Skeeter Spight
vocals
Skeeter Spight, a Detroit jazz singer, scatted in a vocal trio with Sheila Jordan; Barry says listening to him scat taught him something about soloing.
- mentions
- 1
- recordings
- 1
- Barry speaking
- 1
What Barry says
Barry says he learned a lot about soloing by listening to Skeeter scat. In Barry’s account, Skeeter, Sheila Jordan and one other man were the special ones in Detroit who could scat.
Going over the Detroit musicians who shaped him, Barry stops to add Sheila Jordan and Skeeter, saying both are important to him.
Asked about his contemporaries, Barry recalls the trio Sheila Jordan sang in: Skeeter and another man whose name he can never remember, perhaps Richard.
The last train to Monk: an interview7:09
Barry gives the trio’s name as ‘Skeeter, Mitch and Jean’. It could scat and do everything, and Charlie Parker used to invite the three to sing with his band.
Skeeter and Sheila wrote lyrics to jazz tunes. Barry later gave such lyrics to a high school class that had refused to sing; the students took to them and sang at his concert, which began his work with children’s choirs.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶314Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶315
In his own words
I learned a lot of soloing from a scatter named Skeeter.
I learned something about soloing from listening to Skeeter scat. Now, Skeeter could scat, man!
I left out Skeeter, you know these are people who are all important to me.
Sheila, oh god, what’s his name? Skeeter and the other fellow, I never can remember his name
see Skeeter and Shiela and them wrote lyrics to jazz songs, you know.
Every mention
1 moments in the recordings, 1 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
The last train to Monk: an interview
- 7:09
Recalls Sheila Jordan’s trio: Skeeter and another man whose name he cannot remember.
In the interviews and notes
Barry says he learned a lot about soloing from listening to Skeeter scat; Skeeter, Sheila and another man were the special people who could scat.
Barry names Skeeter, with Sheila Jordan, as someone he had left out of his account of Detroit and who is important to him.
Barry says Sheila Jordan sang in a vocal trio called ‘Skeeter, Mitch and Jean’ that could scat and do everything, and that Charlie Parker used to invite them to sing with his band.
Barry recalls that Skeeter, Sheila and their friends wrote lyrics to jazz tunes, and that he used such lyrics to win over a high school singing class; those students then sang at his concert.
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.