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SUBJECT:	SCAT and PMG Back to Subjects
patsfan Apr 01 2019 at 8:30 PM	I am always going back to the PMG albums of the 80s and really captured by SCAT. The great SCAT singing by Pedro and Mark Ledford. A signature of PMG and there is nothing like it in the modern ( fusion, whatever) jazz era that I can see. Yes, the great jazz singers of past ... Ella , Dizzy etc etc. But can any of you guys .... Naut, Mole, Frank etc .... point out anything in the last 30 years that would be even barely comparable to PMG . Thanks :)
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St P Nov 25 2019 at 5:31 AM	The best scat singer imho by far is Leon Thomas. Check out “ three shades of blue “ with Johnny Hodges and Oliver Nelson. When my father and I first heard that we were literally rolling on the floor laughing, the scatting is so comedic. Particularly “ Dukes Place” and “ Dissolusion blues” which has the brilliant lyric “ it’s just your evil ways that make you ugly”
tomm Oct 01 2019 at 10:41 PM	Kurt Elling is the best modern scat singer I’ve heard. Jasmeena (sp?) Horn is a great up and comer. A local great in the Fort Worth-Dallas area is Tatiana Mayfield.
hman01 Sep 30 2019 at 12:53 PM	Check out "Scat Like That" by Greg and Steve!
Antoñete Sep 28 2019 at 10:28 AM	Since my last post, I’ve read and herad about Benson and his SCAT singing. Love Ballad is a great example, and also some tracks of Breezin’ in whose liner notes they talk about it. In this spanish TV program about Benson, where he plays with Dizzy Gillespie, the presenter says that Gillespie is the father of the SCAT singing, and in the last piece they play, Gillespie’s Oop-Pop-A-Da, they both have a great battle of SCAT singing (about minute 49): http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/jazz-entre-amigos/jazz-entre-amigos-george-benson/4872538/#
Antoñete Jul 26 2019 at 7:09 AM	I had never heard about this kind of singinig and I don’t completely uderstand it. Could it be SCAT singing what master George Benson often does while singing?
Oystein Apr 24 2019 at 7:11 AM	My definition of scat singing is what you got from the true masters; Ella Fitzgerald and Al Jarreau, and a few others. What happens on the PMG records, with Bona, Ledford and Aznar, is what I would call Vocalese. My favourite scat, by th way, is Chet Baker on "But Not For Me" on his trio record "The Touch of Your Lips" 1986.
naut Apr 23 2019 at 6:19 PM	patsfan, George says it at the end of his hilarious expressions routine: things we say but never really examine for intrinsic truth. Like, "legally drunk." "Well, if it’s legal, what’s the fucking problem?! Leave my friend alone officer, he’s legally drunk!" You can find it at youtube with the search "carlin expressions."
patsfan Apr 23 2019 at 12:15 PM	That’s brilliant, Naut, except that it’s Carlin’s phrase and not yours ::). You got my curiosity .. where did Carlin ever devise that phrase ? I googled ’blorny’ - urban dictionary says ". An emotional and physical state in which a person is not only blazed, but horny as well. ". And floon is ’a perfect person ’ IMy own alternative to SCAT was SPAT. ( but that implies an argument ).
BUCKY60 Apr 23 2019 at 9:41 AM	PATSFAN, could another term to describe the voices on PM records be vocal or voice instrumentation instead of scat? Scatting makes me think of performers such as Mel Torme and Louis Armstrong among others and the sounds made seem to be more gibberish than actual words. The voices on PM records are used more like a musical instrument for the most part. However, I know there are some pieces that do have words that are actually being sung.
naut Apr 22 2019 at 4:40 PM	Do as Carlin says and use your own words: "Nigflot blorny quando floon." ;Þ
patsfan Apr 22 2019 at 12:59 AM	I think almost all of you came to the same conclusion .... the PMG vocals cannot be described as SCAT and have little or no similarity to the be-bop versions of the past. And frankly the word itself has grungy connotations. I think the point is made that the PMG vocals have few if any parallels in modern jazz. I love those vocals, they are so unique and complement the music so beautifully. Can anyone suggest a new and better word ?
MarcNebo Apr 17 2019 at 12:56 PM	I looked up the definition of Scat singing it is a vocalist imitating an instrument. Ella Fitzgerald may be the best ever. I have some good recently and a lot of bad. I don’t think Pat’s vocalists are scat singing, but just great vocalizing. They always blend well with the instruments in his group and sound great.
naut Apr 16 2019 at 4:01 PM	mole, I’m surprised someone hasn’t come in here and said, "I think you both are f.o.s.!" As you would say: "Ha!" I met James briefly after a concert a hundred years ago in my hometown. I’d sent him a poem via his management and I asked him if he got it. He said, "No. Did you write it? Sometimes it takes me a long time to get things like that." I told him it was by one of my favorite poets, he signed my vinyl copy of Sweet Baby James, shook my hand, and that was that. Ultra-nice moment for me. Could you call James’ simian vocalizing on that "Gorilla" song scat?
