Al Jarreau

American singer Al Jarreau (born 1940) built his long career on a distinctive sound that encompassed many musical styles. The five-time Grammy winner was one of the very few artists ever to receive best vocalist awards in the three genres of jazz, pop, and rhythm and blues. And in 2005, 30 years after the release of his first recording, Jarreau was far from contemplating retirement.

Education First

Jarreau was born on March 12, 1940, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father was a minister, and Jarreau and his brothers began singing in the church as youngsters. As he recalled to Mike Osegueda of the Fresno Bee, "The real truth is that the singing was first and was a love since I've been conscious. I've always done it. I can't remember a time when I didn't." Despite this early certainty about his passion, however, Jarreau had many interests and sufficient practicality to explore other avenues as well.

As a student at Milwaukee's Lincoln High School, Jarreau was a star athlete and earned respectable grades. Intent upon expanding his world view, he started undergraduate studies at Wisconsin's Ripon College in 1958. He became a productive member of the college community there, involving himself in such pursuits as basketball, student council, and service as the freshman class president. Nor did he neglect music, as he was a member of a four-person jazz vocal ensemble called The Indigos. The group performed at local venues around the state until Jarreau graduated with a degree in psychology in 1962.

Singing remained a sideline for Jarreau as he headed to the University of Iowa to earn a master's degree in vocational rehabilitation. He then moved to San Francisco, California, to work as a rehabilitation counselor. It was not long, however, before Jarreau's first love began to rise to the forefront of his aspirations.

Five-Time Grammy Winner

In San Francisco, Jarreau met another celebrity-in-the-making, George Duke, and began performing with his trio. As the group played small jazz clubs in the Bay Area, Jarreau became convinced that music would become not just an avocation, but his career. Toward that end, he moved to Los Angeles and started working the club circuit there. He cut his teeth at such noted venues as Dino's and the Bitter End West before expanding his efforts to the East Coast of the United States, where he gained national exposure on network television via such household names of the time as Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, and David Frost. He also provided musical interludes for such up-and-coming comics as John Belushi, Bette Midler, and Jimmie Walker at the famed comedy club - The Improv - in New York City, New York. It took a while before the record companies noticed Jarreau, but it did not take forever.

In 1975 Jarreau's faith in following his dream was rewarded with a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records. The resulting debut album, We Got By, which garnered a German Grammy for best new international soloist, launched a career that spanned decades and earned the artist worldwide fame.

Jarreau went on to release many highly acclaimed recordings, including the Grammy-winning Look to the Rainbow (1977), All Fly Home (1978), Breakin' Away (1981) and Heaven and Earth (1992). Breakin' Away earned him two Grammys, one for best male pop vocal performance and one for best male jazz vocal performance; and his fifth Grammy (best male rhythm and blues performance, for Heaven and Earth) completed the triumvirate by placing Jarreau in the rarefied position of winning Grammys in three categories: jazz, pop, and rhythm and blues.

Jarreau also racked up Grammy nominations for 1980's This Time, 1987's Moonlighting (the theme song for the hit television series of the same name), and 1988's Heart's Horizon. Later recordings included Tenderness (1994) and his first compilation album, Best of Al Jarreau (1996). Along the way the singer found time to branch out into acting, with a stint on Broadway in Grease! and guest appearances on such television programs as New York Undercover and Touched By An Angel.

For all his success and accolades, however, Jarreau remained frustrated that his distinctive singing style never received the radio play and record sales of a pop star. His technique combined the qualities of jazz great Jon Hendricks with the cool interpretations of the legendary Nat King Cole, without neglecting the clarity of a Frank Sinatra or scatting worthy of the matchless Ella Fitzgerald. Jarreau's singular style created a new sound altogether and it was, undoubtedly, the very versatility of his voice that caused him to be labeled a jazz vocalist. But that did not lessen the sting. "I'm not as bitter as I am disappointed," he told Cathalena E. Burch of the Arizona Daily Star. "My name gets mentioned alongside Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder and Al Green. These guys have had really big records. I've never sold a million records in an outing…. I'd like to really have some chart success." Still, Jarreau was not a man to waste time questioning a career that did, after all, include awards that other musicians only rarely achieve. Being downhearted was simply not his way and, besides, there was work to be done.

