McFerrin Bobby, born Robert Keith McFerrin Jr, *11 March 1950 New York, American jazz singer, and composer. McFerrin’s parents were opera singers; his father, Robert, was the first African American to sign a contract with the New York Metropolitan Opera.
McFerrin attended Cerritos College and then studied at California State University in Sacramento. In the first half of the 1970s, he played the piano, performing in jazz clubs as an accompanist, sideman, and soloist. He made his debut as a vocalist in 1978 with the Astral Project band; he soon became a member of J. Hendricks’ vocal quartet, with whom he toured New York. He achieved his first success in 1981 at the Kool Jazz Festival; in 1982, he performed in a concert for young talents at Carnegie Hall; in the same year, Bobby McFerrin, his debut album, was released, featuring songs in a variety of styles (bebop, soul, country, pop). In 1983, he gave his first solo recital; in 1984, he recorded the album The Voice, which revealed a new, fully formed side of McFerrin as an improvisational vocalist; in addition to jazz standards, the album included his own compositions (including I’m My Own Walkman) and the Beatles song Blackbird. In 1985, together with singer U. Dudziak, he performed at the Jazz Jamboree. In 1988, Simple Pleasures was released, another solo album by the artist with arrangements of pop music themes and his biggest hit, Don’t Worry Be Happy. In the 1990s, he recorded Medicine Man (1990), Bang! Zoom (1995) and Circlesongs (1997), among others. He was also active as a conductor, collaborating with symphony orchestras in San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Vienna, and London. In 1995, he conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra during a concert in Central Park in front of an audience of 70,000. He recorded his own versions of classical works (including Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, and Stravinsky) in 1996 on the album Paper Music (he simultaneously conducted a chamber ensemble and sang the parts of selected instruments). In 2010, the album Vocabularies was released, a joint work by McFerrin and composer R. Treece, which took seven years to complete. McFerrin enjoys collaborating with various performers and has recorded albums with G. Benson, J. Scofield, H. Hancock, C. Corea (Play, 1992), J. Zawinul, and Y.-Y. Ma (Hush, 1992). He has performed many times in Poland (including in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Krakow, Zabrze, Bielsko-Biała, and Legnica).
Since the early 1980s McFerrin has been regarded as one of the most distinctive figures in jazz vocalism worldwide. His musical inspirations range from jazz (B. Carter, M. Davis from the Bitches Brew period) and pop (V. Morrison, The Beatles, Cream) to classical music, while the direct impulse for his improvised a cappella singing came from K. Jarrett’s album The Köln Concert. He developed a vocal technique consisting of simultaneously performing the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic layers of a piece; the latter element is further emphasised by tapping his chest with his hands. He has a wide vocal range (often singing in falsetto), impeccable intonation and a changing timbre. He uses rich articulation, phrasing, dynamics and a whole range of sound effects, achieved through various ways of modulating his voice. His interpretations combine classic jazz improvisation, spontaneous expression, and musical humour. His achievements have had a major impact on the development of beatboxing, which is widely used in hip-hop music, among other genres.
