Vocalese
Vocalese is a style of jazz singing in which the playing of instruments such as the saxophone is modeled by the singer. In contrast to scat singing, nonsense syllables are not used, but rather (often parodying, sometimes improvised) lyrics. The underlying piece is mostly an originally purely instrumental jazz standard. The name comes from the English "vocalize" or the term " Vocalise " for a classical singing performance (originally for practice) without text and the suffix "-ese" (meaning language as in English "Japanese"). Vocalese was pioneered in the 1940s by Eddie Jefferson , whose lyrics made King Pleasure hits in 1952 ("In the Mood for Love"). The technique became very well known through the vocal trio "Lambert, Hendricks and Ross " in the 1950s and the name Vocalese was coined by Leonard Feather to describe their music (album "Sing a song of Basie" 1957). More recently, the vocalese has been cultivated in particular by the vocal group "The Manhattan Transfer " ("Birdland"), often in collaboration with Jon Hendricks. Well-known representatives were Slim Gaillard , Cab Calloway , Leo Watson , Kurt Elling , Mark Murphy and Babs Gonzales . Camille Bertault works with French texts .