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| And You Say...? |
| Helen Folasade Adu, CBE |
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30% |
[ 3 ] |
| Anita Denise Baker |
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30% |
[ 3 ] |
| Rachelle Ferrell |
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10% |
[ 1 ] |
| Dianne Elizabeth Reeves |
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10% |
[ 1 ] |
| Cassandra Wilson |
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20% |
[ 2 ] |
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| Total Votes : 10 |
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| Author |
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Genero36
Joined: 24 Apr 2005
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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 Posted: 03/08/18 10:44 pm ::: |
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| This one is easy. There's Sade, then there's everybody else.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/09/18 12:16 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| This one is easy. There's Sade, then there's everybody else. |
In terms of musical status, no question. She's the unique artist history will remember. But I'm not sure I even place her neatly into this category. I've always heard her as an international musical star.
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sambista
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/09/18 7:01 am ::: |
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| dianne reeves and cassandra wilson aren't exactly "smooth jazz" singers. this is a whack group (sorry!). it's like putting najee in with joe henderson. sade can't hang in this group, not even with anita. sade couldn't paint dianne's or cassandra's nails.
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Genero36
Joined: 24 Apr 2005
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| Posted: 03/09/18 8:38 am ::: |
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sambista,
I respect your opinion on the genre. So, I'll edit the thread title.
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Genero36
Joined: 24 Apr 2005
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| Posted: 03/09/18 8:49 am ::: |
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| sambista wrote: |
| dianne reeves and cassandra wilson aren't exactly "smooth jazz" singers. this is a whack group (sorry!). it's like putting najee in with joe henderson. sade can't hang in this group, not even with anita. sade couldn't paint dianne's or cassandra's nails. |
What do you think of Lizz Wright?
<embed><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HaokIK_XPjI" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></embed>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaokIK_XPjI
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/09/18 9:14 am ::: |
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| Okay. Let’s just admit we’re having a bad couple of days and try to salvage the weekend.
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tfan
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: 03/09/18 9:56 am ::: |
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Wanda Sykes loving Sade was a running gag on her show that finally included a semi-visit:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3JHv_WBKCik" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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sambista
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
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sambista
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/09/18 10:44 am ::: |
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| Genero36 wrote: |
| sambista wrote: |
| dianne reeves and cassandra wilson aren't exactly "smooth jazz" singers. this is a whack group (sorry!). it's like putting najee in with joe henderson. sade can't hang in this group, not even with anita. sade couldn't paint dianne's or cassandra's nails. |
What do you think of Lizz Wright?
<embed><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HaokIK_XPjI" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></embed>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaokIK_XPjI |
honestly, i'd never listened to her before this moment, so i don't have much of an opinion.
this (and the other polls you've done) are so wide open, they have to lean toward your own preferences to avoid being unwieldy. and for this poll, if a singer who doesn't traditionally do jazz but has done something memorable, maybe she rates a mention. i have an example of that: chaka khan, who did a rare recording with some legends in '82 called "echoes of an era." it's one of my desert island discs, and i've categorized her genre as jazz ever since.
i digress, but for my money, for this poll, nancy wilson wins, hands down. wait . . . didn't we already talk about her?
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Genero36
Joined: 24 Apr 2005
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| Posted: 03/09/18 11:18 am ::: |
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| sambista wrote: |
honestly, i'd never listened to her before this moment, so i don't have much of an opinion.
this (and the other polls you've done) are so wide open, they have to lean toward your own preferences to avoid being unwieldy. and for this poll, if a singer who doesn't traditionally do jazz but has done something memorable, maybe she rates a mention. i have an example of that: chaka khan, who did a rare recording with some legends in '82 called "echoes of an era." it's one of my desert island discs, and i've categorized her genre as jazz ever since.
i digress, but for my money, for this poll, nancy wilson wins, hands down. wait . . . didn't we already talk about her? |
Nancy would've went in the last poll about greatest jazz singer EVER. This is simply for all the jazz singers that debuted within the last 40 years. I'm sorry that didn't come across clear.
As for the legendary Chaka Khan. She can fall into many musical genres (especially Funk and R&B). Her interpretation of My Funny Valentine is just one example of her vocal brilliance.
