jazz/classical vocals

[stardust1183]

Hi, I'm a vocal performance major in college. Although I'm being trained in classical, I would like to be a jazz vocalist as well as classical. I love jazz music, and my favorite vocalists are Ella, Sarah Vaughn, and Diana Krall. Well, when i was in high school, I was piano/vocals in jazz band. We would periodically have listening days, but we never got to do jazz vocalists. Well, my director would like me to come in during break to teach the jazz band about jazz vocals, but I'm kinda in a rut about what i want to talk about. I could just play a bunch of artists, but I actually want to teach them something; they're not getting out of class just to pretend like they're listening to the music!
Well, I thought about talking about technique and how classical technique is used to sing jazz (quite obvious with Frank Sinatra), but then I started thinking. I would like to connect and contrasts classical and jazz vocals more in-depth (besides proper technique and style), but I don't quite now how to do it, and I'm having trouble finding references. If anyone has suggestions or knows of good sources to look up, please feel free to let me know: I would really appreciate it!

Thanks so much!
Lora:cool:

[jimac51]

Some thoughts at random,bearing in mind I am not a musician but a longtime listener.First,if I was studying to be a vocalist,I don't think I would listen to any vocalists. Gotta get Ella,Sarah,Diana,Frank,etc. out of your head to sing. They are doing their own style-you are finding yours. What to fill the listening gap with? Lyrical instumentalists. Immediately Bill Evans comes to mind. A magnificant interpreter of the Great American Songbook(My Foolish Heart,Emily and tons more),certainly a student of things classical(try "With Synphony Orchestra" on Verve)and his few recordings with vocalists(Tony Bennett,twice,and Monica Zetterlund)if you really must hear a singer(though,once again,I would stay away for a while). Your teacher is wise in bringing you in so someone there may say,"Hey,there's someone who sat here just a short time ago and she is persuing her dream-maybe I can,too". Good luck!

[stardust1183]

Thank you so much for your advice and wishing me luck. But, I'm not sure if you understood what I was asking; i'm confusing sometimes! I have to teach about jazz vocals, but I need an idea that will tie in how classical training is important for technique and vocal health. Like, you can tell with Ella, for example, that her technique is perfect. I was just thinking about how even though the "idea" of scat is random, the actual scatting is very specific. You have to be specific with pitches, vowels and articulation in scatting in order to do it well. I just talked to my voice professor today, and she told me about a book written by an opera and jazz singer, Eileen Farrel called "can't help singing". Like, I have a bunch of ideas about technique, but I'm having trouble tying them together. :confused:

[rhinozoot]

As an interested listener I would say that amongst vintage vocalists carmen mcrae deserves more attention and stacey kent from the current ones is very good,possibly the best

it is interesting that with stacey each song gets tailor made instrumental treatment

[Mike Neely]

Just a comment. This past Sunday I heard Renee Fleming singing jazz with Fred Hersch on piano. She was horrible. Her opera mannerisms were intrusive and she didn't seem to have a coherent approach to the songs. At one moment she tried to sing like a gospel singer, another a cabaret singer etc. etc. Let's face it there are not many classical musicians or vocalists who seem to be able to pull off jazz except on a very mundane level. I own an Perlman tape playing with the Oscar Peterson Trio. It seems to me it should never have been released. It was an embarrassment. I felt bad for Perlman - you can hear how Peterson and the trio are simplifying the accompaniement and toning down their solos as if they're playing with a young student. Don't get me wrong I own a half dozen Fleming CDs and at least that many Perlman - they're both fantastic when they stay within their field. Seems to me just because someone has incredible technique and theoretical knowledge doesn't mean they have any feel for the music, meaning jazz.

[Scottone]

Hi, Lora--

The subject of technique as it applies to different styles is a tricky one. Whenever we begin a talk about music with technique, we must find a common ground- correctness.
In the formal music education system, we are taught correctness: the correct way to breathe, to shape vowels, to stand, to master vibrato, to develop upper/lower range, etc.

The guidelines for correctness in jazz singing will differ somewhat...
Jazz, with its folk-music beginnings, developed along different lines, with singers coming frm street performance, black gospel churches, blues shouters, minstrel shows, and so on. Each of these genres have their own view of correctness, which must be repsected in order for a singer to be accepted/successful.
The first important jazz singer who formally trained was Sarah Vaughan, she too has detractors that feel she was 1)too classical at times, and 2)more interested in displaying than illuminating a lyric.

You could choose to do comparative listening with your students, so they can hear how the small, shallow tone of a Billie Holiday compares with the richness of a Sarah; how Ella's rapid-fire scatting contrasts with the more conversational sound of a Betty Roche or even Carmen McRae; How Ella's tone sounds almost out of control on her live performance recordings - most notably 'Madalena' from (I believe) Live in Berlin, unlike the regal, restrained bearing of Carmen on her Live at the Great American Music Hall (mid-'70s).

Still, I feel your pupils will get the most out of hearing your personal journey through this music, since you are, like them (like all of us), a student.
For example, take a vocal device from classical study - a glissando, a portamento, a sforzando, perhaps - and find its equivalent in a jazz recording, or - even better - attempt to execute the device yourself, as you would deem appropriate in a jazz setting. This would be a way of demonstrating the contrast between the 2 disciplines. Videos of jazz singers are helpful too, because you'll be able to watch execution.

I didn't stay with classical study for very long, but I developed a lifelong admiration for the study and training that goes into the art. I don't feel I work any less honing my craft in jazz, but I rarely have to fill a hall without the use of a microphone, so my power has certainly diminished over the years. My hardest work is in theory- harmonic study, rhythmic precision- and in conceptual focus- storytelling skills, training accompanists, bandleading, communicating onstage.

It's a beautiful journey through a life of music-- enjoy the trip....

SW