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Bluesette
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Browse piano sheets by Sarah Vaughn, Toots Thielmans on Zen Virtual Piano. Sarah Vaughan (27 March 1924 – 3 April 1990) was an American jazz vocalist and pianist, born in Newark, New Jersey, known for her rich voice, with an unusually wide range, and for the inventiveness and virtuosity of her improvisations. Britannica ranks her among the greatest of all jazz singers. A wide range joined to inventive improvisation can be read as the kind of singing that earns such a ranking from a reference work. Vaughan began studying piano and organ at age seven and, like her mother, sang in the church choir. After winning an amateur contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in 1942, she was hired as a singer and second pianist by the Earl Hines Orchestra. A year later she joined the singer Billy Eckstine’s band, where she met the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and the saxophonist Charlie Parker, and her singing style was influenced by their instruments. A singer shaped by trumpet and saxophone suggests a voice that learned to improvise like a horn. Toots Thielemans’s first professional performances were with Benny Goodman’s band when it toured Europe in 1949 and 1950. The National Endowment for the Arts says that in 1962 NEA Jazz Master Toots Thielemans composed his best-known composition, Bluesette, crediting the violinist Stéphane Grappelli as his inspiration. First professional performances with Benny Goodman’s touring band, and later a tune inspired by a violinist, suggest a composer shaped by the musicians around him. Jazz Guitar Comprehensive says the harmony of Bluesette is very functional, made up of mostly II–V–Is, and that the song has been recorded over 180 times. It was first introduced on Thielemans’s album The Whistler & His Guitar as an instrumental, and Norman Gimbel would soon after add lyrics to the composition. Bluesette went on to be recorded by some of the most prolific vocalists of the era, among them Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Anita O’Day. Vaughan being among the singers who recorded Bluesette links the two musicians through a song.
Browse piano sheets by Sarah Vaughn, Toots Thielmans on Zen Virtual Piano.
Sarah Vaughan (27 March 1924 – 3 April 1990) was an American jazz vocalist and pianist, born in Newark, New Jersey, known for her rich voice, with an unusually wide range, and for the inventiveness and virtuosity of her improvisations. Britannica ranks her among the greatest of all jazz singers. A wide range joined to inventive improvisation can be read as the kind of singing that earns such a ranking from a reference work.
Vaughan began studying piano and organ at age seven and, like her mother, sang in the church choir. After winning an amateur contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in 1942, she was hired as a singer and second pianist by the Earl Hines Orchestra. A year later she joined the singer Billy Eckstine’s band, where she met the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and the saxophonist Charlie Parker, and her singing style was influenced by their instruments. A singer shaped by trumpet and saxophone suggests a voice that learned to improvise like a horn.
Toots Thielemans’s first professional performances were with Benny Goodman’s band when it toured Europe in 1949 and 1950. The National Endowment for the Arts says that in 1962 NEA Jazz Master Toots Thielemans composed his best-known composition, Bluesette, crediting the violinist Stéphane Grappelli as his inspiration. First professional performances with Benny Goodman’s touring band, and later a tune inspired by a violinist, suggest a composer shaped by the musicians around him.
Jazz Guitar Comprehensive says the harmony of Bluesette is very functional, made up of mostly II–V–Is, and that the song has been recorded over 180 times. It was first introduced on Thielemans’s album The Whistler & His Guitar as an instrumental, and Norman Gimbel would soon after add lyrics to the composition. Bluesette went on to be recorded by some of the most prolific vocalists of the era, among them Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Anita O’Day. Vaughan being among the singers who recorded Bluesette links the two musicians through a song.
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Sarah Vaughan (1924–1990) was an American jazz vocalist and pianist known for her rich voice, wide range and improvisations.
Toots Thielemans first played professionally with Benny Goodman’s band touring Europe in 1949 and 1950, and composed Bluesette in 1962.
It is Thielemans’s best-known composition, first introduced on his album The Whistler & His Guitar as an instrumental, with lyrics added by Norman Gimbel.
After winning an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in 1942, she was hired as a singer and second pianist by the Earl Hines Orchestra.