Drake's Diary

Jazz Singing

                                     Jazz musicians never play anything the same way once.

Shelly Manne

When it comes to jazz singing, scat is one of those things that quickly divides people: you either love it or you find it an irritating, incomprehensibly stupid waste of talent and time. I fall into the former group for two reasons.

Firstly and most importantly, I simply find the aesthetic experience of voices imitating musical instruments joyfully exuberant. But secondly, this technique provides a fascinating and maybe unparalleled approach to art. Anyone who has ever tried to scat will understand several things rather immediately. To attempt the art is to discover first what in fact is occurring, and then why it’s so difficult while it appears to the novice so easy.

Mumbling in rhythm it ain’t. What’s occurring when a jazz singer scats is that he, as any jazz musician knows, is of necessity doing two rather difficult things at the same time. And to do two difficult things at the same time doesn’t make it twice as hard, it makes it ten times as hard. First he must keep the basic melody – the “true” line of the composition if you will – in his mind while, at the same time improvising around that melody, producing a “creative line” instantaneously during the performance. It’s sort of like improvisationally changing the words of a poem while you’re reciting it. As with all jazz performances, the musician is creating and presenting his creation at the same time, while continuing to hold the true line of the inspirational composition in his mind.

The pitfalls are embarrassingly obvious if you try scat singing. The tendency is to wander or lurch away from the melody and the time, and become lost. At which point the game is decidedly up. It’s not chewing gum and walking at the same time, it’s juggling and painting a landscape at the same time. In front of an audience, part of whose joy is found in the tension of leaning forward and waiting for you to go out too far on the limb and fall on your ass. The question is how creative can you be extemporaneously without stumbling and losing your way? For some wonderful musicians the answer is endlessly. The recorded music of such incomparable stars as Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughn, and Dee Dee Bridgewater is ample testimony.

Danger, creativity, exuberance, and daring are the characteristics of scat singing, which means that what’s needed is exceptional courage, confidence, and musical talent. It’s said that Louis Armstrong invented the technique accidentally during an early recording session, when his sheet music for “Heebie Jeebies” fell on the floor and, knowing there was no time for a re-take, simply invented sounds to fill in for the words he hadn’t memorized. This all sounds a little pat and problematic, but it is the first evidence of scatting on record and may have come about just that way. Credit where credit’s due, Armstrong had made a bold, daring innovation. For my money, it paid off.

All images by William Claxton.