Listening, transcribing, copying, and assimilating – this is the core of growing up through the aural tradition of jazz singing. Don’t believe me? Listen to Cécile McLorin Salvant, the celebrated jazz singer, telling NPR’s Terry Gross about her development.
[When I] started singing jazz and studying it really, she was – she was maybe the first person that I would copy. And I – it became less about sounding unique. I didn’t even care about that. I just wanted to sound as much like her as I possibly could. And so I’d spend a lot of time listening to her and seeing how I could make my voice sound like that. And then eventually, it moved on to other singers. Billie Holiday was a big one, where I would pay attention to the way she would pronounce words, the way she – even just her accent. All of that became really interesting to me – and vibrato and all of that. And eventually, I – the more I listened and became obsessed with singers, I feel like the more I realized that I had my own little thing that I could – that I could do. And so this is why I just became obsessed with looking for new singers, unknown singers, people that maybe have been forgotten, and really checking them out and analyzing what they do – and obsessive listening. I think that’s the core of my work on music, has been just listening to things and listening to singers.