Strong Later Career

After nearly 25 years with Warner, Jarreau was reunited with his old friend and producer Tommy LiPuma when he signed on with GRP Records at the close of the twentieth century. GRP was a division of the Verve Music Group, of which LiPuma was chairman, and Jarreau seemed delighted to be working again with the man who had produced his 1970s recordings Glow and Look to the Rainbow. He told John Soeder of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "When Tommy and I get together to work, we kind of fulfill in our own little way the dreams of the music muses by continuing a relationship that began years ago." The new collaboration resulted in Tomorrow Today (2000), All I Got (2002), and a greatly-anticipated foray back into jazz standards, Accentuate the Positive (2004). Despite being commercially thwarted by being pigeonholed as a jazz vocalist for so long, Jarreau maintained that Accentuate the Positive was the first true jazz recording he had ever made. "It's really the first jazz record I've ever done," he told Dan Ouellette of Billboard. "Everything else that came before was pop and R&B. If people called the early stuff jazz, that's fine…. My audience has been asking for a full-on, straight-ahead jazz album. So, it's for them as well as myself. This is a thanks to the kind of music that made me the person I am today." Recorded live in a sound studio, the recording was unique in both content and sound. There were no string arrangements, no background vocals, and no overdubs. And the material included Jarreau's singular take on such standards as Johnny Mercer's Accentuate the Positive and Duke Ellington's I'm Beginning to See the Light, as well as new lyrics and spins on such tunes as Eddie Harris's Cold Duck Time (re-named Cold Duck) and Dizzy Gillespie's Groovin' High. He described the effort to Zan Stewart of the Newark Star-Ledger: "This is not what Betty Carter or Jon Hendricks or Carmen (McRae) would do. It's Jarreau's step into that arena."

The new century also saw fresh recognition for Jarreau, as more awards were added to an already burgeoning roster that included (in addition to his five Grammys) an honorary doctorate in performing arts (1988) and a Distinguished Alumni Award (1982) from Ripon College. The later additions included a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March of 2001, and the Ford Freedom Award Scholar honor in July of 2005. Jay Albert, managing director of Cleveland's 26th annual Tri-C JazzFest, was apparently not understating the case when he described Jarreau to Soeder as a "perennial favorite."

Clearly, Jarreau's entry into his 60s (including major back surgery in 2002) did little to slow his pace or limit his musical contributions. As he told Soeder, "However late this is in my life, the old dog has gotta learn a few new tricks. I hate being boring to people." He was mindful of his debt to a variety of musical genres, telling Jet, "There's such great music to make in this world, and I've been exposed to a lot of it. I've absorbed it all into my system and I think that accounts for the diversity." The versatile singer continued to tour and record with spirit and facility, and succeeded in retaining both a continuing love of his art and a positive outlook. He described the latter to Ouellette: "Music is the fountain of youth. The creative process rejuvenates me. I live to experience that vitality." At least as much to the point were Jarreau's words to Ed Condran of the Virginian Pilot. "I feel like I'm just starting the second half of my career. I hope I'm fortunate enough to be doing this well into my 70s and 80s…. I know this isn't the case for everybody at my age or even younger, but I still get so turned on by the craft. The great thing about this business is making the music. I've never gotten caught up with the trappings. You can't get caught up in the limousines and the chicks. The most important thing is the music." Thirty years in the business, and Jarreau's commitment to the music was still knocking them out.

Periodicals

Arizona Daily Star, February 15, 2002.

Billboard, October 26, 2002; August 21, 2004.

Fresno Bee, November 29, 2002.

Houston Chronicle, March 12, 2005.

Jet, March 26, 2001; September 16, 2002; July 4, 2005.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 11, 1999; December 11, 1999.

Plain Dealer (Cleveland), April 15, 2005.

Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY), June 21, 2002.

Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), August 20, 2004.

Virginian Pilot, August 13, 2001.

Online

"About Al," Al Jarreau, http://www.aljarreau.com/about/officialbio/ (January 15, 2006).

"Al Jarreau," NNDB, http://www.nndb.com/people/173/000024101/ (January 15, 2006).

