Editing Scat singing (section)

== Critical assessment ==
Scat singing can allow jazz singers to have the same improvisational opportunities as jazz instrumentalists: scatting can be rhythmically and harmonically improvisational without concern about the lyric.<ref name=cp132>{{Harvnb|Crowther|Pinfold|1997|p=132}}</ref> Especially when [[bebop]] was developing, singers found scat to be the best way to adequately engage in the performance of jazz.<ref name="cp130">{{Harvnb|Crowther|Pinfold|1997|p=130}}</ref>

Scatting may be desirable because it does not "taint the music with the impurity of denotation."<ref name=grant>{{Harvnb|Grant|1995|p=289}}</ref> Instead of conveying linguistic content and pointing to something outside itself, scat music—like instrumental music—is self-referential and "d[oes] what it mean[s]."<ref>{{Harvnb|Leonard|1986|p=158}}</ref> Through this wordlessness, commentators have written, scat singing can describe matters beyond words.<ref name=grant/><ref name=f37>{{Harvnb|Friedwald|1990|p=37}}</ref> Music critic [[Will Friedwald]] has written that Louis Armstrong's scatting, for example, "has tapped into his own core of emotion," releasing emotions "so deep, so real" that they are unspeakable; his words "bypass our ears and our brains and go directly for our hearts and souls."<ref name=f37/>

Scat singing has never been universally accepted, even by jazz enthusiasts. Writer and critic [[Leonard Feather]] offers an extreme view; he once said that "scat singing—with only a couple exceptions—should be banned."<ref name="cp130"/> He also wrote the lyrics to the jazz song "[[Whisper Not (song)|Whisper Not]]," which Ella Fitzgerald then recorded on her 1966 Verve release of the same name. Many jazz singers, including [[Bessie Smith]], [[Billie Holiday]], [[Jimmy Rushing]], and [[Dinah Washington]], have avoided scat entirely.<ref name=g162>{{Harvnb|Giddins|2000|p=162}}</ref>