Interlude: Scat and the Excess of Meaning

 

After our discussion yesterday (specifically our talk about lyrics vs. other kinds of vocalizations) I was inspired to write my own post-class reflection. Ella Fitzgerald's iconic version of "How High the Moon," performed live in Berlin in 1960, contains what is arguably the greatest scat sequence in all of jazz.  Note the tempo change one minute in. She begins scatting around 1:25. Around 4 minutes in, she begins to incorporate melodies and words from other jazz standards (Stormy Weather), as well as the vocal techniques of other sings (Louis Armstrong was a common) Around 4:54 she references her own "lack" of intelligibility, with the phrase "I guess these people wonder what I'm singing!" (In keeping with our attention to the importance of transnational contexts, we might recall that Ella is not singing in front of an English-speaking audience to begin with.)

Scat, John Szwed reminds us, is not unique to jazz, but is also found in Brazilian, Cuban, and Caribbean music. (Jazz 101, 298.) It is often understood as the vocalist's impulse to mimic the instrument. However, I prefer to think it as the voice highlighting it's own instrumentality, and in this case, sonic virtuosity. There is more than technical virtuosity on display, however. How can we return the question of meaning making, (so urgently raised in class) since clearly we are in a more complex realm than representation alone? Abandoning the simplistic definition of scat as nonsense syllables, Brent Edwards observes that scat activates "an excess of meaning, a shifting possibility of the multitude of meanings," which may be related to Alex Weheliye's claim about the ways that sound "transmits intensit[ies]" which "belong to the realm of expression rather than content," or Nathaniel Mackey's discussion of black music's "telling inarticulacies." By invoking these claims I don't want to impose a hierarchy by suggesting that these kinds of "vocalizings" (as Armstrong called them) are some how more "pure," or that we should abandon an analysis of song lyrics. Rather, how can we take seriously Edwards' understanding of scat (and other kinds of non-linguistic vocal expression) as "supplementing the sayable?" Such a question seems key to understanding black cultural production in its many forms.

Having chaired a panel at ASA 2014 on "The Sonics of Black Excess," I'm also continuing to think about different ways to define "excess" and the ways it transmits and invites affect. To that end, I should add that, on a personal note, Ella's performance makes me feel all the feels. More specifically (of course) for me it sonically enacts all the feelings of ascendency and flight that the title of the song suggests.

More soon.

 Edwards, "Louis Armstrong and the Syntax of Scat," Critical Inquiry 28.3.

Mackey "Sound and Sentiment, Sound and Symbol."

Szwed, Jazz 101

Weheliye Phonographies