Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Jazz singing genre where thelyrics are written tomelodies that were originally parts of an all-instrumentalcomposition orimprovisation .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word vocalese.
Examples
-
She is one of the earliest practitioners of the singing style known as vocalese, in which the singer sets original lyrics, as opposed to the nonsense syllables of scat singing, to an instrumental jazz solo.
NPR Topics: News 2010
-
She is one of the earliest practitioners of the singing style known as vocalese, in which the singer sets original lyrics, as opposed to the nonsense syllables of scat singing, to an instrumental jazz solo.
NPR Topics: News 2010
-
They've been together ever since, blending their voices with every musical congregation from the Charlie Ventura orchestra to the New York Philharmonic in a unique brand of harmonic bebop called "vocalese," singing instrumental pieces written by legends like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown.
Jackie and Roy! They're Still Here! ��� Skip Nurse for Arms of Strangers 2000
-
They've been together ever since, blending their voices with every musical congregation from the Charlie Ventura orchestra to the New York Philharmonic in a unique brand of harmonic bebop called "vocalese," singing instrumental pieces written by legends like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown.
Jackie and Roy! They're Still Here! ��� Skip Nurse for Arms of Strangers 2000
-
The 79-year-old Ross, among the early practitioners of "vocalese" on songs like her
-
The 79-year-old Ross, among the early practitioners of "vocalese" on songs like her
-
While "How High the Moon" featured some ingenious original vocalese lyrics in the style of Jon Hendricks, it's in her scat choruses that Ms. Hampton Callaway shows that she'd be better named Ann Torme Fitzgerald.
Female Leads, Classic Beats, Gil at St. Pete's Will Friedwald 2011
-
"Hi Fly" uses the "vocalese" era of the late '50s as a focal point.
Music With All the Fixings Will Friedwald 2011
-
Its exalted status was reinforced just last year, in fact, when John Pizzarelli wrote a vocalese version of the 1960 chart, which expands the Ellingtonian palette with boppish overtones.
Dizzy's Welcomes an Old Friend Will Friedwald 2011
-
Kurt Elling, LondonUS vocalist Elling's immense influence was recently caught in the Guardian by Jamie Cullum, when he described Elling's "swooning, Sinatra sound combined with an intellect for the words ... he makes vocalese [wordless vocals] look so easy and sound so gentle, like a saxophone".
This week's new live music amp; Andrew Clements 2010
frindley commented on the word vocalese
A specialist jazz variant of vocalise. Vocalese is the setting of lyrics to instrumental solos. Kurt Elling, among others, does this.
April 6, 2008