scat

“But she’s not a scat singer. She improvises more in the technique of the Baroque period, expanding and contracting phrases or adding trills that deviate from the melody.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026

“And there’s lots of coyote scat — they’re just marauding around. The lizards are back and some of my roses survived.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 26, 2026

Newly christened, she became known for scat singing, a vocal style that originated with ragtime - which enabled her to improvise melodies using her voice as an instrument.

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2025

For music, the show has an original score by the veteran trombonist Craig Harris, played by a jazz band that includes three vocalists who do sometimes scat.

From New York Times ● Jun. 17, 2024

To the trackers, the words were as meaningful as scat or broken twigs, signs of the girl’s passage but nothing more, and Tanin kept it that way, eliminating every letter they found.

From "The Reader" by Traci Chee

“I don’t know what happened,” Manley said, describing the improv session, “but I’m telling you, I blacked out and bee-bopped and scatted all over that room, like George Costanza would say.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025

Hancock sang identifiable words during “Come Running to Me,” but they were mutated by a vocoder, and most of the evening’s other vocals were scatted and altered.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 9, 2017

After they climbed off Parker, the Sparks scatted about the court. 

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2016

The beautiful public baths, just off Twenty-third Street on Asser Levy Place, across from Peter Cooper Village, are like a pun on the defeat of the rebel forces that scatted here, headed north.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 25, 2015

So they scatted out the back, Lizzie still dripping now and again.

From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt

By rephrasing melodies, throwing in slang, using nonsense syllables, embracing scatting, and making it seem as if he was speaking directly to you, he changed the way people sang and thought about vocal performances.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 25, 2026

Turner’s playful scatting seems to animate Michele Byrd-McPhee’s similarly scatting feet.

From New York Times ● Oct. 12, 2022

It’s only three words, but it sends her into a tailspin of disbelief and exuberance — a sentiment Scherzinger expresses by sliding on furniture, scatting from atop a piano bench and singing while upside-down.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2021

Scooby-Doo’s name came from Silverman, who had heard Frank Sinatra scatting “doo-be-doo-be-doo” on a recording of “Strangers in the Night,” and whose own name was used for Fred, the group’s ascot-wearing leader.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 13, 2020

His grandmother stamps her foot as if she were scatting an animal.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez