Starting a Vocal Jazz Ensemble

Starting a Vocal Jazz Ensemble By Roger Emerson Congratulations! If you are reading style, infl ections, and harmonies that ments of Darmon, Kim Nazarian, Lauren this article, you have probably already they popularized. This tradition contin- Kinhan, and Peter Eldridge are stunning, considered creating a vocal jazz en- ues today and is the foundation of most natural, and healthy. Take 6, The Real semble in your school. It is my hope that school-based vocal jazz ensembles. Group, Manhattan Transfer, Singers Un- this information will encourage you to limited, Hi-Lo’s, and the Four Freshmen move ahead with just such an endeavor. also provide wonderful style models. The topics are broad but generally ap- The First Step After you listen… listen more to Ella ply to all levels—elementary, middle, Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Tierney Sutton, high school, or college. But fi rst, a little The most important fi rst step to Mark Murphy, Kurt Elling, Chet Baker, background. starting a vocal jazz ensemble is: listen. and Jamie Cullum, to name a few vocal There is no better teacher than our soloists. Don’t forget instrumentalists ears. So much of our choral tradition is such as Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, A Brief History of aural; we have developed our concept Miles Davis, Joe Pass, and the big bands Vocal Jazz Ensembles of choral tone and style by listening and of Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, and Gor- imitating and probably by a good deal don Goodwin (his “Phat Band”). The vocal jazz ensemble has its of instruction in college. Unfortunately, roots in professional groups such as with few exceptions we did not get The Mills Brothers, who popularized much training in vocal jazz as part of our Getting Started close-voiced harmony in the 1930s and traditional choral curriculum, so we must 1940s; the more complex harmonies of play catch-up, and the best way to start Consider adding one or two vocal Ward Swingle’s “Double Six of Paris” in is to use our intuitive musical nature and jazz selections to your fall or spring the 1950s; the Four Freshmen and the imitate the archetype. Familiarizing your- concerts. Your madrigal, chamber, or Hi-Lo’s in the 1960s; and the Singers self with the groups mentioned above is concert choir will love the challenge and Unlimited, Manhattan Transfer, Take Six, the place to start. the sonic freshness of this new medium, The Real Group, and New York Voices My favorite “one-stop” CD is the and the experience will allow you to in the years to follow. The collegiate New York Voices album Sing, Sing, Sing, experiment with the genre. After this movement began in the Pacifi c North- which represents an excellent model experience, simply ask how many would west in 1967 with Hal Malcom’s group, for the high school vocal jazz ensemble. like to try the recently learned selection Genesis, and its talented arranger and Darmon Meader’s SATB arrangements as part of a small group. This will create subsequent director, Dave Barduhn. All are beautiful and well crafted. The mate- the nucleus of your new ensemble and is of these ensembles drew their infl uence rial is drawn from the best of The Great a relatively painless way to begin. Keep in from instrumental jazz bands and the American Songbook, and the vocal instru- mind that although SATB is the standard CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 55 Number 11 53 voicing for vocal jazz, SAB, SSA(A), and Auditions intimate style of vocal jazz. TTB(B) arrangements are also available. There are some challenges with Depending on the size of your school, 2. Consider instrumentalists, particularly diving right into the twelve-voice, indi- you may want to take all comers and those who have played in a jazz vidually miked ensemble; instead, keep it form a “jazz choir” of thirty, for instance. band. They usually read quite well, simple. A little larger group, say sixteen Some of my most musical moments are familiar with the genre and to twenty-four members, is a good place have been hearing those ensembles. have improvised, and have not yet to start. Have them sing in a half-circle The sonority is exquisite! But what if you developed the classically trained around the piano. Pick charts (arrange- want to have a smaller ensemble? Here voice. ments) with little or no divisi, fairly are a few considerations: traditional jazz harmonies, and written- 3. Have singers sing a verse and chorus out solos. There are a few listed at the 1. Be cautious of including the “big” of a standard, unaccompanied. You conclusion of this article. Sing small voices from your ensemble. Those will learn a great deal about their venues that don’t require amplifi cation. voices that are perfect for your ability to hear