![]() So jazz, as the following list of the 50 best jazz singers of all time confirms, has produced a welter of wonderful and contrasting voices, both male and female, over the years. And then there are those haunted souls – namely Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and Anita O’Day – whose troubled personal lives imbued their performances with a poignant emotional dimension that had a cathartic effect on their listeners. There were some singers, such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nat “King” Cole, and Mark Murphy, who were multi-disciplined and could combine a vibrant athleticism with a silky, lush delivery, so that they were adept at both uptempo material and ballads. And in between those two extremes you’ll find vocal gymnasts – Jon Hendricks, Al Jarreau, and Bobby McFerrin spring to mind – alongside golden-voiced balladeers whose calling-card is a smoldering sensuality (think Peggy Lee, Julie London, Johnny Hartman, Chet Baker, Chris Connor, and Cassandra Wilson). There have been an array of different – and some very singular – voices in jazz’s long and storied history, and all of them jostle for position among the best jazz singers of all time – from big, loud, robust ones, such as the blues-influenced shouters Bessie Smith, Joe Williams, and Jimmy Rushing, right down to delicate and refined songbirds, vividly exemplified by Blossom Dearie’s girlish pipes. ![]() With such an overwhelming amount of talent to consider, that makes it nigh-on impossible to compile a list of the 50 best jazz singers of all time. The jazz world has been renowned for producing a steady stream of super-talented virtuoso musicians – namely saxophonists, trumpeters, pianists, guitarists, and drummers – but it has also given us wonderful exponents of what is arguably the oldest and most personal musical instrument of them all: the human voice.
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