Quick…name 5 bebop singers.
See, that’s the problem. There were and are a ton of big band singers from the Swing Era, but after Jon Hendricks and Mark Murphy the well looks pretty dry for the bebop era vocalists.
Joe Carroll (1915-81) is arguably THE bebop vocalist, having replaced Kenny Hagood in Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra in 1949, staying to deliver some hot tracks as well as carving out a nice little niche of a career on his own for awhile. This album includes some super bopping tracks with Gillespie’s 1952 quintet and sextet as well has Carroll’s own albums and 78s from 52, 53 and 56. The music is fresh, wild, extroverted, and above all, FUN!
Carroll possessed a deep yet flexible voice, and was able to stretch standards such as “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue See,” “My Blue Heaven” and “Pennies From Heaven” like salt water taffy, mixing prismatic delivery of lyrics with marble mouthed scat singing. For the ’52 tracks with Gillespie’s team which included Milt Jackson/vib and Wynton Kelly/p, Carroll and Diz sing and mug over fun filled pieces like “Groovin’ the Nursery Rhymes,” Umbrella Man,” “Oo-Shoo-Bee-Doo-Bee” and the classic “In the Land of oo-Bla Dee” while Diz impersonates Louis Armstrong on a hilarious “Pop’s Confessin’.”
The later Vogue recordings form 1953 alternated Gillespie with Bill Graham/bs and a rhythm team of Wade Legge/p, Lou Hackney/b and Al Jones for kaleidoscopic takes of “My Blue Heaven” and “Sweet Sue” before the recordings jump to the 1956 Epic sessions with proto-boppers including Ray Bryant-Hank Jones/p, Oscar Pettiford-Milt Hinton/b and Osie Johnson/dr. Carroll aptly shows a missing ingredient in today’s music, namely humor, as he delivers slap happy pieces like “Qu-est-que-ce” and “School Days” which mix irresistible swing with a lampshade on the hat attitude. The combination is simply delightful, making you wonder what happened to make musicians start taking themselves too seriously. This disc, which includes some interesting liner notes in booklet form, is more than a historical necessity; it’s the heat seeking singing missile of modern jazz.
Fresh Sound Records