RFI: Vocal jazz songform

King Pleasure, The Source:Think I may still have this double-LP collection: first platter is the essential, starting with his Greatest Hit, "Moody's Mood For Love,"-singing his words to James Moody's instrumental version of "I'm In The Mood For Love," (vastly improved by JM and KP, also by Pleasure's guest,Betty Carter). Also got an Eddie Jefferson anth somewhere, and think he might be considered more legit or something? And maybe Pleasure lifted some of his choice of originals? But frankly Mr, Shankly, I much prefer KP's words and singing.
https://www.discogs.com/King-Pleasure-The-Source/master/579137

Oh well okay wiki sez "Moody's Mood" words written by Jefferson, and some prob think Pleasure's voice is too slick, but he still sounds better to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERpyU7oiDUE

With Annie Ross:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGllWVcZAfg&list=PLnNUq-jBzQWhDJCqHeBLxeplezf0z1kbO&index=9&t=0s

Aw crap. Anyway, most of his best stuff is on the 'Tube.

Allan Harris and Kurt Elling two contemporary practitioners of vocalese. Harris even did an Eddie Jefferson tribute album.

King Pleasure seems to be considered kind of a weirdo maybe, but I like some of his stuff including his two Symphony Sid songs, “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid,” which I believe was the vocalese or at least vocal version of Sid’s theme music, composed by Lester Young (and on some kind of split artist album with some Annie Ross material) and “The New Symphony Sid,” recently redone by Van Morrison. Eddie Jefferson seems a little more respectable and I like his stuff, but seem to recall Will Friedwald dismissing him for some reason.

I saw James Moody once at the old Iridium and he played -and sang! - “Moody’s Mood For Love” which was great.

The Van Morrison connection just came up, sort of, in Elvis Costello’s recent post about Annie on FB, about how he first came to know of her through a Georgie Fame cover. It’s was decades before I knew that “Yeh Yeh” (which EC’s wife Diana Krall did a duet with Georgie on a few years back) was a cover of the Jon Hendricks vocalese version of a Rodgers Grant composition.

Co-composed with Pat Patrick of Sun Ra’s band.

Which first appeared on Mongo Santamaría’s Watermelon Man album.

Album has an exclamation point so Watermelon Man!

xxxpost: Oh yeah, Moody could be great---did time in Vegas pit orchs, but re-emerged and kicked my butt via radio concert in the 80s. In "The South's Gonna Do It Again," Charlie Daniels seems to be fiddling the main "Syphony Sid" riff (the part that Pleasure sings as "Jumpin' with my boy Sid in the City" and so on). The track with Annie Ross I tried tp play is "Don't Get Scared": "When you see dan-ger facing you, little man don't, get, scared" (like they're telling you to dwell on "Get, Scared!") "Parker's Mood" starts with open arms, sunrise sound, "Come with meee, if you wanna go, to Kan-sas City." But somehow he works his way around to , "Goin' to Kansas City, sorry but I can't take you," which also seems very Bird, if he bothered with words.
Other faves: "I'm Gone" and "Red Top."

Actually I had heard that Herbie Hancock was subbing for Rogers Grant in Mongo Santamaría’s band when the lightning struck and they first played “Watermelon Man” together but apparently Chick Corea had been the pianist in that band right before that happened. The more you know! Guess Rodgers was the piano player right before Chick.

http://jazzstation-oblogdearnaldodesouteiros.blogspot.com/2012/04/rip-rodgers-grant.html?m=1

Mongo's "Afro Blue" was a big gateway...
for scatting (with some blending in of words at times), Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sheila Jordan are the best I've heard.

Love that tune. Just looked it up, first recorded version was with Cal Tjader’s band, with Paul Horn (!) playing the flute solo, Willie Bobo on drums or timbales, and some other guy other than Mongo taking the conga solo for some reason, Francisco Aguabella. Didn’t know/forgot that Oscar Brown later wrote the lyrics.

Will Friedwald definitely does not like Eddie Jefferson. One of his blind spots, like Jackie and Roy, although lots of people don’t care too much for them I guess.