molesoulsandal Apr 16 2019 at 7:56 AM	’i wanna thank jimmy jimmy john and nick and laurie the no jets construction for setting me down a homestead on the farm’ . . . . . . . . . . . . one of the best ’honors’ i’ve ever had in this life, so far, is long ago (a young man sits and plays his waiting game) my bestest mate, and fellow JT subscriber, would often hail me whenever he saw me coming, as: ’hey mudslide!’ . . . . . always warmed me cockles. it still do. but anyway, back to this ’SCAT’ thing . . . . i have to admit, that except for lambert, hendricks, and ross, al jarreau, and a coupla others that i can’t bring to mind at the moment, i’ve never been a fan of ’scat singing’ . . . . most people don’t do a very good job of it, in the first place, and secondly i just don’t dig it very much - ha! so, anyway, i hope that if folks are going to try to ’scat’, that they will remember to place the accent on the ’musical’, as opposed to ’anything else’ . . . . it’s not a sporting event, it’s a musical one . . . . anyway, as naut said recently on here, i’m pretty f.o.s. most of the time, but i try not to be . . . . just have never been that big a ’scat’ fan . . . . whoop-dee-do! ~ scat got your tongue? i hope not!
naut Apr 13 2019 at 4:01 AM	Is this JT or HDT? "I’m gonna cash in my hand / And pick upon a piece of land / And build myself a cabin back in the woods / Lord, it’s there I’m gonna stay / Until there comes a day / When this old world starts to changing for the good / Now the reason I’m smiling is over on an island / On a hillside in the woods where I belong"
molesoulsandal Apr 12 2019 at 7:09 AM	naut - i adore ’love songs’, too . . . . . also, ’i was a fool to care’ (’and it took a while for a fool to see what his friends were on about’ - love that) and the almost operatic ’you make it easy’ (’just a-sitting there looking good’ - what a song) . . . . that taylor fellow’s got some kinda catalogue, eh? eons ago, i dubbed him ’the modern day musical thoreau’ . . . . on his website, he’s provided some videos of him drawing sap from the trees on his land . . . pretty neat stuff . . . . . . was listening to his song ’gorilla’ yesterday (’his love is as burning hot as a big ole’ ten-cent cigar’ - what a nut, that guy!!) . . . . . . anyway, i’m so glad that we’re all out here listening, and maybe even playing & writing, and that our dreams reverberate off the sun and moon until we can’t come anymore!
naut Apr 11 2019 at 5:25 PM	It’s a-ok to be right, mole. Cuz when yer right, yer right. Course, it’s better to be left, as long as that’s not left out of dinner. You quote some good Jimmy T too, old soul. My favorite tune off that album is "Love Songs." "Reckon I must be just an old softy...." you know. Lord, just scanning the song titles again reminds what a really, really strong JT album that is: "Mexico," title track, "Lighthouse," "You Make It Easy," "I Was a Fool to Care," "Angry Blues" (I can’t help it either sometimes). When it all comes down, did anyone sing scat better than Ella...or hman01? (BTW, I think Richard’s scatting on "Song for Bilbao" live. But what do I know?)
hman01 Apr 11 2019 at 3:12 PM	Scoo be doo (not the dog) doo wah doo wah she bop a be bop...
franksexton Apr 11 2019 at 10:47 AM	Personally I never thought of the vocals in Pat’s music as scat either. Two of my favorites songs with vocals are "You" and "Dream of the Return" .
molesoulsandal Apr 11 2019 at 7:51 AM	hey now . . . . so, i’m not trying to be ’right’ . . . . and i have no ’magnificence’, but thanks all the same, naut . . . . i just have lived my entire life as a musician and a ’music fan’, as pat would say, and whenever i see/hear something that might be ’inaccurate’ about music-related things, i feel i have to try to ’set it straight’ - haha . . . . . by no means, do i consider myself any kind of bloody ’authority’, or nuttin’ - just somebody, like ya’ll, that love it all so very, very dearly . . . . . as james taylor said: ’i’ll never know what to do unless you let that music be there too’ . . . . . and he said: ’there’s a symphony inside you, there’s a thousand things for you to do, so come on . .’ ~ and while we’re at it, kurt elling does, indeed, sing scat, and so did jon hendricks and eddie jefferson and ella and countless others . . . but richard bona, pedro aznar, david blamires, luciana souza, and those wunnerful types, do NOT specialize in ’SCAT’ . . . . . ’SCAT’ is nearly purely a ’jazzy, be-boppy’ kind o’ thing . . . and additionally, the otherworldly vocalizing that kurt rosenwinkel does along with his guitar musings have zero to do with this ’SCAT’ thang . . . . . . . . . ok, so let’s lift up our hearts and sing me a song that was a hit before yore mudder was born, tho she was borned a long long time ago, your mother should know . . . yer mother should know.
naut Apr 11 2019 at 1:04 AM	mole is right, of course. I stand (or sit, squat, bow, prostrate myself before his magnificence) corrected and humiliated. Forgive me, dear theorist (although KE does do some scatting every now and then....).
foxesfred Apr 10 2019 at 8:41 PM	Richard Bona anyone?
molesoulsandal Apr 10 2019 at 2:31 PM	i don’t mean to sound ’critical’ here, but i sorta have an issue with what folks on here are meaning by ’SCAT’ . . . . ’scat singing’ is more of a ’be-bop’-type thing, complete with navigational phrases, often long multi-noted lines, and things like that (usually, and traditionally, anyway), but i think that the way many musicians use it is more akin to ’wordless vocals’, not scat singing, as such . . . . for example, i’m concretely certain that pedro aznar’s vocals on ’first circle’ are, in no way, ’scat-singing’ . . . . . maybe i’m being too ’fine’ here, but i don’t think so . . . not on a ’musical’ level anyway, and that’s rather what this site’s about, eh?
naut Apr 10 2019 at 8:23 AM	Zawinul Syndicate occasionally has some affinity with Pat’s work, as does Kurt Elling from time to time. No real scatting in Reich’s work, but as Pat fans know there’s great kinship there as well.
rickys Apr 02 2019 at 7:11 AM	Chet Baker ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_viy_MGQtI
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