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Musings from a non-expert on jazz…
Torch jazz is not easy to define. A torch ballad is a simple song, sometimes sung in a simple straightforward way, with the jazz feel arising only from indefinable vibes coming from the singer. These are the singers whose songs are the voice of their soul, whose voices just sit back and gently swing – like Billie Holiday. Maybe that’s why women like Nina Simone have baffled the pigeon-holers. Her songs defy categories – but her soul, her vibe, is jazz. I can’t see it any other way.
Sometimes torch is sung with creative and instinctive interpretations and re-arrangement of its parts – more jazzy. I mention two that I have particularly loved – Sassy Sarah Vaughan, and Sweet Nancy Wilson.
There’s the difference between those who use their voices like instruments – like Ella -- and those who do not. I discovered the French passion for jazz during my years in Caen. They come from a jazz tradition that seems classical in its essence. You’ll find a French jazz musician doing improvisations around the reading of classical poetry as often as in a jazz club trading fours and eights. And they particularly love the instrumental-like purity and vocal competence of jazz cadenzas. Scat rules!
Then there are contemporary jazz divas like Cassandra Wilson, out there pushing the edge so far you can’t see the envelope anymore -- innovative, avant-garde, taking standard torch ballads where no woman has gone before.
So… what is this thing called Torch?
Torch is jazz with a blues attitude… Torch is jazz with a blues lilt… Torch is blues with a jazz feel… Torch is jazz with a whisper of the blues…
Torch is just jazz cryin’ the blues…
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