Didn't know there were lyrics added--thread-relevant after all! Oscar Brown Jr. would be just the guy to do it.
Oh one other thing about Lambert Hendricks and Ross: on their trio=formative Sing A Song of Basie they got into/emerged via overdubbing, when that was not well-known (Sidney Bechet had done it, maybe Les Paul by then). I think they would add up to four tracks each---not seeing that exact figure here, but Friedwald makes the point, while describing the creative situation:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/great-jazz-and-pop-vocal-albums-lambert-hendricks-and-ross-sing-song-basie/ Maybe a career-making album, even though it elaborated quite a bit on what became their signature sound (at least live; I don't know if they ever took it this far in the studio again).

Adding lyrics to a melody not quite the same as vocalese. But yeah, thread needs all the help it can get.

Just picked up Dee dee bridgewater version of Afro Blue which was reissued by Mr Bongo a few weeks back.
Nice.

Also there's a recording by John Hendricks with an early version of the Grateful Dead on the compilation of their pre1st lp recordings that came with the Golden Road box.

What?

Bob Weir:

”Jon’s mind and mouth are so fast that he’s able to get a lot of words into each measure with perfect enunciation. Just being in his presence made us think. Truckin’ has that same vocalese and vocal-harmony feel in places. I thought of Jon as we worked on Truckin’.”

Don’t know how I feel about Jon Hendricks being blamed for “Truckin’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16VLBmF8kXc

suddenly want to hear a LHR or maybe Andrews Sisters cover of “truckin”

Maybe, but only if done in a medley with "Bei Mir Bistu Shein."

Annie Ross, 1938

https://youtu.be/99OB6YeGjeU

sorry, her star turn is at 4:44

xxxxpost Speaking of Dee Dee B. and words added to instrumentals: dunno when Horace Sliver wrote lyrics of "Song For My Father"---maybe when he wrote the melody, but I didn't hear it sung 'til Andy Bey; my fave version is Bridgewater's, but worth hearing by whomever:

I wrote a song for my father in hopes it would give him a thrill after seeing Brazil.
My father’s music came through me but never got to me until
I went down to Brazil---
In Rio all day long, I heard my father’s song...
His father was Portuguese-Cape Verdean, born on a CV island.

Thanks for the Dee Dee tip, Dow, really enjoy this “song for my father” performance of hers here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AapII8zmsdc

Oh your're welcome; yeah, she did a whole album of songs by and associated with Silver, lots of other sets worth checking out too--most recently, I think, a tribute to Nina Simone. Just now turned on the radio and heard most of a Radio Deluxe ep from 15 years ago: Annie Ross just happens to drop in on Jessica Molasky and John Pizzarelli, and hey Dad Bucky P. and a pianist are here too--they talk and listen to a couple of tracks from Annie's latest, I Want To Sing---more talking than singing, but tenacious, savoring the beat---also they listen to Joni Mitchell's version of "Twisted," and she tells how xpost Sing A Song of Basie came about, calling up Miles for him to listen to an early take ect., more stories,---quite a visit.
https://www.mixcloud.com/RadioDeluxe/aug-1-annie-ross-recalled/

Also, elements of "Song For My Father" appear in/are built on in Steely D.'s "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and Stevie W.'s "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing."

From "Interlude," with lyrics credited here to Sarah Vaughn, later known as "A Night in Tunisia," words by Ella Fitzgerald? But wiki sez Raymond Laveen---anyway https://www.jazziz.com/a-short-history-of-a-night-in-tunisia-dizzy-gillespie-1942/ Striking, militant take from Tunisiatourism.info: https://www.tunisiatourism.info/en/articles/a-night-in-tunisia-histoire-dune-chanson I've long liked Chaka Khan's version, maybe I'll try to post it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZEMoXjl-Xg

From What Cha' Gonna Do for Me(1981), which I may still have somewhere. Liked it pretty well---remember it as blending her trademark sound w elements of jazz in various ways.
wiki: reminds me it haswith a guest appearance by Gillespie himself as well as what today would be called a 'sample' of Charlie Parker's legendary four bar alto break from his 1946 recording of the title. Khan's vocal interpretation also features lyrics written by the singer herself.[8]

"Boy, you suck. Just my luck. I'd rather get hit by a truck. Lose/My/Number lose. It." sings Allegra Levy on Lose My Number: Allegra Levy Sings John McNeil, where she adds words and sometimes acatting to the trumpeter's tunes. She's usually more subtle than that, I think---she could be a little louder sometimes, she makes me listen more, and never oversings. Got a tight, kinetic piano trio, and McNeil himself shows up sometimes, like on "C.J.," where the scatting first appears, and the bracing "Strictly Ballroom." "Dover Beach" is my fave headphones ballad, with unusually-well mic'd cymbals and drums (bass always sounds great), never obtrusive. Gonna try to link it from YouTube, c'mon ilx,do me right:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=allegra+levy+%2B+lose+my+number

