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Sunday, November 15, 2020

What Is Jazz Scatting? (with a YouTube sound file, definitions, & article excerpts), Part 1 of series on "Scooby Doo"


buffalmacco76, March 14, 2010

live in berlin '69

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series on Jazz scatting and the inclusion of the Jazz scatting phrase "scooby doo" in some versions the "Miss Sue From Alabama" children's rhyme. 

This post presents definitions for and article extracts about Jazz scatting.

The Addendum to this post also presents information about Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan who often included scatting in her performances. A partial transcription of Sarah Vaughan's song "Sassy's Blues". 

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/11/information-about-miss-sue-from-alabama.html for Part II of this pancocojams post. Part II presents some information about the children's rhyme "Miss Sue From Alabama" (or similar names). Part II also presents some examples of that rhyme which include the scat phrase "scooby-do-wah" or which include the phrase or cartoon dog's name "Scooby Doo". 

The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Sarah Vaughan and all Jazz singers whose repertoire included/includes Jazz scatting. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this sound file on YouTube. 

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ARTICLE EXCERPTS ABOUT SCATTING
These excerpts are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.

Excerpt #1:
https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630 "
Scat singing (jazz)"

J. Bradford Robinson

Extract
“[Scat singing is] A technique of jazz Singing in which onomatopoeic or nonsense syllables are sung to improvised melodies. Some writers have traced scat singing back to the practice, common in West African musics, of translating percussion patterns into vocal lines by assigning syllables to characteristic rhythms. However, since this allows little scope for melodic improvisation and the earliest recorded examples of jazz scat singing involved the free invention of rhythm, melody, and syllables, it is more likely that the technique began in the USA as singers imitated the sounds of jazz instrumentalists.

Scat singing was used in early New Orleans jazz, as demonstrated by Jelly Roll Morton in his Scat Song (1938, Library of Congress). Morton gave the credit for originating the practice to Joe Simms of Vicksburg. The most celebrated early instances are by Louis Armstrong, whose highly successful recording Heebie Jeebies (1926, OK 8300) established his reputation as a jazz singer; his early scat solos rival his trumpet improvisations in virtuosity, range of feeling, and variety of attacks and timbres.”…

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Excerpt #2
https://www.britannica.com/art/scat-music
"Scat, also called Scat Singing, in music, jazz vocal style using emotive, onomatopoeic, and nonsense syllables instead of words in solo improvisations on a melody. Scat has dim antecedents in the West African practice of assigning fixed syllables to percussion patterns, but the style was made popular by trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong from 1927 on. The popular theory that scat singing began when a vocalist forgot the lyrics may be true, but this origin does not explain the persistence of the style. Earlier, as an accompanist to singers, notably the blues singer Bessie Smith, Armstrong played riffs that took on vocalization qualities. His scat reversed the process. Later scat singers fitted their styles, all individualized, to the music of their times. Ella Fitzgerald phrased her scat with the fluidity of a saxophone. Earlier, Cab Calloway became known as the “Hi-De-Ho” man for his wordless choruses. Sarah Vaughan’s improvisations included bebop harmonic advances of the 1940s. By the mid-1960s Betty Carter was exploiting extremes of range and flexibility of time similar to those of saxophonist John Coltrane. The vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross also phonetically imitated horn solos. In the 1960s the Swingle Singers recorded classical numbers using scat syllables but generally without improvisation."

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Excerpt #3
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scat_singing
"In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all.[2][3] In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than a speaking medium.

Characteristics

Structure and syllable choice

Though scat singing is improvised, the melodic lines are often variations on scale and arpeggio fragments, stock patterns and riffs, as is the case with instrumental improvisers. As well, scatting usually incorporates musical structure. All of Ella Fitzgerald's scat performances of "How High the Moon," for instance, use the same tempo, begin with a chorus of a straight reading of the lyric, move to a "specialty chorus" introducing the scat chorus, and then the scat itself.[4] Will Friedwald has compared Ella Fitzgerald to Chuck Jones directing his Roadrunner cartoon—each uses predetermined formulas in innovative ways.[4]

