Let’s hear it for the singers! In the eight decades since its inception in 1939, Blue Note Records has produced some of the finest and most iconic jazz performers of all time, whose albums have gone on to enjoy their own extended lifespan long after their original release. Upon mentioning the highly-regarded label, you’ll most likely call to mind artists such as Art Blakey, Horace Silver and Dexter Gordon; all of them fine musicians, who still contend today alongside the more contemporary faces of Gregory Porter, Norah Jones and Meshell Ndegeocello.

One solid difference between today’s roster of talent is the sheer volume of vocalists currently signed to the label in comparison to its hard bop heyday. In fact, Jones’ era-defining Come Away With Me (2002) was recently reissued in a Super Deluxe Edition, which marked the album’s 20th anniversary. Despite the rapid ascent of multi-acclaimed singers into the Blue Note canon, what is the tradition of vocalists who have appeared all throughout the label’s history? This week, we aim to provide a fresh run-down of the most gifted artists who have lent their pipes to these classic recordings.

The Playlist

Our mix begins with a laid-back rendition of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ from the timeless crooner, Lou Rawls – its live atmosphere really captures the vibe of the crowd situated before the Hollywood soundstage where it was recorded in 1966. We are then greeted by something of a rarity from the Blue Note catalogue: the first of only two releases that made up its ‘9000 Series’ from the early sixties. Singer Dodo Greene made her name with the Cab Calloway Revue before signing to the label as its first ever vocalist with her album My Hour Of Need (1962), as well as being its second contracted female artist (after German pianist Jutta Hipp in 1954). Despite reliable musical support from the Ike Quebec Quintet, the record drastically underperformed and this Dodo sadly went the way of her namesake. The next artist to be picked up by the label at that time was Sheila Jordan, a bright spark known for her impressive vocal control as well as the eminent camaraderie she boasted with the great Charlie Parker. A smaller and more intimate affair that features the incomparable Steve Swallow on double bass, fate has been somewhat kinder to Portrait of Sheila (1963) – but not enough for the album to have bucked the trend set by its predecessor upon its release.

Although the series failed to generate as many sales as had been intended (having quickly been abandoned following its two releases), jazz vocalists would inevitably appear in more subtle ways over the following years. Even if label-founder Alfred Lion wasn’t able to find an appetite for LPs featuring vocal stars such as Jordan and Greene, that’s not to assume, however, that the label hadn’t already dipped its toes in the world of vocal jazz several years prior.

The first vocalist proper to appear on the label had been the eccentric Babs Gonzales. Making up in apparent enthusiasm what he may have lacked in musical rigour, this associate of Dizzy Gillespie was one hipster bent on bringing bop to the masses, and his early recordings for the label from 1947-58 are a veritable treasure trove of this burgeoning cultural movement. It would be several years before these vocalists, most commonly linked to their work with larger ensembles, would take off in their own right as solo performers, however.

Soon after his arrival at the world’s jazz capital from the windy city of Chicago (where he frequently performed with Ramsey Lewis), singer Bill Henderson would land his most significant studio gig to date. Tasked with re-recording a tune that had originally appeared on maestro Horace Silver’s Six Pieces of Silver (1956), ‘Señor Blues (Vocal Version)’ was released as a single before being included in later reissues of the original album. Four-fifths of the ensemble which had been assembled to back the singer here would then go on to form what many still consider to this day to be the classic Silver lineup (with the addition of trumpeter Blue Mitchell) – certainly, his most stable. Perhaps this was the Blue Note's inspiration behind launching the ‘9000 Series’, in the hope of capitalising on their previous jukebox success. Henderson’s enticing vocals would later reappear on Jimmy Smith’s ‘Angel Eyes’, recorded the same year as his smash hit with Silver.

A wider variety of musical styles emerge as we dart around chronologically, with the spritely Flora Purim making her first American appearance with ‘Sandalia Dela’ from Duke Pearson’s eclectic How Insensitive (1969). Horace Silver returns, having recruited the enriching baritone of Andy Bey on ‘I’ve Had A Little Talk’, an urgent call to action from Total Response (1972) regarding the importance of wellbeing and clean living . More surprising cuts include Gene McDaniels’ stellar turn on Bobby Hutcherson’s ‘Hello To The Wind’ from the vibraphonist’s undersung avant-garde masterpiece, Now! (1970). There is an uneasy sense of radicalism to these recordings, matched in no small part by the militant nature of the wider world that was unravelling around these largely African-American performers. Eddie Gale applies a revolutionary touch to the choral notion first introduced on Donald Byrd’s A New Perspective (1963) with its sequence of wordless spirituals. A track like ‘The Gleeker’ from his second of two albums for Blue Note, Black Rhythm Happening (1969), reveals the mystic resilience of Gale’s conceptual ‘ghetto music’, explored here to its fullest potential.

The political heat dies down a notch as we enter the seventies, with experimental skronking giving way to a cooler jazz-funk breeze. We could have picked any one of the tracks from the smooth-as-butter Blacks And Blues (1973) for instance, but on ‘Just A Love Child’, flautist Bobbi Humphrey’s voice soars to new heights. And, of course, we couldn’t go without including songstresses Carmen McRae or Marlena Shaw, whose intoxicating five-album run between 1972-76 heralded in a mainstream audience with the same grooviness as her fiery predecessors.

Wrapping up the century are two of the label’s biggest stars of the nineties, the beguiling Cassandra Wilson and top-notch traditionalist Kurt Elling, who provides a fearsome take on Coltrane’s ‘Resolution’. Concluding our mix are several of the biggest names to have come out of the new millennium – hear Norah Jones covering Leonard Cohen or José James paying homage to Billie Holiday, for that matter – proving that, even today, Blue Note continues to expand its creative vision whilst upholding a superlative legacy.

Enjoy the best albums to feature vocalists on Blue Note below, and be sure to check out the full playlist here on our streaming service!