Friday, May 22, 2020

50. The history of Jazz: 6. Vocal Jazz, ACJ Music Academy


How are you?

Following the last week, I am going to start my 50th lecture.

I had conducted music lectures at Art Collage JANG in Seoul, South Korea every Saturday from March 2015 to December 2017. I am going to introduce the lecture by the lecture’s order every Saturday.

The 6th theme of “The history of Jazz” I will introduce this week is “Vocal Jazz”

It is a summary of the contents of “50th ACJ Music Academy, The history of Jazz: 6. Vocal Jazz”, which was introduced on June 4, 2016.

In the 1940s, with the development of TV, the public's attention began to be focused on vocalists. Also, representative vocalists of the jazz world appeared to the public before and after this period, and this phenomenon increased after the end of World War II.

The important conditions of jazz vocals are how well they understand and cover the theoretical and emotional elements contained in the great flow of jazz and how much such elements are existed in their music. Therefore, they are not included in jazz vocalists only because they can show jazzy voice color to some extent, and the music that are technically made without satisfying these conditions are called ‘Jazz-Influenced Pop.’

Based on the background of musical activity, it is more likely that vocalists who worked at the center of the jazz world, rather than vocalists who worked with musicians not related to jazz, are included in authentic jazz vocals. The reason that Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are evaluated as the best jazz vocals is because they have done a lot of activities with other major jazz musicians in the center of the jazz world.

For example, in the case of ‘Frank Sinatra’, there are jazzy elements in his music, but he is not included in the jazz vocal. 

Frank Sinatra

In the case of ‘Nat King Cole’, his famous Autumn Leaves” or “Unforgettable” are not jazz music, but he is considered one of the most successful jazz vocalists due to the fact that many of his songs are jazz music and his performance style itself is based on jazz vocals.

Nat King Cole

Looking at the status of jazz vocals, there are currently not many authentic jazz vocalists, but rather, most of them belong to Jazz-Influenced Pop. However, it is important to note that Jazz-Influenced Pop is not a lower level of music than jazz vocals, but it is only a result of popular taste and demand.

In foreign countries, almost all the jazz vocalists are turning to Jazz-Influenced Pop, and almost all the jazz vocalists except a few now sing Jazz-Influenced Pop.

Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are usually selected as three major jazz vocalists.

Comparing them, Billie Holiday's music often reminds of her unhappy life. Although Holiday’s vocal range wasn't wide and her volume wasn't rich, she showed an excellent sense of bringing her emotions into her songs. 

Billie Holiday

Ella Fitzgerald was a singer who had covered wider range of music than anyone else, with a voice that fits the most traditional sense of swing, and is good at Scat. Although it is difficult to find the element of blues in her song, her pitch was correct and she was a singer with a clean tone even though her vocal range was not wide.

Ella Fitzgerald

Sarah Vaughan was a singer who has advanced into the music world lately compared to Holiday and Fitzgerald, but had an incredibly wide vocal range and rich volume, and had the ability to subdue the entire song based on these advantages. She often deviated from the range of female vocals in general, and in the low vocal range, she even covered the vocal range of a male baritone. Her vocalization was fundamentally different from those of Holiday and Fitzgerald.

Sarah Vaughan

You can also review this lecture from following media.


Next week, I will introduce you “Bebop” as the 7th theme of “The history of Jazz” lectures.

Thank you.




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