Vocal Jazz Artist Spotlight
Sarah Vaughan’s “Sassy’s Blues” Improvisation Tips
In this lesson, we explore how to improvise using the tune “Sassy’s Blues.”
Steps:
Review the melody of Sassy’s Blues (if needed) by listening to the recording:
Try to sing alongside Sarah utilizing the same swing feel and confident tone as her.
Break the melody into 2 phrases/ideas and practice them as two separate chunks of musical content. Think of them as “Idea #1” and “Idea #2.”
Sing Idea #1 (first half of the melody) and instead of completing it with Idea #2 (the second half of the melody), complete the line with an improvised idea of your own.
Similarly, take Idea #2 (second half of the melody) and place it at the beginning of your phrase, then improvise a new idea off of it to complete the phrase.
For more inspiration, please download the attached PDF, which contains transcribed choruses of Sarah Vaughan’s scat on Sassy’s Blues. You can go to the marked timestamps and listen to her sing those ideas in the recording. Listen to them until you can sing along—then try to improvise off of them!
Considerations:
Your new ideas can be similar to what you already know—the melody! You don’t have to abandon the musical ideas you already have in your ear.
Go for simple ideas that utilize space, a solid swing feel and confident tone.
Want to send this video to your students? Use this link: https://youtu.be/WTL9xdKwIhQ