Oh well at least Firefox shows the playlist link, if not the link in image.

here's the front cover of CD (out Fri.), w personnel listed:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61Nnge4usEL._SL1417_.jpg

listened to the title track, good stuff

Yeah, and forgot to mention that the album sometimes reminds me of Sheila Jordan and Steve Kuhn's albums, also that they and Steve Swallow performed the music he wrote for Robert Creeley's poems, on the album Home. Playground might be a better place to start w Kuhn-Jordan or Jordan-Kuhn projects overall, but think this is the most thread-relevant.
(Complete personnel:
Steve Swallow - electric bass
Sheila Jordan - voice
Steve Kuhn - piano
David Liebman - saxophones
Lyle Mays - synthesizer
Bob Moses - drums)

And I was wondering about who sings Coltrane, when I saw this, on Rolling Jazz--if my first ever attempt to post a link from one thread to another doesn't work, just search on there (or YouTube) for John Coltrane Giant Steps Carnatic Scatting
Rolling Jazz Thread 2020

I love Les Double Six's version of Naima. Big influence on Robert Wyatt, I think.

Will have to check Les Double Six, thanks for reminder.

Last night on John Pizzarelli's and Jessica Molasky's xpost Radio Deluxe, LH&R casually twisted me a new earhole once again, sending me toward rabbithole--now I'm wondering about these 4-albums-on-2-CDs sets, reissued on Avid, also others on Acrobat, Jasmine, Sony Canada, for that matter---do they sound good??
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=lambert+hendricks+and+ross&crid=2FOPQHGG1GODK&sprefix=lambert+h%2Caps%2C195&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_9

I’ve never listened to that show but it sounds like I finally should. John’s website has them but it seems to be a week behind?

Oh but the show has its own site as well.

There might be more that they've posted on Soundcloud---see the one I linked upthread.
B-but you didn't answer *my* question!

Mixcloud, that is (the link is right).

I must say I’ve been enjoying Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Horace Silver album a lot... but I think I love her album of Kurt Weill songs even more. Favorite new-to-me artist of the year!

Great, glad you dig her. I like Ja'l Deux Amours too, from 2007, when she was living in France:
Dave Gelly of The Guardian stated, "'J'ai Deux Amours' was the number with which Josephine Baker captivated Paris in the early 1930s, and Dee Dee Bridgewater is her nearest equivalent today, a star both at home in the US and in her adopted country. Her singing is as expressive as ever, but what really caught my attention was the arrangements, a collaborative effort by the singer and her band. Harmonically sophisticated and at times fairly abstract, they quickly banish any idea of sentimental, Gallic wallow."
...Jason MacNeil of AllMusic commented, "These Parisian café tunes bring out the best in this stellar jazz singer, particularly on the opening title track. Accompanied by accordion, which introduces the song, Dee Dee Bridgewater takes you from Paris down to the French Riviera with a warm, slightly island sound as she sings en français. And she has no problem creating her soothing jazz pipes regardless of language."
...[1] The Buffalo News review stated, "Bridgewater still shows her skill at shaping a phrase, her ability to bring out the depths of every word. She sings in French with obvious relish. But I hope she doesn't forget her fans back home."[3] She hasn't, but
also went further South and made Red Earth with Mali musicians.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27ai_Deux_Amours

Sounds rad, will check it out!

There might be more that they've posted on Soundcloud---see the one I linked upthread.
B-but you didn't answer *my* question!

Sing A Song Of Basie is phenomenal!!

It’s sand, man!

What other New York Voices vocalise is good?

I dunno but I sort of got used to them because they would always show up on Michael Bourne's show before he retired recently.

Some good vocalizing at Smalls the other day showed up recently in my feed. Perhaps I will post the link.

http://twitter.com/i/timeline

try again

I've enjoyed KP's vocalese since getting most of the best on Fantasy twofer The Source in early 70s, but think the below was mostly instrumental? TP lifted the stuck in gorilla bit from a Robert Bloch story (RB's mental revenge on real life poisoner of neighbor kid) https://t.co/sSDcko7fgO

— Don Allred (@0wlred) August 28, 2022

real life drug poisoner of neighbor kid, in Topanga or Laurel Canyon I think---scary story.

