Vocal Jazz
Vocal jazz is jazz in which the singer is the lead instrument, using the phrasing, swing and improvisation of jazz players.
Singers bend the rhythm and melody of a song, often a standard from the Great American Songbook, and may improvise with wordless syllables, which is known as scat singing. Backing ranges from a piano trio to a full big band. The style took shape in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. What separates it from traditional pop singing is the freedom with timing and melody and the give and take with the band.
Artists it is known for: Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan.
- Family
- Jazz & Blues
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, 1920s
- Also called
- jazz vocals, jazz singing
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 6%
About 4,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have vocal jazz among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Vocal Jazz artists
Frank Sinatra
Leslie Odom Jr.
Nat King Cole
Chet Baker
Ella Fitzgerald
Etta James
Billie Holiday
Ray Charles
Nina Simone
Louis Armstrong
The vocal jazz artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.