in the 1970s, leading to a rekindled and greater fascination in bop scat singing. During this time, famous artists included The Stooges, a protopunk group fronted by Iggy Pop who integrated scat singing, in the form of vocal extemporation and screaming, into their record albums called Raw Power and Fun House.

In the 1990s, particularly during the middle part of the decade, interest in this musical genre was renewed by jazz musican Scatman John. Also, Dave Matthews of Dave Matthews Band is a known buff of scat singing. His diverse style has been referred to by his fans as “Davespeak,” which basically ranges from jumpy gibberish to the more traditional forms of scat singing.

Indeed, scat singing has grown significantly since it first began almost a century ago.

About the Author:

Anthony Reyes is also the author of the review at Singorama

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Scat Singing: Later Development

DUKE ELLINGTON ET SON ORCHESTRE