'Spoken' Jazz

[TXHookem]

Can anyone recommend any good examples of jazz with the spoken word? The best examples I can think of as to what I'm looking for are songs like the following...

"Scenes in the City" Charles Mingus
"Freedom" Charles Mingus
"This is my Beloved" Arthur Prysock

 

[Napoleon]

I thought that this was going to be an opinion poll.

I went to a spoken word event or two in LA. Personally, I can't stand it. (Although spoken jazz is probably just freestyle rapping with jazz music in the background, not pre-written ramblings.) Maybe it's because I'm not disenfranchised or angry about social injustice, but I was ready to leave by the middle of the second person.

Good luck with your search. I have faith that 2 to 20 people on here will know something about the subject.

 

[TXHookem]

Track down the tracks on Napster or somewhere else and you'll see what I mean... pretty much different than what you think it is. Another version of "Scenes in the City" is by Branford Marsalis.

 

[83Horn]

Is this anything like William Shatner's version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds?

 

[halsteadfrost]

Woman,
Woah, Man
WOOOAHHH, Man
She was a thief
You got to believe
She stole my heart and my cat

 

[buckhorn]

Ken Nordine is famous for his 'word jazz' albums. You might try 'Colors' or 'Word Jazz.'

DJ Food uses Nordine to great effect on a tune called 'The Aging Young Rebel.' It's on Kaleidescope (sp).

Medeski Martin and Wood also have a track on Combustion that uses spoken word by Steve Cannon. It's called 'Whatever Happened to Gus.'

I also want to say that a jazz 'rapper' from the forties exists named Jimmy Scott, or something like that. Not clear on that.

 

[BernOrange]

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