<embed><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XP-oGwt8ng0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></embed>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP-oGwt8ng0
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sambista
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/09/18 2:05 pm ::: |
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| Genero36 wrote: |
| Nancy would've went in the last poll about greatest jazz singer EVER. This is simply for all the jazz singers that debuted within the last 40 years. I'm sorry that didn't come across clear. |
oh. yeah, 'cause i figured "of the last 40 years" meant only that she had to still be alive!
and then i checked to see if she was still alive. just to be sure.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/09/18 6:23 pm ::: |
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Speaking of still alive or not, the entire genre of female jazz vocals is dead. The only thing more dead is male jazz vocals.
I play this stuff and listen to it constantly and even I can't take the sound of a woman, and I will pick on women only because I can't think of one man singing jazz in like forever, trying to pull this off with anything that doesn't make me really feel that the art form of jazz vocals is dated and worse than no longer relevant, just flat out terrible. I'm not going to name names but it's pretty much all the most famous singers mentioned here. I used to love some of them but that was a long time ago.
There's just so much that they have to eliminate that instead of eliminating they put in there because it's part of the legacy passed down, etc. Doesn't work that way. You ain't Sarah. You ain't Ella. You ain't Billie. And don't try to be big. Find some chill space and sooth the listener. In that space I think Diana Krall has defined that mellow place. But that doesn't mean it totally works for me. I'm not proud of myself listening to or liking Diana Krall, It's just not that annoying.
One person in the last 40 years made an album that I really REALLY liked, although, she could be annoying as hell, too, at many times on this disc, and that's Dee Dee Bridgewater and the tribute to Horace Silver album she made. I forget the name of it. She has a nice voice. A good jazz voice. She brings energy to the tunes and when she's not totally annoying it's great stuff.
There's a lot of younger like even foreign singers who have made some nice stuff but I don't know their names. I have one folder with something like, I don't know, ten thousand songs in it. lol. Just female jazz vocals. I don't know who these em effers are.
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Luuuc
#NATC
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
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| Posted: 03/09/18 8:24 pm ::: |
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| I don't know how to even classify it, but to me it has some jazzy elements to it ... have you ever listened to some Hiatus Kaiyote? Vocalist Nai Palm has a style that I like a lot. Note that I wouldn't call myself any kind of a jazz fan.
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sambista
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/09/18 10:40 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
Speaking of still alive or not, the entire genre of female jazz vocals is dead. The only thing more dead is male jazz vocals.
I play this stuff and listen to it constantly and even I can't take the sound of a woman, and I will pick on women only because I can't think of one man singing jazz in like forever, trying to pull this off with anything that doesn't make me really feel that the art form of jazz vocals is dated and worse than no longer relevant, just flat out terrible. I'm not going to name names but it's pretty much all the most famous singers mentioned here. I used to love some of them but that was a long time ago.
There's just so much that they have to eliminate that instead of eliminating they put in there because it's part of the legacy passed down, etc. Doesn't work that way. You ain't Sarah. You ain't Ella. You ain't Billie. And don't try to be big. Find some chill space and sooth the listener. In that space I think Diana Krall has defined that mellow place. But that doesn't mean it totally works for me. I'm not proud of myself listening to or liking Diana Krall, It's just not that annoying.
One person in the last 40 years made an album that I really REALLY liked, although, she could be annoying as hell, too, at many times on this disc, and that's Dee Dee Bridgewater and the tribute to Horace Silver album she made. I forget the name of it. She has a nice voice. A good jazz voice. She brings energy to the tunes and when she's not totally annoying it's great stuff.
There's a lot of younger like even foreign singers who have made some nice stuff but I don't know their names. I have one folder with something like, I don't know, ten thousand songs in it. lol. Just female jazz vocals. I don't know who these em effers are. |
i think i kinda know what you mean. are you hip to patti cathcart, of tuck & patti? she sings simply but with a lot of feeling.
there's an american jazz singer on the local scene here, and i've caught a few of her shows. her last performance i caught, i realized by the end of the set that i was, well, exhausted. she just never let up on her embellishments. it made me think of the movie "amadeus," in which the emperor complains that one of mozart's compositions contains too many notes (and salieri at one point comments that mozart makes too many demands on the royal ear) and suggests he cut a few of them. mozart retorts, "which few did you have in mind, majesty?"
yeah. that's what i think you were saying.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f-EgNQ4cGRM" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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sambista
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
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Location: way station of life
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| Posted: 03/09/18 10:49 pm ::: |
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| Luuuc wrote: |
| I don't know how to even classify it, but to me it has some jazzy elements to it ... have you ever listened to some Hiatus Kaiyote? Vocalist Nai Palm has a style that I like a lot. Note that I wouldn't call myself any kind of a jazz fan. |
checked it out. i like her voice, too. some of the songs are out of my range, though.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21045
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| Posted: 03/10/18 1:11 pm ::: |
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| sambista wrote: |
| jammerbirdi wrote: |
Speaking of still alive or not, the entire genre of female jazz vocals is dead. The only thing more dead is male jazz vocals.
