Patty Waters

Largely overlooked during her brief recording career in the mid-'60s, Patty Waters has come to be appreciated as a vocal innovator in not just jazz, but 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. 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. Producing an unsettling effect that is definitely not for everybody, Waters has to ...