Arts & Culture
How Scat Singing Evolved in Jazz Improvisation
Quick fact
The earliest recorded scat singing is often credited to Louis Armstrong on 'Heebie Jeebies' (1926), but the practice dates back to African American field hollers and minstrel shows, where vocalists used wordless sounds to communicate and imitate.
Why this is interesting
You’ve heard a jazz singer make sounds like 'doo-bop-shoo-bop' — but where did that come from? It wasn’t random; it was a deliberate emulation of the instruments around them.