"Alwin 'Al' Jarreau," Ripon College Archives, http://www.ripon.edu/library/archives/reference/jarreau.html (January 15, 2006).

"Discography ,"Al Jarreau, http://www.aljarreau.com/discography/ (January 15, 2006).

vocalist

Personal Information

Born Alwyn Lopez Jarreau, March 12, 1940, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; son of Emile and Pearl Jarreau; married Phyllis Hall (divorced); married second wife, Susan; son, Ryan.
Education: Ripon College, BS, 1962; University of Iowa, MS, 1964.

Career

Worked as a counselor for the handicapped in San Francisco, CA, 1965-68; jazz vocalist and composer, 1968-; solo recording artist, 1975-; Albums: We Got By, 1975; Glow, 1976; Look to the Rainbow, 1977; All Fly Home, 1978; This Time, 1980; Breakin' Away, 1981; L is for Lover, 1986; Heart's Horizon, 1988; Heaven and Earth, 1992.

Life's Work

Al Jarreau became one of the world's foremost vocalists in the mid-1970s and continued to give crowd-pleasing performances into the 1990s. Though his eclectic style is difficult to categorize, Jarreau won fans of a number of different musical tastes, including rhythm and blues, jazz, and pop. Jarreau became known as the "Acrobat of Scat" for his use of African clicks and Oriental phrasing in his music, borrowing from the scat tradition that evolved out of the bebop style of the 1940s. This unique vocal delivery, combined with his creative fusion of diverse musical genres, earned him several awards and contributed to his longevity as a recording artist.

Jarreau was born Alwyn Lopez Jarreau on March 12, 1940 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father was a minister and his mother played piano in church. Al was the fifth of six children, and he became involved in music early on in life, singing at the age of four. The family lived across the street from a Catholic church, and although the family was not Catholic, the music Jarreau heard from the church influenced his love of music. "I'm not a Catholic, but I felt real close to it," he told the Chicago Tribune in 1992. "On Sunday mornings I was just hanging out with the paperboys, eating a sweet roll and drinking coffee. I heard the music of the Catholic church, and in parts of my music, it's in there."

Jarreau began singing in his own church and with neighborhood street harmony groups, filling whatever part was open. He sang in jazz bands in high school, but even then his musical repertoire was quite eclectic. "I know the lyrics to more polkas than most German and Czech people," he told the Chicago Tribune. "It's all in those wrinkled folds of gray matter."

While he never turned his back completely on his music, Jarreau put it on the back burner for a time after high school. He earned a degree in psychology from Ripon College in Wisconsin in 1962, and followed that up with a master's degree from the University of Iowa in 1964. He then moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a rehabilitation counselor.

During his time in the Bay Area music began to creep back into Jarreau's life. He began singing in nightclubs with a band called the Indigos, then landed a regular gig singing for the George Duke Trio three nights a week in clubs such as the Jazz Workshop, the Half Note, the Troubadour, and the Bitter West End. "I knew I would be doing music the rest of my life at some level, even if it was after work in a cocktail lounge in some Holiday Inn," he told the Chicago Tribune. In 1968 he finally achieved enough success to quit his day job. "I was just not ready for that kind of work," he told the Tribune. "I was inefficient or something. I got overwhelmed by it all. . . . After some talks with my supervisors, I told them, `I'm off to join the circus,' and that was it."

Jarreau's nightclub work began to expand, eventually branching out to include engagements in New York City. He crisscrossed the country for the next six years, and performed on television variety shows on occasion. Jarreau was discovered in 1974, when he opened a show for Les McCann at the Troubadour in Hollywood. Several record company executives were in the audience, and his performance earned him a record contract. Two weeks later he was in the studio recording his debut album.

That first album, We Got By, introduced the style that fans would expect from Jarreau over the years. Jon Hendricks and Dave Lambert have most often been identified as Jarreau's primary influences, but his scat style is very eclectic, with some of his vocals being described as sounding African, Oriental or Arabic. It includes tongue clicks, gasps, and nonsense syllables. Some of his vocals do not fall within a jazz framework at all, but rather sound unmistakably like rhythm and blues or soul.

