scat¹

Scat singing is a type of voice instrumental music. A scat is vocalized either wordlessly or with nonsense words and syllables (e.g. "bippity-bippity-doo-wop-razzamatazz-skoobie-doobie-bee-bop-a-lula-shabazz") as employed by jazz singers. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.

Another form of jazz singing, vocalese, is closely related, but uses lyrics rather than nonsense syllables. Often, rather than improvising melodies, practitioners of vocalese sing lyrics to improvisations by instrumental performers.

History

Though Louis Armstrong's 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies" is often cited as the first song to employ scatting, there are many earlier examples.^[1] Before the national spread of jazz in the United States, a type of scat singing was already in use by ragtime vocalists.^{[citation needed]} Ragtime pioneer Ben Harney and New Orleans pianist Tony Jackson were said to be scat singing in the early years of the 20th century. One early master of ragtime scat singing was Gene Greene who recorded scat choruses in his song "King of the Bungaloos" and several others between 1911 and 1917. Star entertainer Al Jolson even scatted through a few bars in the middle of his 1911 recording of "That Haunting Melody". Gene Green’s 1917 "From Here to Shanghai," which featured faux-Chinese scatting, and Gene Rodemich’s 1924 "Scissor Grinder Joe" and "Some of These Days" also pre-date Armstrong.^[1] Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards scatted an interlude on his 1923 "Old Fashioned Love" in lieu of using an instrumental soloist.^[1][2] Even Jelly Roll Morton boasted he was responsible for the practice: "I must take that credit away from [Armstrong]," he once said, "because I know better. Tony Jackson and myself were using scat for novelty back in 1906 and 1907 when Louis Armstrong was still in the orphan’s home."^[1] Don Redman and Fletcher Henderson also featured scat vocals in their recording of "My Papa Doesn’t Two-Time No Time" five months prior to Armstrong’s 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies."^[1]

It was Armstrong's 1926 performance, however, that was the turning point for the medium.^{[[#wp-_note-crowther+pinfold|[3]]]} According to Armstrong, when he was recording the song "Heebie Jeebies," soon to be a national bestseller, with his band The Hot Five, his music falls to the ground. Not knowing the lyrics to the song, he invented a gibberish melody to fill time, expecting the cut to be thrown out in the end, but somehow the song was ultimately included on the album.^[1] The story is widely believed to be apocryphal,^[4] but the influence of the recording can hardly be understated. Louis Armstrong served as a model for Cab Calloway, whose 1930s scat solos inspired Gershwin’s use of the medium in his Porgy and Bess;^[5] it was from the 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies" arose the techniques that would form the foundation of modern scat.^{[[#wp-_note-crowther+pinfold|[3]]]}

On October 26, 1927 Duke Ellington's Orchestra recorded "Creole Love Call" featuring Adelaide Hall singing wordlessly. "She sounds like a particularly sensitive growl trumpeter", according to Nat Hentoff. The creativity must be shared between Ellington and Hall as he knew the style of performance he wanted, but she was the one who was able to produce the sound. In 1932, Ellington repeated the experiment in one of his versions of "The Mooche", with Baby Cox singing scat after a muted similar trombone solo by Tricky Sam Nanton.

Over the years, as jazz music developed and grew in complexity, scat singing did as well. During the bop era, more highly-developed vocal improvisation surged in popularity.^[6] Annie Ross, a bop singer, expressed a common sentiment among vocalists at the time: "The [scat] music was so exciting, everyone wanted to do it." (130). And just about everyone did: Ella Fitzgerald, Eddie Jefferson, Betty Carter, Anita O’Day, Joe Carroll, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Jon Hendricks, Babs Gonzales, and Dizzy Gillespie all were important singers in the idiom (Robinson par. 3). Fitzgerald once hailed herself as the “best vocal improviser jazz has ever had,” and critics since then have been in almost universal agreement with her (Friedman 282). In the 1960s, traditional scatting gave way to the free-jazz movement, which allowed scat singers to include sounds in their repertoire that had before been considered non-musical, such as screams, cries, and laughter. Free jazz and the influence of world musicians on the medium pushed jazz singing nearer to avant-garde art music (Robinsonpar. 4). The bop revival of the 1970s renewed interest in bop scat singing, and young scat singers viewed themselves as a continuation of the classic bop tradition. The medium continues to evolve, and vocal improvisation now often develops independently of changes in instrumental jazz (par. 5).

