Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Dave Lambert Edition

For today's MP3 Shuffle we celebrate the posthumous birthday of jazz vocalist and pioneer Dave Lambert. During the Hep-Cat heights of the 1950s and '60s Jazz scene, Lambert was one of the artists who perfected a singing style called vocalese, a technique by which a singer puts words to melodies and solos originally written for instruments (as opposed to scat singing, where a vocalist makes non-word sounds and basically becomes another instrument).

Lambert teamed up with fellow vocalists Jon Hendricks and Anne Ross to form a trio whose prowess in interpreting the complex Bee-Bop charts of musicians like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane earned them a following as The Hottest New Group in Jazz (which was also the name of their biggest album, released in 1960).

Lambert tragically died in an auto accident at age 49, but he left behind a truly unique art form that's still used by vocalists seeking to expand their repertoire. Sing a few notes in his honor by taking your MP3 player, pressing the "shuffle" button, and sharing the first 10 songs you hear:

1. OutKast – Unhappy (Speakerboxxx/The Love Below): The last hurrah (?) from one of the great 21st century Rap duos. Although, they did reunite at Lolla a couple of years ago, so who knows?

2. The Monroes – What Do All the People Know (Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the '80s): A New Wave song with some serious bubblegum Pop roots and '70s-style AOR aspirations.

3. Frank Sinatra – Old Devil Moon (Songs for Swingin' Lovers): A track from one of ol' Blue-Eye's Capital recordings, which are a national treasure. HBO recently aired a documentary on Sinatra's life that's worth viewing. Yes, he was "mobbed up" in his life. No, that wasn't the reason he was so popular and successful.

4. Warpaint - Undertow (The Fool): My favorite Warpaint song. The first and second verses are fantastic, a slow mystical groove with basically just voices and bass guitar.

5. Nellie Lutcher and Her Rhythm – Fine Brown Frame (The R&B Box: 30 Years of Rhythm and Blues): An Rhythm & Blues strut; Ms. Lutcher makes her intentions plain to the object of her affections.

6. Mazes – Litza: A quick single from a Chicago band that mixes thumping percussion with gently ringing surf-guitar. There's something appealingly '50s-ish about it.

7. Oshwa – Salty Crackers (Chamomile Crush): Freak-Folk? Alt-Country? Rural-Art-Soul? It lands somewhere in there – loose rhythms and rustic acoustic instruments led by an effective male/female duet.

8. Doleful Lions – Siamese Twins (Creepsville Field Recordings Volume Two: Chicago Chapter Of The Crowned And Conquering Child): Every time I hear something from this album I think about how cool it is that DIY Alternative music exists.

9. Betty Carter – Medley: I Didn't Know What Time It Was/All the Things You Are/I Could Write a Book (1959-1969): Another Jazz vocalist who was operating around the time of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross. She also had a vocal style and sound all her own and (in my opinion) tends to get overlooked in the annals of Jazz history.

10. Get Your Gun – The New Law (The Fifty-Year Storm): A 21st-Century theme song to a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western, complete with Spanish guitar, howling wind effects, echoes of coyotes and buzzards in the background.

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