Jazz Corner: The Subtle Art of Vocalese in Jazz

Jazz is known for its free expression and improvisation; it is music which is not set down to be played only as envisaged by its composer, rather, in jazz the measure of a performer’s skill is the quality of his or her improvisation on a given theme. This challenge to create something special, something different, during a recording or a live concert brings out the best from a musician’s skills of technique and imagination. Thus a soloist on the saxophone, trumpet, piano or any other instrument is telling the listeners a story. The beauty of this story is what jazz listeners seek, and they explore the various recordings available to them. The creative process which starts with the musicians continues with the avid jazz fan when he keeps looking out for a gem he or she might have missed.

Vocalese goes a step further into this process and that is a story in itself. What is this vocalese and how did it all begin?

Some jazz vocalists, fascinated by the intricate instrumental solos on record, decided to create lyrics for these great improvisations. The pioneer amongst them was Eddie Jefferson who was greatly inspired by the saxophone solos of Charlie Parker. In around 1950, Jefferson emerged with lyrics for Parker’s up tempo “Now’s the Time”. Soon thereafter, he heard James Moody’s saxophone solo on “Moody’s mood for love” and again Eddie Jefferson wrote very creative lyrics for this tune. This vocal version has become a standard and is performed to this day, popular even with jazz vocalists in India. This art of singing lyrics to jazz performances came to be known as vocalese. It was immediately recognised as an exciting jazz genre and stirred up a lot of interest among jazz buffs.

While Eddie Jefferson was a wizard with this concept, he was not the greatest vocalist and his recordings did not immediately gain attention. However another singer, going by the name King Pleasure, a contemporary of Jefferson’s took forward the new trend of vocalese. With his fine singing voice, he made several recordings emulating the concept of vocalising instrumental solos. He came up with vocal versions of Charlie Parker’s “Parker’s Mood” and “Swan’s Blues” based on a tune by tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons.

The already fertile imagination of jazz musicians was further stimulated by vocalese and established vocalists like Betty Carter, Carmen MacRae and Chet Baker (who sang and played trumpet) experimented with the possibilities of this new style of singing.

A singer and lyricist, Jon Hendricks took the idea of vocalese even further by creating vocals for an entire orchestra! He was fascinated by the big band arrangements of Count Basie and Duke Ellington and created vocal alternatives for them.

Jon Hendricks has created the backbone of vocalese which has now taken root to become a most innovative and a stand alone category of jazz performance.

Along with another brilliant vocalist, Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks wrote lyrics for complex arrangements of Count Basie’s masterpieces. It is the work of genius and certainly of high dedication to set words to an entire orchestra – 4 trumpets, 4 saxophones and 3 or 4 trombones! Hendricks and Lambert took as many as five years to complete this project which they recorded as an album “Sing a Song of Basie”. They had added another vocalist, Annie Ross for the album.

They then became a vocal trio, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, perhaps the most significant vocalese group ever in jazz and have created several great vocalese songs with almost all the lyrics being written by Hendricks. They created and sang vocalese from the originals of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Horace Silver, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and a number of others.

Annie Ross left the group in 1963 and was replaced by a young vocalist, Yolanda Bavan from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) who was a drama student in New York but knew all the lyrics and arrangements of the group. They performed live and recorded a few albums under the name Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan.

A number of bands have followed the vocalese pattern of LH & R.

The Manhattan Transfer is perhaps the best known of these, although other groups such as New York Voices, Rare Silk among others have all become popular in the jazz community.

An amazing European group, The Double Six of Paris is another vocalese group, singing their lyrics in French. Led by Mimi Perrin, they have recorded a superb album with Dizzy Gillespie, one of the more esoteric albums in jazz history, and a few other albums as well.

Vocalese is here to stay. It makes some complex jazz solos accessible to newcomers to jazz listening and a live Vocalese performance is thrilling to watch and hear. If you don’t get a chance to hear it live, listen to some recordings.

We have a short list of fine recordings from the vocalese selection listed here for those who wish to enjoy this genre of jazz.

KING PLEASURE: Swan Blues
EDDIE JEFFERSON: Now’s the time.
LAMBERT HENDRICKS AND BAVAN: One o’clock jump.
LAMBERT HENDRICKS AND ROSS : Four.
MANHATTAN TRANSFER: Spain
DIZZY GILLESPIE & THE DOUBLE SIX OF PARIS: Blue n’ Boogie
JON HENDRICKS AND FRIENDS (Al Jarreau, George Benson, Bobby McFerrin): Freddie Freeloader

Sunil Sampat is a jazz critic and Contributing Editor of Rolling Stone India. Write to Sunil at jazzwala@gmail.com