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Vocal jazz or jazz singing is a genre within jazz music where the voice is used as an instrument. Vocal jazz began in the early twentieth century. Jazz music has its roots in blues and ragtime and can also traced back to the New Orleans jazz tradition. [1]
- Jackie Paris
- Madeleine Peyroux
- Mose Allison
- Dakota Staton
- Cab Calloway
- Helen Humes
- Leon Thomas
- Cassandra Wilson
- Andy Bey
- Etta Jones
A child tap dancer born into a musical Italian-American family from New Jersey, Carlo Jackie Paris started his music career leading a jazz trio in which he played guitar and sang. He toured with Charlie Parkerin the early 50s, a decade in which he recorded several albums and won a clutch of awards. Paris’ career tailed off dramatically from 1962, b...
Originally from Athens, Georgia, Peyroux’s relocation to Paris, France, as a teenager, where she busked as a street musician singing and playing guitar, helped to shape her distinctive brand of bohemian-esque retro jazz. There are perceptible echoes of Billie Holiday in Peyroux’s phrasing and tone, but via a series of consistently fine albums, she ...
A noted singer-songwriter from Tippo, Mississippi, Allison found a unique niche for himself in the jazz world with his often witty and elegantly wrought tunes infused with a piquant blues flavor. Though no vocal gymnast, Allison’s voice was light in tone, conversational in its approach, and, with its southern lilt, stands out from the crowd enough ...
After winning DownBeat magazine’s Most Promising Newcomer accolade in 1955, this Pennsylvanian chanteuse signed to Capitol Records and lived up to her early promise by delivering a classic LP in 1957, The Late, Late Show, which made the Top 5 of the US Pop charts. Though her declamatory, athletic style, with its clear enunciation, is indebted to Di...
One of the originators of scat singing, this charismatic, flamboyant bandleader from Rochester, New York, is best remembered for his classic 1931 song “Minnie The Moocher.” In its chart-topping wake there followed a slew of further swing-driven hits characterized by humorous lyrics peppered with witty wordplay and hip street argot.
Starting out singing gospel music in her local church in Louisville, Kentucky, lithe-voiced Humes was precociously talented and made her first recordings when she was 14. She recorded with Harry James before Count Basiespotted her singing in Cincinnati’s Cotton Club venue in 1937, while seeking a replacement for a departing Billie Holiday. Humes al...
From Miles Davis’ hometown of East St Louis, Illinois, Thomas was steeped in the blues but, uniquely among this list of the best jazz singers, went on to be part of the avant-garde vanguard. He cultivated an unusual and idiosyncratic vocal style in the 60s, defined by yodeling and tremulous ululations. Though he recorded first with Count Basie, Tho...
With her sultry, smoky-hued voice, Mississippi-born Wilson started her career as part of saxophonist Steve Coleman’s experimental M-Base collective in the 80s, but really blossomed when she signed with Blue Note in 1993, where her unique style and striking reconfigurations of classic rock and pop songs took her music to a wider audience.
Still recording today, New Jersey’s Bey is an original voice in jazz – John Coltraneonce called him his favorite singer – who has plowed his own unique furrow over five decades. Though nominally a lush, resonant-voiced baritone, Bey’s voice is said to extend four octaves in range. Among those he’s collaborated with are Max Roach, Gary Bartz, Stanle...
Hailing from South Carolina, this southern song siren, who had a hint of Billie Holiday in her slightly nasal tone, cut her first record as a 16-year-old in 1944, but it wasn’t until 1957 when she released her first LP. Adept at performing both swinging uptempo material and ballads, Jones was a versatile vocalist whose most commercially successful ...
- Charles Waring
Mar 16, 2022 · Some tracks give a jazzy twist to pop tunes (like Steely Dan’s “Do It Again,” Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and James Taylor’s “Steamroller Blues”), but jazz standards like “Too Close for Comfort” and “It’s All Right with Me” are also included.
Most of the 20th century's great vocalists performed in the jazz idiom, though not all rank in the style known as vocal jazz. While singers from Russ Columbo to Doris Day to Johnny Mathis relied on talent and vocal strength alone to carry material, vocal jazz artists instead chose to interpret standards in much the same way as the great jazz ...
- Charles Waring
- Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) Topping our list of the 25 best female jazz singers of all time is the incomparable First Lady Of Song herself, who hailed from Newport News, Virginia, but whose journey to fame began on the stage of New York’s Apollo Theater, in 1934, when she won first prize in an amateur talent competition.
- Billie Holiday (1915-1959) Though not as technically gifted as the younger Sarah Vaughan, Philadelphia-born Billie Holiday (real name Eleanora Fagan) had a way of communicating with a song that was second to none.
- Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) Boasting a gorgeous, full-bodied voice with a tremulous, heavenly vibrato, it’s no wonder New Jersey’s Sarah Vaughan was often referred to as The Divine One.
- Dinah Washington (1924-1963) Nobody could deliver a lyric like the singer born Ruth Lee Jones, whose clear and precise diction, combined with a tart, clipped delivery, left an indelible mark on her listeners.
Jun 19, 2018 · The 50 best jazz vocalists as ranked by Jazz24 listeners has been counted and is now available!
Jul 5, 2024 · Summing Up Our List Of Famous Jazz Singers. It’s safe to say that the jazz genre is composed of some extremely talented artists that span the years, from as early as 1901 to the present day. From singers to pianists to trumpeters, the genre is full of soul, rasp, smooth, improv, scat, and more.
