Examples of songs with scat singing include “Heebie Jeebies” by Louis Armstrong, “Mississippi Mud” by the Rhythm Boys, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” by the Boswell Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald’s “How High the Moon,” “I Wan’na Be Like You” from The Jungle Book and “Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop).” Scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables or nonsense syllables: the singer makes up melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than to say words.
It grew out of vocal jazz, and it is different from vocalese, which puts real lyrics to existing instrumental solos. Here are the recordings that trace scat from its early days to pop and hip-hop.
1. “That Haunting Melody” (Al Jolson, 1911)
Al Jolson scatted through a few bars in the middle of his 1911 recording. It is cited as one of the earliest examples of scat singing on record.
2. “King of the Bungaloos” (Gene Greene)
Gene Greene was an early master of ragtime scat. He recorded scat choruses on this song and several others between 1911 and 1917.
3. “Old Fashioned Love” (Cliff Edwards, 1923)
Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards scatted an interlude on this 1923 record where an instrumental solo would normally go.
4. “My Papa Doesn’t Two-Time No Time” (Fletcher Henderson, 1925)
Don Redman and Fletcher Henderson featured scat vocals on this 1925 recording, five months before Louis Armstrong’s famous “Heebie Jeebies.”
5. “Heebie Jeebies” (Louis Armstrong, 1926)
Armstrong’s February 1926 recording with the Hot Five is considered the turning point. In a story that may be apocryphal, he said he dropped the lyric sheet mid-take and scatted to keep going, and the take was released. The record became a national bestseller and laid the foundation of modern scat.
6. “Mississippi Mud” (The Rhythm Boys, 1927)
In June 1927, Harry Barris and Bing Crosby of Paul Whiteman’s Rhythm Boys scatted on several songs, including this Barris composition. Barris even imitates the sound of a cymbal.
7. “Creole Love Call” (Duke Ellington, 1927)
Recorded on October 26, 1927, this features Adelaide Hall singing wordlessly. Her vocals and growls were hailed as another instrument in the band.
8. “The Mooche” (Duke Ellington, 1928)
A year later, Ellington repeated the experiment: Gertrude “Baby” Cox sings scat after a muted trombone solo by Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton.
9. “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (The Boswell Sisters, 1932)
The Boswell Sisters scatted in harmony, which made their records unusually complex. Their scat singing was a source for Ella Fitzgerald, who practiced imitating Connee Boswell as a girl.
10. “Avocado Seed Soup Symphony” (Slim Gaillard, 1945)
An example of humorous scat: Slim Gaillard, Leo Watson and Bam Brown scat variations on the word “avocado” for much of the recording.
11. “How High the Moon” (Ella Fitzgerald, 1960)
Fitzgerald’s scat performances of this song follow a set structure: a straight chorus of the lyric, a specialty chorus, then the scat. In her 1960 live recording in Berlin she quotes more than a dozen other songs, including “The Peanut Vendor,” “Heat Wave,” “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”
12. “I Wan’na Be Like You” (Louis Prima, 1967)
Louis Prima and others scat in this song from Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967).
13. “Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)” (Scatman John, 1994)
John Paul Larkin, known as Scatman John, fused jazz scat with pop and eurodance and had a worldwide hit with this song in 1994.
14. “Eazy Street” (Eazy-E)
Many rappers scat to work out the rhythm of a verse before writing the words. Eazy-E used the technique extensively in this song.
What Makes Scat Singing
- Improvised: lines are often built from scale and arpeggio fragments, stock patterns and riffs, like an instrumental solo.
- Chosen syllables: Betty Carter favored soft sounds like “louie-ooie-la-la-la,” while Sarah Vaughan preferred “shoo-doo-shoo-bee-ooo-bee.”
- Humor and quotation: singers such as Cab Calloway used scat for comedy, and Fitzgerald quoted other songs mid-solo.
- Vocal bass: an a cappella form of scat that imitates a bass player’s lines.
Final Thoughts
Begin with “Heebie Jeebies,” then jump to Fitzgerald’s “How High the Moon” to hear how far scat developed in a few decades. For more vocal techniques, see these songs with melisma, these songs with yodeling and these songs with a cappella singing.
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