Jazz Vocalists - CD/SD

The first post in this thread is insane
His second comment even more so:
But Louis Armstrong, I find it very hard to take him seriously as a vocalist. In any sense.
I mean, I don't think pop singing was taken seriously UNTIL Armstrong's first vocal recordings in the 1920s. Then it became high art.

Lots of people have trouble with lots of jazz vocalist but singling out those three was bananas.

i saw that jon hendricks show; it was a greeeeeaaaaat time

Oh no, you didn't. Did you? Did he sing "Crepuscule With Nellie?" Did you get in on a forks discount?

A little greased-lightning vocalese from Mr. Hendricks. I actually prefer a different version which is slower, but I couldn't find it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDbAsndZGW0

Any suggestions for a good place to start with Dinah Washington?

First Issue: the Dinah Washington Story is a pretty good 2-CD overview, while the The Definitive Dinah Washington keeps things to one disc.
Other good studio albums includes After Hours with Miss D, Dinah Jams and Dinah!

In The Land of HiFi is pretty great.

There is a really cool medley of "Cloudburst" and a Stephen Sondheim song "Getting Married Today" by John Pizzarelli and his wife Jessica Molaskey.

lol, i did get in on a forks discount actually.
no nellie, but he did "in walked bud" among plenty other stuff.
seeing hendricks and bobby mcferrin freestyle together was a great bucket list moment
Diane Reeves ripping up Social Call didn't hurt either.
And the second act full length big band set from Jimmy Heath weren't too shabby!
great night
i actually got to meet and talk with Hendricks when he played the blue note earlier this year. what a passionate, vivacious, powerhouse of a guy. If that's ninety, I can't wait to feel and look that good. He spent a lot of time talking about astrology!

Wait, are you saying you went that show he played with Annie Ross?

yeah, were you at that one?
i waited upstairs to talk to both of them and annie came out distracted and i took her hand with both of mine and gave her a real serious heartfelt "thank you" and she stopped and we had a super minor for her very major for me moment of her looking me over and then saying "you're welcome honey" and she went down the stairs and was gone

No, I thought about going but couldn't make it and don't really like to go to the Blue Note too much. I've seen Annie before at the Metropolitan Room a few times. Actually what I did do was the weekend before that show, Annie's piano player had a gig at Smalls so I went down there and my long shot came in when Jon showed up dressed in his captain's whites. I talked to him for a second and got to see him sing a few numbers including "Crepuscule with Nellie," which he said he never recorded because Nellie wouldn't let him because it was too personal and "In Walked Bud." Now that I think about it I've also seen Andy Bey sing that last one.

i've seen bey twice before; both times in small rooms and i was blown away by his voice
been listening to experience and judgment a lot lately and finding it to be like reading rumi

JRatB, we likely wobble in the same circles.

We need to get Hurting to come out more and close the loop.

I never got around to listening to AB's records, only saw him once and I didn't like the band he had that night so much but I liked some of what he was doing, especially a song about the blues with all these elaborate lyrics about the different specific meanings the word "blues" has in music. I need to listen to more.

no time like the present:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQOHF3pZmk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbnIT_DoRv8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoTP7gZsDYE

Thanks. Complete derail, but you weren't at Drom for this event, were you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfYwm2HgLCQ&noredirect=1

no. looks like a good time tho. i've done some work with the drom cats.

It was pretty cool especially later when some other cats joined in. I remember watching that show and gradually calming down after having gotten into some beef on an early loutallica thread.

Back to the topic, sort of: When I went to see Annie Ross the second time she remembered me from the time before because I had requested a song so I was pretty happy but then after the show I overstayed my welcome a little on the receiving line and somebody, Warren Vaché, maybe, gave me the back off look so I got out of there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTW1nBg_TF8&feature=artist

umm.

RIP Chuck Brown. Your album with Eva Cassidy nicely mixed blues and jazz

http://www.evacassidy.org/eva/citypaper.htm

aw man, that sucks

I just can't get into Kurt Elling's voice. Listening on Spotify to his new "1619 Broadway:The Brill Building Project" cd.

Washington Post reviewer just raved about his live show highlighting that album. Ehh. I'll stick with old-schoolers.

Other than a song or two here or there (I like his over the top version of "Nature Boy") he's too showoffy and too much for me too.

I have more time for him than you guys do

goddamn this cecile mclorin-salvant album is good
she's killer live too

Will have to check that out.

Buika covers Billie Holiday and Abbey Lincoln on her new cd. I like her "velvet gravel" voice (saw that description in the press kit)

Pretty soon that entire press kit will appear on ilx in one place or another.

I keep trying to find someone else interested in her on ilx, but am about to give up. She's recording an NPR Tiny Desk show when she comes to DC next week. Maybe when that runs, someone here will find her of interest, but I doubt it. Maybe I'll add her to the Chitlin Circuit soul thread and see if XChuckx likes her.

I am kind of interested. I had some idea I was going to go out last night to ask John Benitez about it but I didn't.

Gloria Lynne, Dakota Staton and other female jazz vocal balladeers

saw cecile with dee dee bridgewater recently; completely brought the house down

ilm back in the day had some interesting opinions

Yep

a friend is wondering what the jazz with fairly trad croon-y vocals but more freaky and experimental instrumentation she heard was. nothing that fits the bill to any great extent is coming to mind. any ideas? (also general suggestions, it sounds like it could be an interesting combination.)

city of glass?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2v-Y7Ggb-g

turns out it was scott walker she heard, oops. this is a nice track tho

https://youtu.be/LjTqqL8p7t8

https://youtube.com/LjTqqL8p7t8

Aargh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjTqqL8p7t8

I think I like her vocals better than his

Think she has lots of upside to her career right now. I like him fine, have seen him sing to the accompaniment of cats I really dig. Now that I think about it, he played the last night ever at one of my favorite places ever, a place called Cachaça, I must have posted about it a few times when it was still going.

been on a big Chet Baker/Blossom Dearie/Astrud Gilberto sorta vibe lately - anybody got any recommendations for similar stuff

Try Daryl Sherman for a Blossom Dearie-type approach.

From the The Future Is Now! thread some KK vids posted there too:

From press sheet:

Karin Krog
Don't Just Sing | An Anthology: 1963-1999

2xLP & CD Available: June 30, 2015 (Digital: June 16th)
Light In The Attic

The work of Karin Krog may be unfamiliar to much of the world, but in her native Norway and Scandinavia at large, she’s practically a household name. This says much about the local enthusiasm for post-bop jazz but also about the tyranny of distribution: until 1994, Krog’s albums weren’t available in the USA or UK, meaning three decades of recordings were waiting to be discovered. In theory, until now, she hasn’t had any regularly distributed albums in the US or the UK–this is certainly the first one even marketed/promoted in here and in England. With this anthology of her best recordings from 1963 to 1999–curated with Krog’s own input–we hope to set the record straight.

To listen to opening track “As A Wife Has A Cow” is to jump into the deep end. It’s 54 seconds of words, voice, and technology, a looped, echoing reading of a Gertrude Stein poem. The effect is disquieting and alien but deeply rhythmic, too–and that’s Krog’s USP. Don’t Just Sing takes in these spoken experiments along with free jazz, improvisation, standards, contemporary covers, and electronic manipulation. It features some of the best regarded jazz players in Europe, not least her partner, John Surman, the English saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist and composer. Like Annette Peacock, Krog experiments with solo vocals run through electronics and performs with progressive electric jazz combos and traditional acoustic groups as well.

Krog began singing jazz in the 1950s and started her first band in 1962. She not only had two tracks on the first ever Norwegian jazz LP, Metropol Jazz, but also became the first Norwegian jazz artist to record and release a full album (1964’s By Myself on the Philips label). Her sound developed as technological advances made new recording techniques possible, and she quickly embraced the album as the perfect form to contain her sonic experiments. “There is such a thing as too much manipulation,” says Krog today.

Recorded with tenor saxophonist Jan Garbarek and bass player Arild Andersen, 1968’s Joy is regarded as her masterwork. Tracks from it can be found on this compilation, as can a couple of interesting covers: Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want” and Bobby Gentry’s “Ode To Billy Joe,” both of which show how Krog brought jazz aesthetics to pop songs of the day. “I remember that there was a lot of buzz around Blue, and Joni Mitchell is, as everybody knows, a very talented singer and songwriter,” says Krog in the new liner notes.

“Glass" and “Tystnaden" are the two previously unreleased finds from the archives, the former written for a British documentary in 1997, the latter a soundscape improvisation from a 1963 studio session with Lars Werner on piano, Kurt Lindgren on bass, and Janne Carlsson on drums. The compilation rounds off with the “Psalm” movement from John Coltrane’s monumental piece, A Love Supreme. Krog’s version came at suggestion of the man himself. “It was John who pointed to the text on the inner sleeve of the Impulse! LP and said, ‘Karin, look. Why don’t you sing this?’” she remembers.

Krog remains fiercely productive, recording, performing, and running Meantime Records from her and John’s villa near Oslo. Now 77, she’s showing no signs of slowing down. “Everybody has to retire at some point, but I believe that once a musician, you’re always a musician,” she says. “If I can’t stand up and sing on stage anymore, I can always do it sitting down!”

Curated with Krog’s own input, this anthology showcases her best recordings from 1963 to 1999, including songs from 1968’s groundbreaking Joy, her 1970 Dexter Gordon collaboration Some Other Spring, her pop-jazz masterwork 1974’s We Could Be Flying, tracks from the Japanese only Different Days, Different Ways which focus on 1970-72 experimental vocal works, and previously unreleased tracks.

― dow, Tuesday, April 21, 2015 6:07 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow, that is great! (interested in the g. stein piece especially)

― no lime tangier, Tuesday, April 21, 2015 6:48 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― no lime tangier, Tuesday, April 21, 2015 6:52 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just listened to the promo of the xpost Karin Krog antholgy, good stuff. "Ode To Billy Joe" doesn't really suit her, but otherwise yeah: she sounds like she's been around, all the more reason to go for the finer things in life, o baby. The more cosmic (more atmospheric, less earthy), still sensuous tracks later on--fave so far: "Don't Just Sing," with her tonal shifts mirrored and/or aided & abetted by studio and synth effects---rec. to fans of Sheila Jordan, maybe more than Annette Peacock, who's got something of a different (or just more) attitude. Krog sounds smart, sometimes sly, confident, like the lady who runs the detective's favorite bar (might be a bar with weed).

― dow, Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:09 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not so crazy about the sax solos on here, but usually she's just got keys, bass, drums, occasionally other percussion, that's all she needs.

― dow, Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:13 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It def sounds like a bar with weed.

― dow, Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:14 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's an article on her in the new issue of The Wire.

I am liking some of Jose James' new album Yesterday I Had The Blues: The Music of Billie Holiday that features Jason Moran on piano, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Eric Harland, and is produced by David Was. Some of it is too measured and stiff, but other cuts work

i saw a hugely enjoyable outdoor concert by cyrille aimee a couple of weeks ago. brought the house down with her scatting. really into rhythm. the guitars were hot too.