SCAT!
Wait — don’t scat! Stay where you are and let scat come to you — scat singing, that is — and who better to lay the scat on you than two of the best: Mel Tormé, whose birthday (9/13/25) we celebrate this month, and the First Lady of Scat, Ella Fitzgerald:
Man, if that didn’t knock your socks off, you’d better put your shoes on and scat back to Squaresville, because you’re just not with it! To say scat singing is little more than vocal jazz improvisation with nonsense words is like saying The Donald is just improvising when he lets loose with nonsense tweets (to use a reverse perverse metaphor).
So, who was the cat who ‘invented’ scat? There seems to be no definitive answer, but some say it began 2/26/26 when Louis Armstrong supposedly forgot the words to this song and began improvising a little more than halfway through the recording:
Let’s wrap it up with this recent scat-iteration (which, I kid you not, ends with tweets):
And now you can scat! Come back any time.
masercot 5:25 am on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
You monster! You left out Cab Calloway…
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mistermuse 8:27 am on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Scat-a-ma-rat-a-tat-tat-tat, how could I have (not) done a thing like that! Cab is one cool cat:
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Yeah, Another Blogger 8:21 am on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Ella is one of my faves. Have you heard her Songbook albums? They are terrific.
Neil S.
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mistermuse 8:33 am on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Indeed! I own her Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Rodgers and Hart Songbook albums (not to mention dozens of her old 78s dating back to the 1930s).
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Paul Sunstone 12:12 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Could it be traced back to Lewis Carrol’s Jabberwocky?
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mistermuse 1:13 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Possibly, though I don’t know if Lewis Carrol sang. Jabberwocky sounds more like the name of a rock band. 😦
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Richard A Cahill 1:21 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
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mistermuse 3:29 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Cool clip, Ricardo, I thought it was going to be this Scatman:
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thelonelyauthorblog 1:55 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Great selection of songs.
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mistermuse 3:30 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Agreed (if I do say so myself). 🙂
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thelonelyauthorblog 3:37 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink
LOL
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Rosaliene Bacchus 3:30 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Wow. Enjoyed the Ella-Mel scat performance. Thanks for the Jazz lesson.
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mistermuse 3:32 pm on September 1, 2018 Permalink |
Thanks, Rosaliene. An amazing performance indeed.
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markscheel1 2:03 pm on September 2, 2018 Permalink |
muse,
And I might have thought “scat” was what you said driving an unwanted cat or dog off your porch! 😉 Ah, the naivete! Good lesson, muse.
Mark
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Silver Screenings 3:25 pm on September 9, 2018 Permalink |
Fabulous music. I had never seen the Ella Fitzgerald-Mel Torme performance, and it is FA-BU-LOUS! Such a talented pair.
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mistermuse 6:17 pm on September 9, 2018 Permalink |
Right on, SS! I like that performance so much, I watched it 3 or 4 times.
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America On Coffee 4:08 pm on September 11, 2018 Permalink |
Very nice post and classic selections. (-:
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barkinginthedark 4:23 am on December 9, 2018 Permalink |
i must say i do a pretty darn good bit of scatting myself. nice post. continue…oh…Louie Armstrong once recorded one of my songs. a BIG thrill.
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mistermuse 11:26 am on December 9, 2018 Permalink |
How exciting that Satchmo recorded one of your songs! If you don’t mind telling me, what’s the title of the song? I’d like to try to find it online and give it a listen.
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