Recommended by You: Jazz Vocalists & Soul-Crushing Beauty

This week I asked my Twitter friends 1) Who their favorite jazz vocalists are and 2) What soul-crushingly beautiful music they’d recommend. Here’s what they, aka you, said:

Favorite Jazz Vocalists

• Lady Day • Nat King Cole • Frank Sinatra • Cab Calloway • Ella Fitzgerald • Louis Armstrong • Diana Krall • Mel Torme • Bill Weathers • Nina Simone • Billie Holiday • Sarah Vaughan • Bobbi Humphrey • Diana Krall • Betty Carter • Little Jimmy Scott • Madeleine Peyroux • Patricia Barber •

Soul-Crushingly Beautiful Music

• Sigur Ros • “Go Now” by the Moody Blues • “I Get Along Without You Very Well” by Carly Simon • Neko Case • Emmylou Harris • Riceboy Sleeps • “Possibly Maybe” by Björk •  Other Lives • Ray LaMontagne • Neil Young • Annuals • Jeff Buckley • “Oriental Melody” and “Cool New Way” by Joe Satriani • Kings of Convenience • The Sundays • Mazzy Star • The Cure (Disintigration-era) • Leonard Cohen • Sufjan Stevens • The Sublime Goodness Mixtape 2 • Patty Griffin •

My ears will be warm and full for weeks. Thanks to @jimmymarks, @allspeeds, @solis510, @ali_shafai, @vanessahenry, @morrischris, @jhoop98, @andrewshepherd, @lisarandolph, @bradywalen, @dericjones, @mmpartee, @nunispramp for that.

Update 7/1: I’ve added four jazz vocalists and a spelling change from @astigmatic, who let me know that, “It’s Krall, the singer, not Krull, the awesomely bad fantasy thriller from 1983.” Thanks, Aaron.

PS: Add to the list by posting your favorites in the comments.

5 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. nice! Also… Andrew ShepHErd. I thought we’d gone through this Brent. The text is right, but not the actual linkage.

  2. Look Andrew, if you could just learn to spell your name right we wouldn’t have this problem.

    Germans = trouble-makers.

  3. Awesome. Does Norah Jones count as a jazz vocalist? Her first album I’d put on here. I’d also add Jimmy Durante (”a kiss to build a dream on” for example),

    BTW - here is the first song I’ve heard by Nat King Cole when I was 13 or so and turned me on to his music. Still dig it - “Sweet Lorraine”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1K5hwkQqMI

  4. Okay I have to add Melody Gardot to the jazz list…but also maybe to the beautiful list.

    Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Eb651s_o1Q

  5. Also, you need to hear the tragically late Susannah McCorkle’s version of “If I only had a heart” (yes, from Wizard of Oz):

    http://www.rhapsody.com/susannah-mccorkle/most-requested-songs

    Track #8. Her voice is sublime. If you listen to the track with headphones on loud, your goosebumps will have goosebumps.

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