In 1976 Jarreau released his second album, Glow, and toured Europe for the first time. That tour was a watershed event in his life, for it was on that continent that he would enjoy some of his most enduring popularity. His third album, 1977's Look to the Rainbow, was a live album recorded in Europe, and it included a song that would become one of his trademarks, a vocal version of the Dave Brubeck standard "Take Five." That album won Jarreau his first Grammy.

Another Grammy would follow in 1978, when Jarreau was named Best Jazz Vocalist. His album that year, All Fly Home, contained cover versions of "She's Leaving Home" and "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay." He was named Best Jazz Vocalist at the Grammy Awards again in 1979. His 1980 album, This Time, brought in a new producer, Jay Graydon, and a focus on the material over Jarreau's personal style.

In 1981 Jarreau saw his breakthrough as a commercial pop artist. His album that year produced his fourth Grammy and two hit singles: "We're in This Love Together," which emphasized his pop singing ability more than his jazz style, and the title cut, "Breakin' Away." The following year saw another hit single, "Teach Me Tonight." He continued to record and tour throughout the 1980s, and enjoyed an unusual amount of commercial success for a jazz artist.

His commercial success, though, came primarily from his singles, and not, despite the platinum status of Breakin' Away, from his albums. "I'm not one of those fortunate recording artists who have the luxury of continually producing big-selling albums," he admitted to the Los Angeles Times in 1986. "I really have remained alive as a recording artist because I'm out there touring a lot. People come to hear the Al Jarreau live concerts and, fortunately, some of them buy records."

One of the keys to Jarreau's commercial success was his appeal to music fans who were younger than the typical jazz fan. His fusion of other contemporary styles into his music brought him popularity with people who were not, strictly speaking, jazz fans. But as the 1990s dawned and Jarreau turned 50, he began having more difficulty selling records to the younger demographic, and his sales began to slump. Four years passed between his last album of the 1980s, Heart's Horizon, and his first of the 1990s, Heaven and Earth. He kept busy in the interim by contributing songs to the films "Skin Deep" and "Do the Right Thing." On Heaven and Earth he tried to reclaim his share of the youth market by, as he told the Chicago Tribune, leaning "hard on my R&B side." "I see that the R&B scene is changing," he went on. "It's a revolution. . . . The music is live and angry. I see my fans saying, `What in the world is going on?' I say to them, `While you listen to rap and scratch, take this album along with you as an alternative.'"

Misfortune struck Jarreau in late 1995, when his fairly new Encino, California, home was damaged by an earthquake. It was also about this time that his contract with Warner Brothers ran out after 20 years. He recorded a few new songs for a greatest hits package in 1996, but it was unclear whether the contract would be renewed, and the impasse led to some hard feelings on Jarreau's part. "They sit there and throw handfuls of artist mud against the wall," he complained about the record business to the Los Angeles Times. "And what sticks they go and build a frame around for a few minutes. And I can tell you it's not a gilded frame in which they've invested a whole lot. What they really want is these still wet-behind-the-ears people who will color their hair a strange color, turn their lives over to some hot producer, be there for five minutes of airplay in a year, get their pictures in a magazine and then be gone. They don't want to deal with someone who understands the mechanism of this madness."

Jarreau had never been completely comfortable with the recording process, and he gave the impression that it would not be the worst thing for him if he had to return to making a living doing one-nighters across the country. "Everything that's happened for me up to now," he told the Los Angeles Times, "has worked because I go out there and I do a good show. I've been doing that for more than 20 years, and that's got nothing to do with the record company. I've stayed alive in the record business because I've been out there being a salesman, telling people, `Listen to this.' They listen and bring a friend back, and that friend goes and buys a record and that's my new customer. I'll keep pounding on people's doors, and just keep on doing what I've been doing, asking them to listen to the songs I have to sing."

Jarreau also told the newspaper he remained optimistic about his future. "It's been a good career," he asserted. "Am I concerned about where things now stand with my recordings? Sure. I'm as nervous as a frog on a freeway. I keep waiting for one of the shoes to fall. But I have high hopes, high apple pie in the sky hopes, and I'm still thinking that there's some serious success ahead of me."

