Huey Long (singer) Huey Long (singer) Huey Long (April 25, 1904 – June 10, 2009) was an American jazz and swing singer-songwriter and musician and was a member of the close harmony vocal traditional pop group The Ink Spots. Born in Sealy, Texas, Long began his musical career in 1925 playing banjo for Frank Davis' Louisiana Jazz Band, based in Houston. He switched from the banjo to the guitar after moving to Chicago, where he appeared at the 1933 World's Fair with Texas Guinan's Cuban Orchestra. He performed with artists such as Lil Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, and his career also encompassed sideman,
Vocal jazz Vocal jazz Vocal jazz or jazz singing is an instrumental approach to the voice, where the singer can match the instruments in their stylistic approach to the lyrics, improvised or otherwise, or through scat singing; that is, the use of non-morphemic syllables to imitate the sound of instruments. The roots of jazz music were very much vocal, with field hollers and ceremonial chants, but while the blues maintained a strong vocal tradition, with singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith heavily influencing the progress of American popular music in general, early jazz bands only featured vocalists periodically, albeit those