Scatting Defined: 6 Prominent Scat Singers

Scatting is a form of vocal improvisation in jazz music that features wordless singing. Scat singers improvise riffs or repeated melodic patterns—similar to a musical instrument solo—in a jazz song using vocables or sounds. Jazz artists who perform scat forgo sheet music and sing scat syllables that serve as synonyms for recognizable words, like “uh-huh” for “yes,” or nonsense syllables like “shoo-bee-doo.”

Musicologists trace the roots of scat singing to West African traditions, but modern scatting has origins in twentieth-century jazz history.

• Early origins: New Orleans pianist Jelly Roll Morton claimed he used scat singing in live performances as early as 1906. Other pioneering jazz musicians, like pianist Tony Jackson, featured scatting in their performances in the early twentieth century.
• 1920s: Trumpeter and jazz singer Louis Armstrong’s 1926 recording of “Heebie Jeebies” is one of the first prominent songs to employ scat syllables.
• 1940s–1950s: Scatting flourished during the bop and bebop eras of the 1940s and 1950s. Ella Fitzgerald utilized scat choruses in her jazz singing repertoire, as did other jazz performers like Dizzy Gillespie, Anita O’Day, and bandleaders Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. During this period, singers like Jon Hendricks and Eddie Jefferson developed a form of jazz singing called vocalese. However, vocalese is not the same as scatting; vocalese singers use recognizable words to mimic jazz instrumentalists’ solos, whereas scat singers employ nonsense words.
• Today: Entertainer Mel Tormé used scatting in his jazz vocals in the 1960s and 1970s, and John Paul Larkin—also known as Scatman John—introduced scatting to dance, pop, and hip-hop sounds. Bobby McFerrin is a contemporary scat vocalist.

Many great jazz singers feature scat solos in their performances. Some of the most prominent scat soloists and singers include:

1. 1. Betty Carter: A Grammy Award–winning artist and National Medal of the Arts recipient, Betty Carter honed her talent as a scat singer with jazz musicians like Charlie Parker and Lionel Hampton.
2. 2. Ella Fitzgerald: Referred to as the “First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald’s jazz standard “How High the Moon,” which featured her distinct scat singing, appeared on concert album Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife. In the song, her rolling vocals form elaborate melodic solos that echo the range and tones of brass instruments like the saxophone.
3. 3. Kurt Elling: Chicago-born singer Kurt Elling is a renowned scat singer.
4. 4. Leo Watson. A drummer and trombonist for big band artists like Artie Shaw and Gene Krupa, Watson was famous for his scat vocals.
5. 5. Mark Murphy: New York vocalist Mark Murphy’s nimble scat singing appears on more than fifty albums recorded during his long career.
6. 6. Sarah Vaughan: Vaughan’s ability to scale three octaves expanded the scat idiom. Her unique scat syllables paired well with brass instrumental solos.

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