key center and the We will talk more about the challenges “Messiah” aria or the lead in “Hello innate quality of their voices. of amplifi cation later. Dolly” may be diffi cult to tame for the more conversational and 4. Have them sing a chromatic scale. It is amazing how many students can- not! Play a chromatic jazz motive and have them sing it back to you. Good ears are a must. Conductors Workshop 5. You may want to have them try to with Rod Eichenberger improvise (scat-sing) over a basic Master Teacher, Conductor, Innovator twelve-bar blues progression. Choral Professor Emeritus, Florida State University Some will really enjoy doing so, and it is good to identify these students early on. Workshop Locations A five-day professional development workshop for choral conductors at all levels 6. Send each singer home with an easy Alexandria, Virginia vocal jazz chart and have each July 13-17, 2015 learn it on his or her own. This will do several things. It teaches inde- Cannon Beach, Oregon pendence and lets them know that July 27-31, 2015 this ensemble requires individual initiative. It will also allow you to listen to them in quartets and fi nd the best blend of voices and For more information, contact: those capable of maintaining their own part. George Fox University’s Department of Music 503-554-2620 [email protected] Vocal Tone Information is also available at Your students are probably already choralconductorsworkshop.com into the close harmonies of contem- porary unaccompanied groups such as 1985 10.14 Pentatonix, and if you have performed 54 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 55 Number 11 Eric Whitacre or Morten Lauridsen, you are well on your way to having a concept of the vocal quality needed for vocal jazz. It is light and generally straight (minimal vibrato). There are exceptions, but it is a reasonable starting point. It is conversational and legato unless notated otherwise. Consonants are generally de-emphasized, and vowels are more horizontal as opposed to vertical. The sound should be energetic but not over- sung. One reason the traditional choral director may be hesitant is that although the vocal jazz voice is healthy and still relies on proper breath support and freedom, it does not generally employ tall vowels, emphasized consonants, or vibrato, which are paramount in our concert ensembles. Just as we modify for much of our twentieth-century lit- erature, we must do the same for our vocal jazz ensemble. As we have learned, the voice has a variety of colors, and we should endeavor to explore them all. Style Most vocal jazz falls into two gen- eral categories: swing eighths or straight eighths. Realize that most arrangements will appear to be straight, even eighths with the exception of the style marking “swing.” Everyone would swing beauti- fully if all swing charts were written out in 12/8, because that is the reality of what was desired when jazz band ar- may be hard for a classical “reader,” often how heavily it is accented. In addition, rangers of the 1930s and 1940s decided an instrumentalist, to remember that the swing will have more drive if the for effi ciency that they would write the this fi gure is performed in the manner offbeat is slightly accented (Figure 4). chart out using even eighth-note nota- seen in Figure 2. Or that the entrance Most Latin styles (origin Latin America) tion and just add the “swing” style mark- in Figure 3 looks much different than it such as sambas or bossa novas, and pop, ing. It is a tradition that has continued to is performed. rock, funk or ballads, employ a traditional this day because it looks cleaner on the The term “lay back” is often used straight or even eighth-note orientation. page. Figure 1 shows perhaps the clear- to indicate that a singer is rushing the Since vocal jazz has its origins in est representation. entrance or offbeat. There are, however, instrumental jazz, it is common to see It is important to remember that various degrees of swing (e.g., light, markings above or beside a note called all elements—voices, piano, bass, and heavy, moderate) that slightly modify infl ections (Figure 5). The most common drums—adhere to this schematic. It exactly where the offbeat occurs and are the scoop or smear and the fall-off. CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 55 Number 11 55 The scoop or smear is a glide into the not have to be diffi cult, but it does need Improvisation note, on the beat, from approximately to contain some complex jazz harmo- a major second below, and the fall-off nies, which by nature may not be easily Begin with arrangements that have is a rapidly descending glissando, almost accomplished by the more traditionally a well-crafted, written-out scat solo or an octave to air.

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