I play this stuff and listen to it constantly and even I can't take the sound of a woman, and I will pick on women only because I can't think of one man singing jazz in like forever, trying to pull this off with anything that doesn't make me really feel that the art form of jazz vocals is dated and worse than no longer relevant, just flat out terrible. I'm not going to name names but it's pretty much all the most famous singers mentioned here. I used to love some of them but that was a long time ago.
There's just so much that they have to eliminate that instead of eliminating they put in there because it's part of the legacy passed down, etc. Doesn't work that way. You ain't Sarah. You ain't Ella. You ain't Billie. And don't try to be big. Find some chill space and sooth the listener. In that space I think Diana Krall has defined that mellow place. But that doesn't mean it totally works for me. I'm not proud of myself listening to or liking Diana Krall, It's just not that annoying.
One person in the last 40 years made an album that I really REALLY liked, although, she could be annoying as hell, too, at many times on this disc, and that's Dee Dee Bridgewater and the tribute to Horace Silver album she made. I forget the name of it. She has a nice voice. A good jazz voice. She brings energy to the tunes and when she's not totally annoying it's great stuff.
There's a lot of younger like even foreign singers who have made some nice stuff but I don't know their names. I have one folder with something like, I don't know, ten thousand songs in it. lol. Just female jazz vocals. I don't know who these em effers are. |
i think i kinda know what you mean. are you hip to patti cathcart, of tuck & patti? she sings simply but with a lot of feeling.
there's an american jazz singer on the local scene here, and i've caught a few of her shows. her last performance i caught, i realized by the end of the set that i was, well, exhausted. she just never let up on her embellishments. it made me think of the movie "amadeus," in which the emperor complains that one of mozart's compositions contains too many notes (and salieri at one point comments that mozart makes too many demands on the royal ear) and suggests he cut a few of them. mozart retorts, "which few did you have in mind, majesty?"
yeah. that's what i think you were saying.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f-EgNQ4cGRM" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
I haven't listened to this yet so this isn't a commentary on it but just continuing the conversation. One thing is that way too many of these singers lose you the minute you hear the sound of their voice. That's bad. And I mean the famous ones. Maybe even some legends. The best jazz sort of exists on this lifeblood of originality of the 'saying something' part. Each person sort has this thing to say and it's about their sound, their affect, their approach to the changes, etc. It seems like it's pretty impossible for vocalists to bring anything new of that to jazz. In pop, styles change, new songs are written all the time, money changes hands, don't count that out as a factor, but in jazz it's the same old shit forever.
And the money thing. Think of all the amazing female vocalists in pop the last 50 years. What if they'd actually chosen jazz because they could and still be rich and famous?
Like compare aything that's been done in America the last 50 years with Rosa Passos. Everything about her. Voice, almost reimagining the approach to what singing a song even is. I don't really listen to her much anymore but for a long time that was some breathtakingly fresh stuff to me.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/10/18 1:35 pm ::: |
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| Luuuc wrote: |
| I don't know how to even classify it, but to me it has some jazzy elements to it ... have you ever listened to some Hiatus Kaiyote? Vocalist Nai Palm has a style that I like a lot. Note that I wouldn't call myself any kind of a jazz fan. |
I like it. I see how people could like it. I like her voice. She really sounds like someone though. Who am I thinking of?
Okay. Classifications. There's two ways of thinking about that. Genres as they exist in the business of music and in the perceptions of the public. That's one sort of way music is classified and there is, of course, so much bleeding from one type of music to another that it is confusing. And musically, yeah, musicians can and will think about things this way in order to decide what mood, style, affect, effect on the listener, what their audience will be, whether to wear rings in their noses, etc. All of that.
But then there's purely musical classifications of music, the kind of things that are written on a piece of sheet music as instructions. Not always or exactly that specific but when musicians say jazz, generally they mean, music that swings, which is a bass line that is 'walking' which is playing four quarter notes, primarily, to a bar of 4/4 music and melodic content that is defined by a preponderance of eighth notes which are PLAYED as if they were dotted eight notes. In the context of artists who play that kind of jazz historically they will also add latin tunes and beats which aren't swung. The bass lines are latin and the melodic or solo content is generally made up of notes that are not played as if they were dotted.
