Jackie and Roy - Making Music That Satisfies and Swings

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Jackie [Cain] said, "In fact Roy [Kral] always hesitated singing. He never really wanted to sing. I started to coax him as we went along, and he had to do a couple of things where we sang lyrics. I guess it was hard at first to do both. When you're a piano player, it's difficult."

"Nat Cole told me [Gene Lees] he found it difficult," I said. "If anybody should have been at ease, he should have. He said it divided your attention. 

He said he sang better when he didn't play."

"And you play better if you don't sing," Roy said.

"Roy never really wanted to sing because he didn't think of himself as a singer.

- Gene Lees, Singers and the Song II 

“In 1947 tenor saxophonist Charlie Ventura inspired new hope for the use of multiple voices in jazz—as opposed to jazz vocal groups—by forming his "Bop for the People" band. Records like "Euphoria" (1947, Savoy) and "East of Suez" (1949, Coral) display a thoughtful synthesis of male (Roy Kral) and female (Jackie Cain) voices within the context of the modern jazz small band, using the singers as part of the ensemble at Openings, closings, and transitions between instrumental solos. At the same time, Ventura's "Gone With the Wind" (1948, Savoy) and "Lullaby in Rhythm" (1949, Victor) capture a potentially promising solo canary in Jackie Cain. For a time it might have seemed as if the two singers deserved some of the credit for the great sound of the Bop for the People band, but when Ventura disbanded and Cain and Kral went out on their own to become "Jackie and Roy," they never again made music as satisfying.”

- Will Friedwald, Jazz Singing: America’s Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond [Da Capo]

"Not only do they work together with remarkable skill and deftness, but they make it all seem like play. Rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically they bubble, startle, break traditions right and left, and make it all seem as natural and inevitable as the sudden blooming of spring flowers." 

- Alec Wilder, Composer

When it comes to vocal Jazz, Will Friedwald is a highly regarded source for knowledge, information and opinion on the subject.

I generally agree with him, but I was very surprised to read his assertion about the Jazz singing of the vocal duo of Jackie [Cain] and Roy [Kral] as noted and underscored in the last line of the opening quotation from his book on the subject of Jazz singing.

I must confess to not being any sort of expert on Jackie and Roy’s music, but what I’ve heard of it over the years always impressed me along the lines of what's expressed in the following quotation from Gene Lees’ A Family Affair - Jackie and Roy from his Singers and the Song II [Oxford]:

 “... A remarkable duo, unique in American history, the serene, flawless and exquisite blend of two voices lifting the melodies they have chosen, giving them a new character.”

The care and complexity that went into their music from the harmonies, the blissful ballad renditions, the rhythmic displacements, the mountain of original music and the vocalese [a style of singing in which singers put words to jazz tunes] as captured over 50+ years in 50+ albums certainly warranted a closer look, especially in the face of Mr. Friedwald’s rather dismissive statement.

So I decided to dig further both into their recorded music, especially the commentaries in the liner notes, and in the Jazz literature to see what else I could find about them. 

And as one goes through these notes, articles and commentaries about Jackie and Roy, the consensus of opinion about Jackie and Roy and their music seems to be quite the opposite of the negative one expressed by Mr. Friedwald,

“On these recordings made in New York and Los Angeles in 1957, the duo is backed by two top studio bands conducted by Roy himself and by the great Bill Holman. Impeccably selected and tastefully presented, the material is illuminated by inventive singing delivered with consistent freshness and splendid technical command. Jackie is the featured singer, but Roy joins in often enough to heighten the pacing that much more. The arrangements are full-voiced, with swinging, functionally effective backdrops for the vocals, garnished with occasional instrumental solos from the stellar personnel. Holman wrote most of the arrangements, but Ernie Wilkins, Ralph Burns and Quincy Jones also collaborated in the New York sessions.” - Jimmy Lyons, KNBC, San Francisco, writing in Bits and Pieces and Free and Easy with Roy Kral and the Bill Holman Orchestras. [Fresh Sound FSR CD-510].

The new album got two important raves. "Until Concerts by the Sea," wrote Chuck Berg in Down Beat, "I had never had the pleasure of fully experiencing the Krals' intoxicating magic. The potency of their spells derives from their youthful yet lived-in voices, pervasive upbeat bubbliness and impeccable musicianship ... In addition to the vocals, Roy's piano work is bright and stylish." 

