That hazy zone where Jazz and Soul intersect.

During my day musical journey today I made a weird slide in the last 3 hours. I started out discussing En Vogue performing at Denver Pride, to the One Off wonder pairing of Lucy Pearl…

somehow sliding into a Few of Post Doo-Wop’s The Superbs into Sarah Vaughn, into Anita O’Day into Blossom Dearie, Annie Ross and Mose Allison.

How did I get from NeoSoul that was produced 10 years ago to Jazz more than 50 years old (Sarah Vaughn still knocks me out with Perdido, Anita O’Day brings me Tea For Two and Nancy Wilson asked me Guess Who I Saw Today) is a question I ask myself.

Other than each song somehow tugged at me emotionally to listen and pay attention. And A lot of these veteran singers either still amongst us or not influenced most modern singing technique than any other generation.

You can hear the influence of Vaughn in Elanor Green of The Superbs delivery, and thousands of others.

The free form expression that was part of Jazz and Blues singing was the most important influence on Soul singing as that became the foremost form of music contribution from minorities as the late 1950s and early 1960s. And oddly a lot of times Jazz performers (Notably Nancy Wilson, that I’ve brought up waaay back before, and even Sarah Vaughn’s pop hits and Nina Simone’s forays into Uptown Soul that would do Maxine Brown proud) ended up performing music that was decidedly in the Soul Category.

So I stop debating with myself, and just relax in the good feeling that I get from the musical journey that I made this afternoon.