[Harp-L] Market for men singing jazz standards

["Bill" <bill.eborn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The recent talk about singing has got me thinking a bit. What do people 
think the market is for men singing jazz standards, if you want to think of 
yourself as a jazz musician rather than a razzamatazzy showman if you know I 
mean?

It seems to be accepted that jazz singers are women and i've played with a 
few and if it's not too presumptuous some that basically ain't as good as me 
which is really frustrating.  Although obviously there have been some great 
male jazz singers, Parker, Davis and Gil Evans et al evidently thought so on 
Birth of the Cool, and i've just been listening to Earl Coleman singing on 
an album called Bebop Revisited vol 1 original 1947-48 but was it just the 
case that it was an age when crooners were fashionable, so male singers 
worked back then?

I like Chet Baker's style of singing, cool and understated and a jazz 
instrumentalist who sang, which as a harmonica player is what I think I'd 
feel more comfortable with - apparantly he ran into trouble with the jazz 
police for it though.

What do we think?

Bill