Artist

Al Jarreau

Milwaukee, United States • 1940 – 2017

Al Jarreau is a musician from Milwaukee, United States, active 1940–2017. Their discography on Gatefold includes 24 records.

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Albums tracked

In collections

1940

Since

Biography

Alwin Lopez Jarreau (12 March 1940 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - 12 february 2017, Los Angeles, California), known popularly as Al Jarreau, was an American, Grammy Award–winning jazz singer. Versatile in his singing style, Jarreau is a twelve-time Grammy-nominated vocalist and the only vocalist in history to win a Grammy Award in three separate categories: jazz, pop, and R&B. As the son of a vicar, he had his first singing experiences in a church choir.

The Arc of Al Jarreau

The pivots — what forced Al Jarreau to reinvent.

The Reprise Breakthrough
Al Schmitt got him into the studio in 1975 to record We Got By, keeping the arrangements lean so the voice could breathe. This wasn't the over-orchestrated jazz of the decade prior. It was stripped-back, focusing on Jarreau's ability to create entire rhythmic worlds with just his throat and a microphone. You hear a guy who spent years in small clubs finally getting the chance to put his idiosyncratic timing onto tape without a label head telling him to tone it down.
The West Coast Pop Pivot
When Jay Graydon took over production duties for 1980’s This Time and the follow-up Breakin' Away, the sound shifted toward the pristine, session-player perfection of the Los Angeles scene. They brought in the heavy hitters like Jeff Porcaro and Steve Gadd to lock down the pocket, forcing Jarreau to sharpen his delivery to match the click-track precision. The result was a massive commercial peak that traded the loose improvisation of his early years for a sophisticated, chart-topping R&B sheen that defined the era's adult contemporary sound.
The GRP Fusion Return
Moving to GRP Records in the early '90s put him back in a room with jazz-centric producers like George Duke and Marcus Miller who actually understood his improvisational roots. After years of chasing pop hits, Tenderness saw him recording in front of a live studio audience, stripping away the synthesized layers of the late '80s. This era functioned as a victory lap where he could finally integrate his pop phrasing with the heavy-duty jazz chops that the purists thought he’d abandoned.

Influences

Jon Hendricks — The undisputed king of vocalese whom Jarreau cited as his primary reason for treating the voice like a horn. You hear this in Jarreau's rapid-fire syllable delivery and his ability to improvise complex solos over bebop changes. He took Hendricks' rhythmic vocabulary and slowed it down for the soul era.
Nat King Cole — Jarreau frequently noted Cole's diction and phrasing as his blueprint for how to command a room with a ballad. While Jarreau was much more explosive, he retained Cole's specific, clean enunciation even when he was scatting at high speeds. It’s the foundational DNA of his pop crossover appeal.
Johnny Mathis — The influence shows up in Jarreau's upper-register control and the vibrato he used on his softer, middle-of-the-road hits. Jarreau admitted to studying the way Mathis moved through a melody without breaking his breath support. It gave him the technical floor to pull off those long, sustained notes during his live shows.
Ella Fitzgerald — The shared lineage here is the sheer fearlessness of their scat singing and the use of the voice as a lead instrument. Jarreau used Fitzgerald’s improvisational blueprints to build his own 'vocal percussion' style. He took her playfulness and applied it to a post-funk rhythmic structure.
Dave Brubeck — Jarreau famously covered 'Take Five,' which became a staple of his live sets and a showcase for his rhythmic complexity. Brubeck’s use of odd time signatures gave Jarreau the playground he needed to prove his voice could keep up with any instrumentalist. It bridged the gap between his pop sensibilities and his deep-seated jazz timing.