Awards

Selected Awards: Cashbox's No. 1 jazz vocalist, 1976; Italian Music Critics' Award, Best Foreign Vocalist, 1977; winner of Down Beat Magazine's Readers' Poll, Best Male Vocalist, 1977-81; Grammy Award, Best Jazz Vocalist, 1978-79; Grammy Award, Best Pop Vocal, 1981.

Works

Selected Discography

• We Got By, Warner Brothers, 1975.
• Glow, Warner Brothers, 1976.
• Look to the Rainbow, Warner Brothers, 1977.
• All Fly Home, Warner Brothers, 1978.
• This Time, Warner Brothers, 1980.
• Breakin' Away, Warner Brothers, 1981.
• Jarreau, Warner Brothers, 1983.
• High Crime, Warner Brothers, 1984.
• L is for Lover, Warner Brothers, 1986.
• Heart's Horizon, Warner Brothers, 1988.
• Heaven and Earth, Warner Brothers, 1992.
• Tenderness, Warner Brothers, 1994.
• Best of Al Jarreau, Warner Brothers, 1996.

Further Reading

Books

• Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, Volume Three, edited by Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith and Cornel West, Macmillan Library Reference, 1996.
• The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume Three, edited by Colin Larkin, Groves Dictionaries, 1995.
• The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Volume One, edited by Barry Kernfeld, St. Martin, 1994.
• Rock On, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock n' Roll, The Video Revolution, by Norm N. Nite, with Charles Crespo, HarperCollins Children's Books, 1978.

Periodicals

• Chicago Tribune, July 30, 1992, section 5, p. 3.
• Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1986, section VI, p. 2; August 31, 1989, section VI, p. 7; May 29, 1997, p. 15.

— Mike Eggert

See Al Jarreau Lyrics

• Born: March 12, 1940, Milwaukee, WI
• Active: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s
• Genres: Vocal Music
• Instrument: Vocals
• Representative Albums: "Best of Al Jarreau," "We Got By," "This Time"
• Representative Songs: "Ain't No Sunshine," "Lean on Me," "You"

Biography

The only vocalist in history to net Grammy Awards in three different categories (jazz, pop, and R&B, respectively), Al Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, WI, on March 12, 1940. The son of a vicar, he earned his first performing experience singing in the church choir. After receiving his master's degree in psychology, Jarreau pursued a career as a social worker, but eventually he decided to relocate to Los Angeles and try his hand in show business, playing small clubs throughout the West Coast.

He recorded an LP in the mid-'60s, but largely remained an unknown, not reentering the studio for another decade. Upon signing to Reprise, Jarreau resurfaced in 1975 with We Got By, earning acclaim for his sophisticated brand of vocalese and winning positive comparison to the likes of Billy Eckstine and Johnny Mathis. After 1976's Glow, Jarreau issued the following year's Look to the Rainbow, a two-disc live set that reached the Top 50 on the U.S. album charts. With 1981's Breakin' Away, he entered the Top Ten, scoring a pair of hits with "We're in This Love Together" and the title track. After recording 1986's L Is for Lover with producer Nile Rodgers, Jarreau scored a hit with the theme to the popular television program Moonlighting, but his mainstream pop success was on the wane, and subsequent efforts like 1992's Heaven and Earth and 1994's Tenderness found greater success with adult contemporary audiences.

A string of budget compilations and original albums hit the shelves at the end of the decade, but into the turn of the century his original output slowed down. That was until he signed with the Verve/GRP label in 1998 and reunited with producer Tommy LiPuma. LiPuma had produced Jarreau's ostensible 1975 debut, We Got By, and the pairing seemed to reinvigorate Jarreau, who went on to release three stellar albums under LiPuma's guidance, including 2000's Tomorrow Today, 2002's All I Got, and 2004's Accentuate the Positive. Givin' It Up, recorded with George Benson and released in 2006, was nominated for three Grammy Awards -- each one for a different song. Jarreau returned with his first ever full-length holiday-themed album, Christmas, in 2008. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Improvisations Buy this CD	R&B Soul: Live Buy this CD	Love & Happiness Buy this CD	All I Got [Japan Bonus Track] Buy this CD	Christmas Buy this CD
One Note Samba Buy this CD	Members Edition Buy this CD	Early Gold and New Spins Buy this CD	Living for You [Magnum] Buy this CD	Living for You [Magnum] Buy this CD

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