Jimmy Scott

Have I been in a musical time warp? How come I haven't heard about Jimmy Scott until now? [And I bet you haven't either.] I came across him by accident the other day, rushed to Amazon and bought a couple of CDs, and he blew my mind away. What a voice! What a style! Like all good jazz musicians, he pays attention to song lyrics and sings them as if he means them. The most interesting things about him are his voice quality - high falsetto, big vibrato - and his delivery, which is laid back to a point where you think he might fall over. But he never does. The nearest style I can think of is Billie Holliday. He sings the song dead straight, yet with so many shifts in timing and pitch, that he seems to reconstruct the melody. In phrasing, particularly in the statement of a melody, he also reminds me of Dexter Gordon. You'll be forgiven for thinking that it's a woman's voice when you first hear it. He's like Chet Baker in that respect. There's a long story of personal suffering to explain why he's not better known, but rather like Johnny Hartmann this guy is certain to be listed amongst the great. This is top quality jazz vocalisation of a kind which sends a shiver down your spine, and which I predict will last, and last, and last. I immediately bought Dream and All the way, then as soon as I had listened to them ordered Mood Indigo, Lost and Found, and Over the Rainbow. What a discovery! FULL REVIEW HERE

Moldy Figs?

When I first encountered modern jazz in the mid 1950s, it was like entering a vibrant and exotic world which I had been yearning for ever since the grim post-war decades of the 1940s and 1950s. However, I was conscious that most fans around me were enthusing about traditional jazz - which was already twenty and thirty years old. I felt sorry for them for being so out of date. Tonight I slipped Monk's Dream into my CD player. This is music which is still crisp; still spiky and off-beat; and still emotionally and intellectually exciting. But I suddenly realised that I was listening to something that is not twenty but forty years old. My only excuse is that I don't think much has come along meantime to surpass this music. But I suppose the moldy figs thought that too then, didn't they.