Saturday Music Club: influence detective edition: on free jazz singer Patty Waters, and those who cite her...

Patty Waters. latter 1960s

Patty Waters has had one of the more enigmatic careers among jazz vocalists, having been "discovered" singing in a supper club by avant-garde jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler and recommended to Ayler's primary label at the time, ESP-Disk Records. She recorded two albums for the indy label in 1965 and '66, then, after a bit of a European sojourn, retired from performance for decades. But the two LPs, and a rarities collection, helped her have some important influence on Patti Smith, Lydia Lunch and Diamanda Galás, by their own account (and through the first two, punk rock among other modes). Here, below, a slight query into some of those who might've influenced Waters, or at least got her to consider opening up her approach in the direction she took for her early recordings...to write "gave her permission" is too much, I suspect...Waters apparently hadn't heard the Lincoln performance till after recording her own.

Sheila Jordan with the George Russell Sextet: "You Are My Sunshine"


Nina Simone: "Feeling Good"


Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake: "Laura"


Abbey Lincoln with the Max Roach band: "Triptych (Prayer, Protest, Peace)" from Freedom Now Suite


Patty Waters: "It Never Entered My Mind"


Patty Waters: "Song of Clifford"

for her recording of "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair"

Joan La Barbara: "Twelvesong"


Patti Smith Group: "Ain't It Strange"