The Proof Is In The Jam Part 2 - Jazz Singers, An Obsession

Because of Jerrold Levinson's "Jazz Vocal Interpretation: A Philosophical Analysis" (cited in a previous blog-post), I've become obsessed with jazz singers, jazz singing, The Great American Song Book; with the Boswell Sisters, Leo Watson, Kay Starr, Jo Stafford, Doris Day; with the writings of Whitney Balliett, Alec Wilder, André Hodeir, Gunther Schuller, and especially Will Friedwald - his remarkable Jazz Singing: America's Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond. 
  My musical life before Levinson was quite simple. Except for Pops, Louis Armstrong, Lady Day, Billie Holiday, Mr. B, Billy Eckstine, and The Divine One, Sarah Vaughan, I needed no other singers   (except perhaps Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). Jazz singers were an afterthought with me. Reading Alec Wilder's American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950 and Will Friedwald's Jazz Singing has convinced me that Jazz (THIS music) and The American Popular Song are each unique events in the history of Western Music. Popular songs in many instances have the blues and/or jazz incorporated in their melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic material. So-called 'American Exceptionalism' resides in little else except in its spirituals, blues, jazz and popular songs.

  "Angel Eyes" Is it possible for a singer to sing Matt Dennis's song straight? 

  What do you mean by straight?

  I mean by straight, non-jazzy, non-novelty - non-Frank-Sinatra, non-Spike-Jones.

  Isn't Sinatra a pops singer?

  Anyone who begins "Angel Eyes" in the middle, at the bridge, is a jazz singer.

  Quite an interesting interpretation then of "Angel Eyes".

  If that's what you want to call it. I reckon that Old Blue Eyes was doing a bit more than interpreting this tune. He was improvising too. He changed the structure of the tune. He began with the B section. Recall the structure of "Angel Eyes" is AABA. One doesn't begin a performance of "Angel Eyes" with "Drink up all you people...". One starts with "Try to think ...". Hardly a straight performance of the tune - too jazzy.

  But improvising is something done in the moment. It's not something arranged, not something on paper. We were treating interpretation, straight verses jazzy, remember?

  It can be something on paper that's composed to sound like something in the moment. Improvising is an act that transforms the good bits of a tune (sometimes the ugly bits are sorted out) - transforms melody, harmony, rhythm of a standard into something else. When I talk about interpretation it's in a thin sense of interpretation (interpretation*) not your thick sense. When I talk of improvisation it's in the fat sense

  If you say so.

I do say so. In addition to saying so - runnin' it down, instead of 'banging my drum'; I've been tip-toeing around Jerrold Levinson's Jazz Vocal Interpretation. . . .

I shall not criticize what Levinson has said in his very dense, thoughtful, carefully drawn paper - he has covered nearly every base. He has atomized the (a) notion of vocal interpretation in ways that give effect to the popular song as placed on the page (sheet music), as placed off the page (performance), and as heard (by an audience). He has invoked Paul Grice's meaning pragmatics in treating what a singer conveys in performance, in contrast with what the words of a song mean.  One could atomize Levinson's atomization, the result of which could be reckoned to be a philosophical analysis of a philosophical analysis. All of this is what philosophy is made of. But there are more things.... 

Instead I'll improvise on Levinson's changes - with the help of many side-women/men, I'll blow my own solo (tune?). 

To be continued.