The artists that you mentioned, the tune I found, Nakamarra, has sort of a neo-soul beat. Speaking of genre's etc. Nothing weirder than how neo-soul is defined. And again, this is just ME talking, I've been a pretty reliable interpreter of music that I know but I'm not talking to musicians any more so I sometimes am a little off.
So neo soul is both a genre... AND... at it's most basic, a sound based on a way that chords came to be voiced on the keyboard, especially electric piano. I'm going to say that that sound and those chord structures (I used to know the specifics but I don't play keys so I wouldn't have any reason to retain the information) was I think on some Stevie Wonder tracks back in the very late 80s. But by the 90s you were hearing this stuff all over RB radio. So there's nothing neo really about neo-soul. That sound has been around for now almost 40 years.
But... here you go with stuff like this Hiatus Kaiyote and even going back as far as Erikka Badu. Anything can be neo soul because people like the sound of the name. So you see the difference between perceptions of the public and needs to classify stuff versus what something might have meant purely as a musical term.
I'm really winging all of this so ... pretend along with me that I know what I'm talking about. 
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/10/18 2:35 pm ::: |
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Let's start here.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GIIZ3hQEsqs" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Same song. Different deity.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F3XbK09QMxs" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I basically don't think of Judy Garland as a jazz singer. Which only proves what a complete idiot I can be.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eCbnJeMSGZ4?start=13" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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calbearman76
Joined: 02 Nov 2009
Posts: 5155
Location: Carson City
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| Posted: 03/11/18 4:24 pm ::: |
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| I really don't like this thread. I started thinking about it and everyone I thought about didn't qualify. Then I thought some more and realized that someone had to start singing after 1978. Then I realized that Avril Levigne (I bet that was not a name you expected to come up in this thread) didn't sing jazz. Then I just felt old. Thanks a lot.
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Luuuc
#NATC
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 21924
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| Posted: 03/11/18 6:20 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| I like it. I see how people could like it. I like her voice. |
If you liked Nakamarra then make sure you don't miss their track "Shaolin Monk Motherfunk" There are a few versions on YouTube - all of them good IMO.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/12/18 10:11 am ::: |
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| sambista wrote: |
i think i kinda know what you mean. are you hip to patti cathcart, of tuck & patti? she sings simply but with a lot of feeling.
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I never heard of her but she's wonderful. Rich beautiful voice and not really any jazzisms.
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sambista
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
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Location: way station of life
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| Posted: 03/12/18 2:27 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| sambista wrote: |
i think i kinda know what you mean. are you hip to patti cathcart, of tuck & patti? she sings simply but with a lot of feeling.
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I never heard of her but she's wonderful. Rich beautiful voice and not really any jazzisms. |
i'm a little surprised because they've been pretty much entrenched in the bay area, so i figured they'd done a bunch of l.a. gigs. tuck, her hubby, plays guitar, btw. it's usually just the two.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/12/18 5:20 pm ::: |
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| sambista wrote: |
| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| sambista wrote: |
i think i kinda know what you mean. are you hip to patti cathcart, of tuck & patti? she sings simply but with a lot of feeling.
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I never heard of her but she's wonderful. Rich beautiful voice and not really any jazzisms. |
i'm a little surprised because they've been pretty much entrenched in the bay area, so i figured they'd done a bunch of l.a. gigs. tuck, her hubby, plays guitar, btw. it's usually just the two. |
Knew about Tuck. He's been very well known in the 'guitar player' world for a long time. His approach has settled down a lot from when he was young and it sounds to me he's evolved from the very showy technical genius stuff to playing a more appropriately tasteful backing role. I mean, I heard some harmonics at the beginning of that cut but after that it seemed to be more about the music. If you're going to call attention to yourself while backing a singer, call attention to yourself because of the beautiful or interesting music you're playing. Not the physical pyrotechnics that you alone are capable of on your instrument. JMO.
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LoveJanet
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
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| Posted: 03/12/18 8:13 pm ::: |
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This is how you cover a classic.
<embed><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DbKRrsDZ4MU" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></embed>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbKRrsDZ4MU
And here she makes it look so easy:
<embed><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zAF0_1xZJtg" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></embed>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAF0_1xZJtg
and here:
<embed><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NCv0Wi3Llno" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></embed>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCv0Wi3Llno
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