Satchmo
In Jazz, instruments like the trumpet and saxophone take turns to improvise around the melody.
Singers also take a turn to improvise, instead of singing the tune exactly as it is written.
People tell how Satchmo (Louis Armstrong) was recording the song Heebie Jeebies when he dropped the words on the floor. Satchmo didn't stop to pick them up. Instead, he sang nonsense syllables in their place, improvising around the tune as if he was playing the trumpet.
People liked the sound of the voice used in this way. 'Scat' singing became very fashionable.
Sometimes, singers would play around, pretending to have forgotten the words before launching into 'scat'.
The Jazz singer Billie Holiday made her voice sound like an instrument in a different way. Billie listened carefully to how jazz players made slight changes to the rhythms and melodies of songs. She copied this when she sang, never singing a tune in just the same way twice. Band leaders liked the way Billie sang. They thought it fitted very well with other instruments in the band.
Scat singing is an improvised jazz vocal technique. Singers use nonsense syllables to imitate sounds of musical instruments like saxophone or trumpet.
Ragtime vocalists used a type of scat singing that may have developed from African American work calls. Louis Armstrong’s Heebie Jeebies made scat singing popular.
Accomplished scat singers include Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie. Scat singing influenced the development of 1950s Doo-wap and eventually, Rap.
Confusion featuring Eske Mtungweze includes an excellent example of scat singing, providing a useful introduction to the technique
- Listen to Confusion
- focus on the scat vocalisation only
- Identify how Eske explores vowel sounds
- Students might develop scat improvisations using vowel sounds/nonsense syllables. Begin by focusing on a short rhythmic or melodic idea (not too many notes) from a well-known tune. Experiment around this. As confidence grows, practise ‘riff trading’ with others.
- Compare Louis Armstrong's humorous scat singing in Heebie Jeebies with Ella Fitzgerald's scat improvisations.
- Consider ways voices can be imitated a) by instruments b) by electronic effects