Swing feel is the foundation of jazz, but it is one of the most challenging things to effectively communicate to vocalists. Swing is not a math problem, so it doesn’t have to be counted. It is a feeling, and it is one that should be initially realized in the body of the singer before being reproduced in the voice. Too often a vocalist will approach this by trying to sing a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth (or vice versa), or by trying to pronounce the syllables “1-and-2-and” with a heavy emphasis on the “and.” Most of the time this results in a clunky and mechanical sound.
The first step to feeling and expressing a genuine sense of swing in your music is to move around while you are listening to music. Put on an old Count Basie band recording or any one of Ella Fitzgerald’s classics. As you stand, allow your shoulders to relax and your knees to bend. Allow the rhythm of the music to be felt in your body. Notice how the bass and the drums seem to create a little empty space in which your voice seems to just want to nestle and rest in its placement on top of the chord. Rather than pushing against the rhythmic feeling of the music, allow your voice to sort of nestle into its placement. If you attempt to sing along to the recording, notice if you are forcing your voice to start notes right on time with a metronome or whether you are sort of nudging and placing them just behind or just ahead of time.
Because I think listening is such a huge part of the process of internalizing a sense of swing, listening to records on which the rhythmic interpretation is absolutely clear is very important. You might listen to the smooth, loping phrasing of Lester Young’s solos, the light, airy stroke of Jo Jones’ hi-hat, or the way Sarah Vaughan floats across the rhythm section. Listen not only to the notes being played, but to the feel of the spaces between them, and to how the musicians move ahead of and behind the beat in order to build and release tension. At first just hum or sing quietly along with the phrases, focusing only on their length and their rhythmic weight, not on their pitches. The more you listen, the more your sense of time and rhythm will begin to lock in with what you’re hearing, and the more your body — rather than just your intellect — will absorb that sense of swing.
This is where practice tools can come in handy. Play along with a slow tempo, where every little delay or push can be felt easily. Use a blues or rhythm changes as your chord progression, and at first use only quarter and eighth notes. Your goal here is to feel comfortable with the length of the short and long, and to hear them as musical. Record yourself and listen back, not to check for accuracy, but to see if you feel a certain buoyancy from the line. Does it make you want to tap your foot? Or does it sound a bit flat? Sincere practice will yield results over time.
Ultimately, swing is not a technique but a relationship to time: a faith that if you are just a little bit behind or just a little bit ahead of the beat, the beat will be there to support you. A vocalist who deeply feels the swing of the music sounds less like a horn soloist riding over a band and more like another rhythmic component, a speaking member of the rhythm section. This fusion is the magic that makes a good jazz performance exhilarating; it is the force that makes a song stick in your soul long after it is finished.