Scatman John

Born in California in 1942, Larkin developed as a pianist and scat singer long before the European dance records. He had stuttered since childhood, and music provided a different way to express himself. Moving to Berlin brought a new working setting, eventually leading to the project that paired his vocal improvisation with contemporary programmed beats.

Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop) emerged in the middle of the nineties, followed by the album Scatman's World in 1995. The single's rapid delivery could sound like a technical stunt at first, but the words placed it within a more generous idea. Larkin made the difference in his speech part of the record's meaning, using an infectious pop form to communicate encouragement.

Scatman's World extended the project beyond one fast vocal pattern, while Everybody Jam! in 1996 made his affection for jazz more explicit. The title song invoked Louis Armstrong, placing the new dance persona in conversation with a much older musical language. The scat singing belonged to that history even when the beat clearly belonged to the contemporary club.

Take Your Time followed in 1999, before Larkin's death that year. The short late-career recording sequence can obscure the length of the musical preparation behind it. His records are most interesting when heard as a meeting between those two timescales: decades of learning how to phrase at a piano, suddenly translated into a form that made the voice recognisable to people who might never have sought out a jazz performance.