Vocal improviser Bobby McFerrin’s performances at major concert halls worldwide show that “wordless singing has traveled far from the concepts demonstrated by Louis Armstrong, Gladys Bentley, Cab Calloway, Anita O’Day, and Leo Watson”.^{[[#wp-_note-crowther+pinfold-p135|[7]]]}

Ella Fitzgerald further popularized scat singing as a vocal jazz art form, most particularly exemplified in her 1947 recording of George and Ira Gershwin's "Oh, Lady be Good!".

Sarah Vaughan was also a great proponent of scat, sometimes inventing whole new melodic lines in her improvisation. She may not have had the popularity of Ella Fitzgerald but aficionados rate her as the finest scat singer ever, the John Coltrane of scat.

Van Morrison was heavily influenced by scat and jazz musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong and has used scat as a vocal technique throughout his career in many of the songs in his studio albums as well as live concerts.^[8]

Scat singing influenced the development of doo-wop and hip hop. It has also appeared in various genres of rock music. Jim Morrison of The Doors sings a chorus of slow scat on the song "Cars Hiss By My Window",trying to replicate a harmonica solo he had heard and it also notably opens the b-side of Joe Walsh's 1973 album The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get with the song "Meadow". The technique was employed in the song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd.

Scat also makes appearances in newer genres, including industrial music, in the chorus of Ministry's 1991 song "Jesus Built My Hotrod"; nu metal, in the band Korn whose lead singer Jonathan Davis has incorporated scat singing into songs such as "Twist", "Ball Tongue", "Freak on a Leash", "B.B.K.", Beat it Upright and "Liar"; and the heavy metal subgenre of death metal, where scat singing is used by John Tardy of the band Obituary. Legendary jazz artist Scatman John (John Paul Larkin) renewed interest in the genre briefly during the mid-90s. Jack Black incorporates scat into several Tenacious D songs, most notably: Tribute, The Cosmic Shame, Classico Double Team (live) and Bowie. Singer JoJo does ad-libbed scats on the track "Yes or No". Other modern examples include "Rag Doll" by Aerosmith, "Under My Voodoo" by Sublime, "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz" by Mr. Bungle, "In My Bed" by Amy Winehouse, "Stuck in the Middle" by Mika

The term skat is used in Jamaican music for a verbal representation of a popular guitar sound. The master Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin, said that "the offbeat guitar scratching" that he and other musicians played was referred to as "skat! skat! skat!". Some music experts believe that this term is the source of the name of ska music, which was a predecessor to reggae.

Another method of scat singing is practiced by guitarists who scat along with their solos note for note. Notable practitioners include George Benson, Sheldon Reynolds, and Rik Emmett.

According to Dick Higgins, "In Black American music there is a sound poetry tradition, possibly based originally on work calls, which we find [transformed] into the scat singing of the popular music of the 1930s, in the long nonsense-like passages in Cab Calloway's singing of "Minnie the Moocher", for example".

See also

• A cappella
• Bandari, similar to scat singing, used in Persian music for centuries.
• Beatboxing
• Canntaireachd (see also Music of Scotland)
• Doo-wop
• Eefing
• List of scat singers
• Mah Nà Mah Nà
• Puirt à beul (mouth music)
• Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)
• Toasting
• Vocable
• Vocalese
• Hopelandic

References

Further reference

• Dick Higgins, "A Taxonomy of Sound Poetry" in Precisely: Ten Eleven Twelve (1981)

External links

• Dick Higgins' Audio Works on UbuWeb Sound Poetry

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