That Jazz - Monkey Max Music and File Download

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Part II: Jazz Greats and Great Jazz: An Evolutionary Riff
Scat-singing refers to the technique where
vocalists improvise wordless melodies, based on
meaningless syllables and sounds. In the 1920s,
Don Redman (on “My Papa Doesn’t Two Time”
and Louis Armstrong (on “Heebie Jeebies”) pioneered
experimentation with scat-singing, but
what survived was what would fit within the
three-minute limits of one side of a 78 rpm
record. Ella Fitzgerald developed a sophisticated
scat technique, inspired by the improvisations of
horn players. She invented fast, precise lines,
sometimes related to a song’s melody, other
The art of scat-singing
times departing from it and weaving through the
harmonies. She shaped her sound by bending
notes and adding many types of tonal inflections.
Other singers also advanced the art of scatsinging.
Eddie Jefferson and King Pleasure sang
amazing bebop versions of jazz tunes originally
recorded as instrumentals. In the 1950s, Jon
Hendricks took scat-singing even further, creating
complex multi-voice harmonies in his group
Lambert Hendricks & Ross. Hendricks proved
that singers can make great instrumental music
without any instruments at all.