O Susannah! Used to love to turn jazz vocal noobs on to her when I worked in the CD store:
We Remember Singer Susannah McCorkle
May 25, 2001 12:00 AM ET
Heard on Fresh Air
with excerpts from her Fresh Air interviews and concerts. She died last weekend after jumping to her death. She was 55. She had 17 albums to her credit and a repertoire of more than 3000 songs. Besides being a literate interpreter of American popular song, she was also a prose writer who published fiction in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan and The O. Henry Book of Short Stories. We also talk with Susannah McCorkle's ex-husband and former manager Dan Dinicola.(REBROADCASTS from 7/17/87, 12/23/88, 4/12/91, 7/3/96).
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1123480

Thanks dow - I actually just discovered her music. (I bought a large shipment of Penguin-recommended jazz CD's for peanuts and her Johnny Mercer album was one of them.)

I looked her up on Wikipedia after enjoying the album and saw what happened with her. Tremendously sad. The address where she lived (and took her life) is actually close to where I used to work back in the early 2010s, and I walked past that location many times while I was there.

Glad you dig her, bird----check xpost Sabia too!
Haven't heard the Mercer, but reminds me that she was sometimes tagged as retro, which she found creepy--the people that wanted her to "wear long white gloves" and so on---also the possible political implications, like the "conservative" connotations of early Jazz in Suits, also what happened with her Cali peers the Carpenters, praised by Nixon for all things pure(actually it now seems like they were just into the West Coast hot house sunshine pop sensibility, a la Curt Boettcher and so on). She was a child of Berkeley, but *musically* not much in thee swim of things out there, or not in terms of what she wanted to perform (although she did do Paul Simon's "Train In The Distance," for instance).

Getting back to or toward vocalese: local station has been playing Carmen McRae's take on "Ruby My Dear," re-titled "Dear Ruby."

Feel like Carmen McCrae gives Jon Hendricks a serious run for his money in the Monk vocalese department.

It's from McRae Sings Monk, originally released in 1990. with Hendricks contributing lyrics only; his voice was pretty worn down by then. Wiki sez, of apparently the most recent reissue:

All music composed by Thelonious Monk, lyricists indicated.
Due to copyright restrictions the song titles of these standards were modified (with the exception of "'Round Midnight"). Monk's original titles are indicated after the track titles.

"Get It Straight" ("Straight, No Chaser") (Sally Swisher) – 3:58
"Dear Ruby" ("Ruby, My Dear") (Swisher) – 6:01
"It's Over Now" ("Well, You Needn't") (Mike Ferro) – 5:28
"Monkery's the Blues" ("Blue Monk") (Abbey Lincoln) – 4:56
"You Know Who" ("I Mean You") (Coleman Hawkins, Jon Hendricks) – 3:31
"Little Butterfly" ("Pannonica") (Hendricks) – 5:15
"Listen to Monk" ("Rhythm-a-Ning") (Hendricks) – 3:05
"How I Wish" ("Ask Me Now") (Hendricks) – 4:56
"Man, That Was a Dream" ("Monk's Dream") (Hendricks) – 2:55
"'Round Midnight" (Monk, Cootie Williams, Bernie Hanighen) – 6:32
"Still We Dream" ("Ugly Beauty") (Ferro) – 3:27
"Suddenly" ("In Walked Bud") (Hendricks) – 3:41
"Looking Back" ("Reflections") (Hendricks) – 5:35
Tracks on original CD release, but omitted on LP and MC

"Suddenly" – 3:13
"Get It Straight" – 3:26
Previously unreleased, alternate takes added since 2001 reissue

"'Round Midnight" (Alternate Version) – 7:11
"Listen to Monk" (Alternate Take) – 2:59
"Man, That Was a Dream" (Alternate Take) – 3:23
Personnel
Carmen McRae - vocals
Clifford Jordan - soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
Eric Gunnison - piano
George Mraz - double bass
Al Foster - drums
Live at Great American Music Hall on January 30 & February 1, 1988 (tracks 1 & 12)
Charlie Rouse - tenor saxophone
Larry Willis - piano
George Mraz - double bass
Al Foster - drums

Ahem, I feel like taking issue with Jon’s voice being “worn down” at that point.

Judging by the way he sounded on the radio, especially live (late 80s-early 90s): kinda sandy and not very loud. Maybe I just heard the wrong stuff.