Peter Reilly of Stereo Review singled out Concerts by the Sea as a "Recording of Special Merit," announcing: "Here are the Krals in another of their hip, witty, elegant albums ... As usual, they lob the musical ball to each other with glorious ease."

“But the album lacked good distribution, and soon became a collector's item. ‘It was such a small company, and nobody had any money to do anything with it,’ says Roy. He ended up with five hundred copies in his basement. Jackie & Roy didn't make another album until 1979, when they began a series of four IPs for Concord. They have recorded regularly ever since - sometimes for prominent labels like Contemporary, but more often for smaller producers who, like Britt and Smith, consider the Krals' music too special to go undocumented.”

— James  Gavin, New York City, 2000 insert notes to CD version of Jackie and Roy, Concerts by the Sea

“Jackie and Roy were well known in the 1940s and 1950s for their unusual duets and noted particularly for their witty lyrics and skilled vocalese; their style and presentation made their performances acceptable to a wider audience. Jackie was also a strong ballad singer” - Reg Cooper, Barry Kernfeld, Ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz

“Although wordless Jazz has become increasingly fashionable in the past few years - as witness the success of Ursula Dudziak, Al Jarreau, Flora Purim, Leon Thomas - the incorporation of lyrics, music and vocalese represented by the Krals has remained sui generis throughout their unending career. Over the years they have modified and modernized their style and material ever so slightly, but very little change was needed for they were far ahead of their time.” - Leonard Feather, liner notes to LP version of Jackie and Roy, Concerts by the Sea.

"Not only do they work together with remarkable skill and deftness, but they make it all seem like play. Rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically they bubble, startle, break traditions right and left, and make it all seem as natural and inevitable as the sudden blooming of spring flowers." 

- Alec Wilder, Composer

Here’s an article by - Harry Frost Duo, Downbeat, xxx/31, 1963 - which will give you some background on the early years of Jackie & Roy’s career and how their unique style evolved. Roy died in 2002 and Jackie died in 2014

“AFTER THEIR first national exposure in 1947 on the Charlie Ventura record of I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles, there were many critics of Jackie Cain and Roy Krai who said the boy-girl appeal and the boppish vocal routines thai were the bulwark of J&R's repertoire hardly were adequate for modest success and never could spell stardom.

No two persons were more aware of this than the boy and girl involved. From that point on, they devoted themselves to broadening their approach and enriching their material. Their marriage in 1949 showed that no matter what others thought, Jackie and Roy were no fad to each other, and today they probably have convinced anyone who still needs convincing that their particular bubble seems puncture-proof.

Buttressing their effectiveness as a team, Jackie went to work and made the most of her resplendent voice, to become a ballad singer of sterling quality, Roy has evolved as a sensitive and masterful accompanist and, at the same time, a blowing jazz pianist. Behind everything they have ever done lies Roy's skill and buoyancy as an arranger.

They have walked the road to maturity with few detours. Today their position in the show-business jungle is more secure, albeit less sensational, than some whose names flash on the horizon only to find eventual anonymity, Jackie and Roy are stars, not meteors.

Jackie, from Milwaukee, moved to Chicago after high school to pursue a singing career. There she met Roy, a native Chicagoan. when they both were working in a little club called Jump Town. Dave Garroway, doing a jazz record show on Chicago's WMAQ at the time, heard them at JumpTown, liked them, and began presenting them in Saturday afternoon concerts at the Morrison Hotel. It was at one of these concerts that Jackie and Roy met Charlie Ventura. They joined the saxophonist's group, and things like Euphoria, Bubbles, and Lullaby in Rhythm followed.

Shortly before their marriage, Jackie and Roy decided to go on their own. So it has been except for an eight-month reunion with Ventura in '53.

In the decade since, as their own bosses, J&R have taken on a luster that makes their act one that is at home both in supper clubs and jazz clubs. Beyond their acknowledged musical skill, there is a lightness and freshness that ingratiates them with most audiences and at the least makes them acceptable to any audience. They proved this in Las Vegas, NV. With two young daughters (Nicoli is now 11; Dana 7) they moved there about four years ago.

