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Patty Waters

PATTY WATERS must be acknowledged as a vocalist who has tested the limits of the human voice's capabilities. Since her brief recording career in the mid-'6O's, she has come to be appreciated as a vocal innovator not just in jazz but in contemporary music as a whole. Much of her repertoire was given over to hushed piano solo ballads in which her voice could fade to a whisper that was barely audible, but what really attracted attention were her avant-garde outings in which she stretched and mutated her voice with contorted shrieks and wails that could be downright blood-curdling. She was heard in a nightclub in the early '6O's by Albert Ayler, who recommended her to the ESP label; the first side of her 1965 debut recording ("Sings") was given over entirely to self-composed solo piano miniatures, leaving listeners somewhat unprepared for the second side, which consisted solely of her 13-minute interpretation of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair." Building into hair-raising screams and vocal improvisations, it remains the performance for which she is most noted. Sadly, she only recorded one more album, the live "College Tour," just a few months later; a more determinedly avant-garde effort than her debut, it featured entirely different, mostly self-composed songs. Ms. Waters often eschewed words altogether for wordless moan-scats and wails, and opted for a fuller band backing, including appearances by pianists Ran Blake and Burton Greene. Aside from a subsequent appearance with Marzette Watts's ensemble on a 1968 LP, nothing further was heard from her on record until 1996, as she withdrew to Hawaii to raise her son (born in 1969) and sang in public only sporadically for many years. She sang in the Monterey Festival of 1999 and in 2003 at New York City's Vision Festival and the Tolbooth Festival in Scotland, and in 2006 she toured in Belgium and Paris with the great bassist Henry Grimes. Patty's mystique has been enhanced over the decades by the rarity of her two ESP discs, recently reissued on CD in Germany. Diamanda Galas names Patty Waters as her biggest influence, and she is also publicly revered by Christina Carter and Patti Smith. Patty Waters now lives in Santa Cruz, California and very much wants to continue with her music life. Patty Waters can be reached at [email protected]. [NOTE: This updated biography is based on one written by Richie Unterberger for "All Music Guide." The photo above is by Will Wallace.]

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189
Album Review

Patty Waters: Sings

Read "Sings" reviewed by Lyn Horton


The female voice is branded with certain qualifications which place it in slots of clear expectations. Patty Waters has a voice that links it to no other, despite recurring efforts from critics to do so. The 1965 release Sings is the first documentation of her as songstress, songwriter and improviser.

Waters' voice projects mood and sound. The first part of the recording is filled with her songs, each no more than three minutes. They run together as though verses of ...

214
Album Review

Patty Waters: Sings

Read "Sings" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


The interpretation of words is an art and Patty Waters turned that art into a singular achievement on her first recording, Sings, originally released in 1965. The songs on that album, now reissued by ESP Disk, took on a plaintive air--wrapped in the whisper of her pain and belted out in a scream of anguish. She was as comfortable with a serene rendition of love as she was in the throws of anxiety and tension.

Waters was singing ...

249
Album Review

Patty Waters: Sings

Read "Sings" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose


This legendary 1965 debut of Patty Waters, simply entitled Sings, is everything that it became famous for. Today, it's also clear how a recording such as this would have come to stand for the angst and anguish of a generation of musicians who were in the forefront of the avant-garde movement in jazz music. Using an organic combination of the human voice, its ability to reflect a myriad of human emotions and breathy spare lyricism, Waters is able to communicate ...

553
Reassessing

Patty Waters: Sings

Read "Patty Waters: Sings" reviewed by Trevor MacLaren


Patty Waters Sings ESP-Disk 1965

Independent labels like Bernard Stollmann's ESP-Disk lacked sufficient funds to lend much of a push behind their roster. Because of this fact, much of the label's talent has been neglected or left to a cult following. It seems hard to believe today--with a roster boasting artists like Paul Bley, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, hippie folk cult icons Pearls Before Swine, and The Fugs--that the label didn't become ...

298
Album Review

Patty Waters: You Thrill Me: A Musical Odyssey 1960-1979

Read "You Thrill Me: A Musical Odyssey 1960-1979" reviewed by Germein Linares


On several instances in this collection of previously unreleased material, Patty Waters appears so unexpected, so revealing, that hearing her feels like eavesdropping. Delicate, sensitive, and slightly melancholic, Waters sings of the off-center tones in love and life. Spanning 1960-79, You Thrill Me features many of Waters' solo ballads on piano, avoiding all of her more provocative free jazz excursions.

The collection begins with a light-hearted, jazzy jingle for Jax Beer, a now defunct New Orleans brewery. Though meant to ...

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