“It’s physically impossible”: The jazz singer who stunned Thom Yorke
There are a series of sonic choices that differentiate Radiohead from the rest of the alternative rock sphere. Their eerie guitar and piano parts, their tendency to incorporate electronic production alongside traditional rock stylings, the discussions of technology and loneliness that spill into their lyrics. But perhaps the most striking element of Radiohead’s distinctive sound is their vocalist, Thom Yorke.
Whether he’s singing about creeps or karma police, Yorke always infuses his vocals with a tangible sense of melancholy and isolation. His delivery oscillates between soft wavers and more forceful moments, employing vibrato to enhance the emotions within his words. Yorke has one of the most truly haunting voices not just within rock, but in music history, a voice that stays with you beyond the end of a song and pushes its way into your psyche.
As one of the most distinctive voices within rock, then, Yorke seems well-placed to comment on the vocal talents of his peers and predecessors. And he did exactly that during a conversation with Jason Thomas Gordon for The Singers Talk. The Radiohead singer admitted that if he could perform a duet with any vocalist from throughout music history, he’d go for Beatles songwriter John Lennon.
But Lennon wasn’t the only vocalist Yorke heaped praise upon. He shared a list of his favourite singers, including Nina Simone, Scott Walker and Ella Fitzgerald, sharing his particular admiration for the latter. “I’m obsessed with Ella Fitzgerald at the moment,” he enthused, citing a particular performance from the 1960s in which she performed two jazz standards alongside Duke Ellington.
“Her technical singing is fucking insane,” he emphasised, “In. Sane. She’s belting the crap out of it. She’s so loud, and she doesn’t miss one note.” Yorke didn’t name which performance he had seen specifically, but it seems likely that he might be referring to her appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1965.
Fitzgerald and Ellington delivered a stellar performance of ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)’ on the beloved 1960s show, with the vocalist performing some particularly impressive scatting. “She does one super, super fast, jazz scat thing, which is just … I mean it’s physically impossible,” Yorke gushed, “I’ve not seen anyone do anything like that.”
Despite his assertion, it certainly is physically possible, at least if your name is Ella Fitzgerald. Beyond that standout performance, her entire jazz career showed off her talent with a microphone and how she used her technical prowess to improvise seamlessly. She could scat and sing with pure, intimate emotion with equal skill.
Yorke isn’t the only listener who was captivated by Fitzgerald’s talent. As she lent her voice to jazz classics like ‘Autumn in New York’ and ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’, she became one of the most well-loved voices of the genre and the era. She also proved her place as one of the greatest vocalists of all time, a claim she still holds now, decades after her death.
Yorke’s voice isn’t quite as universally loved as Fitzgerald’s — it tends to have that Marmite quality to it, people either love it or hate it — but he has certainly had a huge impact on the realm of alt-rock with his wavering vocals. He has carved out his own place alongside the greats with his distinctive tones.