"We wanted the girls with us, and Las Vegas was the answer," Jackie related. "There we could change audiences without changing cities. With the constant turnover of people and so many clubs, we were assured of steady employment. We bought a home, enrolled the girls in school, and got off the merry-go-round for a while."

"it was a welcome change." Roy affirmed, "but when Jackie says steady employment, she means exactly that. The hours out there are brutal — every night until 4 or 5 in the morning."

Jackie nodded, saying. "It wasn't only the hours. The audiences for the most part are made up of people not particularly interested in music. They're loud — you have to fight to be heard— and some of the things we do just aren't appreciated in that setting. Even so, they liked us, and we had all the work we could handle.

"And there's lots of recreation —  the great outdoors. This was ideal for the girls, and we enjoyed it too — plenty of sunshine, swimming, and sand.

"Lots of sand." Jackie was reflective. "Las Vegas is a desert in more ways than one. It's a cultural desert. After the swimming pools and the gambling and the night life, what is there? It's a glorified vacuum.

“After awhile,” Roy said, "we started thinking about moving back to New York, After three years in Vegas, we came back last year, and we were lucky. We found a great old place — a mansion, 21 rooms, overlooking the Hudson. It's so big we live in just one wing, The place is surrounded by trees. It seems more like Connecticut than New York City,"

Jackie chimed in with enthusiasm:

"The house is more than 100 years old, and it just seems to put you in tune \with art and tradition. All the musicians love it. They say it makes you feel like working, like creating — and it does. Alec Wilder has been there and so has Antonio Carlos Jobim."

Jackie described Jobim, the composer of Desafinado, as a wonderful man. and both she and Roy are strongly attracted to his music and to that of other Brazilian composers.

"Bossa nova, the real bossa nova, is here to stay." Roy said. "The authentic Brazilian music, like Jobim's, has melodic substance and a poetic quality that is very touching. ... It will last."

WHAT JACKIE AND ROY do in their vocal routines has been described as scat-bop, vocalese, and by other verbal coinage that hardly tells the story, for there is no pat way of saying what they do. Essentially, they use their voices as instruments, and they are not the only practitioners of this, nor are they the originators. The late Buddy Stewart predated them with Ventura, and before that, Stewart and Dave Lambert were doing similar things with Gene Krupa's band, and the lineage can be followed back through Leo Watson and Louis Armstrong.

So Jackie and Roy were not innovators. Nonetheless, they are highly original. Since the Ventura days, Roy has had a gift for performing face-lifting jobs on older tunes —  from Bubbles to Lullaby in Rhythm to things like Thou Swell and Mountain Greenery and later to the vast storehouse of almost-forgotten numbers like Let's Take a Walk around the Block. In addition, Jackie and Roy have an abiding interest in, and sharp ears for the work of unknown contemporary composers, some of whom they have helped lo make not so unknown.

The best example of this is the team of Tommy Wolf (composer) and Fran Landesman (lyricist), who were given the incentive to continue when Jackie and Roy recorded one of the songwriting team's first efforts, Season in the Sun, on the Storyville label. Then in short order Jackie and Roy began using more Wolf-Landesman material, including Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, which has since become a contemporary standard with almost a dozen recorded versions to its credit.

Fresh material and fresh presentation are endemic to Jackie and Roy: their freshness is built in. The blend of their voices, dominated by Jackie's bell-pure sound, is always clean and scintillating. Their friend and long-time admirer, Alec Wilder, has summed it up beautifully:

"Not only do they work together with remarkable skill and deftness, but they make it all seem like play. Rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically they bubble, startle, break traditions right and left, and make it all seem as natural and inevitable as the sudden blooming of spring flowers."

The traditions broken by Jackie and Roy are only the stultifying ones. The valid traditions of show business and jazz are held firmly in their grasp. In a manner that is showmanly and tasteful, the ingredients of charm, humor, and sex are pleasantly dispensed. When not occupied with singing, Jackie will sometimes do a little Apple-Jack step that politely emphasizes her fine figure.

As for the jazz tradition, Roy has a special regard for two late greats as reflected in Daahoud, written by the late trumpeter Clifford Brown, and Tiny Told Me, written by Roy in tribute to the late drummer Tiny Kahn. In negotiating these pieces, Jackie and Roy demonstrate their facility in handling straight jazz.

The fact is that whatever Jackie and Roy do together, they do well. They belong together.”