Joe Carroll, Dizzy Gillespie

His nickname was "Bebop." According to legend, Joe Carroll was the man to call during the height of popularity for that style of jazz, especially if one was trying to locate an elusive genius such as Charlie Parker. To some listeners, however, Carroll is a pariah, not a messiah. He may be one of the earliest singers credited with recording jazz vocalese, a kind of sophisticated term for scat singing, but few fans of this type of performance pick him as a favorite. While the man did cut several albums under his own name beginning in the '50s, the recordings he is mostly known f...