The deliberate choice of scat syllables is also a key element in vocal jazz improvisation. Syllable choice influences the pitch articulation, coloration, and resonance of the performance.[5] Syllable choice also differentiated jazz singers' personal styles: Betty Carter was inclined to use sounds like "louie-ooie-la-la-la" (soft-tongued sounds or liquids) while Sarah Vaughan would prefer "shoo-doo-shoo-bee-ooo-bee" (fricatives, plosives, and open vowels).[6] The choice of scat syllables can also be used to reflect the sounds of different instruments. The comparison of the scatting styles of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan reveals that Fitzgerald's improvisation mimics[a] the sounds of swing-era big bands with which she performed, while Vaughan's mimics[b] that of her accompanying bop-era small combos.[10]”…
-snip-
I added italics to highlight this sentence.

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Excerpt #4
From 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AScat_singing
[...]

"Informative?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't an article on scat singing include a cliche example? "Schoobee shoobaba doo baba fluble wop do do ee o?" or the like? The article seems to beat around the bush."...
-snip-
This quote doesn't include any identification of the writer or publishing date.  That portion continues with an identified commenter agreeing with that statement. 

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Excerpt #5
From 
https://www.newsounds.org/story/13706-where-scooby-doo-really-came/ "Where Scooby Doo Really Came From" by John Schaefer, 2/18/2010
"Among my favorite pieces of bathroom graffiti is this terse philosophical summary:

 To be is to do. -- Immanuel Kant

To do is to be. -- Jean Paul Sartre

Doo-be-doo-be-doo -- Frank Sinatra

Now, Frank Sinatra may have been many things, but a scattin’, be-boppin’ hep cat was not one of them. Still, when he doo-be-doo-be-doo’ed his way through the end of the hit 1966 song “Strangers In The Night,” it showed just how mainstream scat singing had become. And any lingering doubts were dispelled when the hit cartoon series Scooby Doo Where Are You began running in the early 70s. Even a kid like me knew what the name Scooby Doo referred to.

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong often incorporated scat in their singing, but for me, the real revelation of how musical scatting could be came when I discovered the music of Betty Roché. A former Ellington singer who had the misfortune to be working with Duke during the recording ban of World War II, Roché released a single album in the 50s, called Take The A Train. It featured a bunch of Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn compositions, an absolute killer version of “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine,” and songs where Roché sings one verse and then spends practically the whole rest of the song scatting. And some of the scatting wasn’t the usual “shooby-dooby-doolya-da” stuff – she breaks into phrases like “Frankie and Johnny were lovers” (while scatting over the changes from “Route 66”), and “I cover the waterfront” – brief allusions to older songs that have become jazz standards. For me this was a learning experience, because while she was obviously singing these phrases for a reason, and I didn’t know what that reason was. Eventually I’d track down some of the old songs that people like Betty Roché and Ella Fitzgerald would quote from in their scatting – almost a be-bop predecessor to hip-hop’s sampling techniques.”…
-snip-
I added italics to highlight this phrase. 

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ADDENDUM
INFORMATION ABOUT SARAH VAUGHAN 

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Vaughan
"Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer.

 Nicknamed "Sassy" and "The Divine One",[1] she won four Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award.[2] She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989.[3]"...

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A PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF ONE OF SARAH VAUGHAN'S SCATTING SONGS-
I haven't found any online transcription of Sarah Vaughan singing "Scat Blues". However, click https://genius.com/Sarah-vaughan-sassys-blues-lyrics for a transcription of Sarah Vaughan's song "Sassy's Blues" that almost totally consist of scatting. Here's a portion of a transcription of that song from https://genius.com/Sarah-vaughan-sassys-blues-lyrics [from  Récital à Paris, 1985 (2015)
"Shedood n' doo shadepe da doop do aah shobe ah wow-boo dee you dee
Shadood n' doo shadepe da doop do aah shobe ah daboo dee you dee
Shadood n' doo shadepe da doop do aah shobe ah daboo dee you dee
Sha-ba-ba-da dolya-dol-u-u-u-u bundo bum dwey
Sha-ba-ba-da dotee dolya dolya dopa dolya doopen doopen doopen de yaw/
Sha ba bom'do bom'do bom'de yaww
Shadapa dalia now dalia daw dalia daw bezertly ah lovey dar lee can dowee"...

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This includes Part 1 of this two part pancocojams post.

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