Cabaret Blues
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Cabaret Blues is intimate urban blues for clubs, supper rooms and nightlife stages. It favors personality, storytelling, flexible tempo, suggestive lyrics and close communication with the audience. The accompaniment may be piano, small jazz combo or theater band, and the delivery often sits between blues, jazz standard, torch song and risqué stage number. Compared with rural blues, cabaret blues is more urbane and theatrical.
History
As blues moved through Harlem, Chicago, Kansas City and other urban entertainment districts, singers adapted blues to rooms where audiences expected glamour, wit and emotional polish. Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Jimmy Witherspoon and later Nina Simone all worked parts of this terrain. Cabaret blues helped keep early blues material alive inside jazz-vocal and nightclub repertoires.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Am I Blue? — Ethel WatersSpotifyYouTube
- Down Hearted Blues — Alberta HunterSpotifyYouTube
- Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out — Bessie SmithSpotifyYouTube
- Fine and Mellow — Billie HolidaySpotifyYouTube
- A Bad Case of the Blues — Dinah WashingtonSpotifyYouTube
- Ain't Nobody's Business — Jimmy WitherspoonSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- cabaret and jazz-vocal histories
- classic blues discographies
- artist biographies
- streaming/video checks