Al Jarreau, jazz singer and University of Iowa graduate, dies at 76

LOS ANGELES - Al Jarreau, a University of Iowa alum whose tenor voice and vibrant stage style blurred the lines between jazz, soul and pop music - winning the Grammy Award seven times - died Sunday at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 76.

His publicist, Joe Gordon, announced the death. Only last week, the singer retired from touring, saying at the time he was being treated for exhaustion. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Jarreau was loosely classified as a jazz singer, but his eclectic style was his own - polished through years of nightclub apprenticeships that had origins in Eastern Iowa about the time he was studying for a master's degree in Iowa City.

He got his start in the 1960s with the late Joe Abodeely's band at The Tender Trap in Cedar Rapids. Considered one of Iowa's top jazz clubs at the time, the venue was in a building at 319 First Ave. SE that since has been torn down.

Jarreau recorded an album with the Joe Abodeely Trio in the mid ‘60s, but it was not released for 20 more years.

Jarreau actually released his first album in 1975 when he was 35, and within two years had won the first of his Grammy Awards.

He was dubbed the 'Acrobat of Scat” for the way he adopted the fast, wordless syllables of bebop jazz musicians, but he didn't limit himself to the musical backdrop of an earlier generation.

His approach emphasized the percussion-heavy and electronically amplified sound of rhythm-and-blues and funk music, and he had a particular gift for mimicking almost any kind of instrument or sound.

'Jarreau imitates the electronic and percussive hardware of the 1970s,” critic Robert Palmer wrote in Rolling Stone in 1979. 'But he does more than that. He stands there and makes it all sound natural, singing so sweetly and unaffectedly you'd think he just happened on this remarkable vocal vocabulary.”

After winning awards and plaudits as a jazz singer, Jarreau found a wider audience with his 1981 album 'Breakin' Away,” which sold more than 1 million copies and included a Top 20 hit, 'We're in This Love Together.” The album won Grammy Awards in the jazz and pop vocal categories, propelling Jarreau to stardom.

He was soon appearing on television, touring with a 10-piece band and taking the stage with dramatic lighting and choreographed dance moves. He seemed poised for a breakthrough that never quite arrived.

Despite his awards and growing acclaim, Jarreau groused that Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder and Al Green sold more records, even though they - in the view of many, including Jarreau - couldn't match his vocal chops.

As the 1980s wore on, he explored rock, reggae and international music and recorded the theme for the TV series 'Moonlighting.” His 1992 album 'Heaven and Earth” won a Grammy for best R&B vocal performance, giving him Grammys in three categories.

He branched out into other fields, performing with symphony orchestras and acting on Broadway in 1996 in the role of Teen Angel in 'Grease.”

As time went on, he returned to his early inspiration in straight-ahead jazz. He recorded an album of jazz standards in 2004 called 'Accentuate the Positive,” which included songs by Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Johnny Mercer.

'It's really the first jazz record I've ever done,” Jarreau told Billboard. 'Everything else that came before was pop and R&B. This is a thanks to the kind of music that made me the person I am today.”

Alwyn Lopez Jarreau was born March 12, 1940, in Milwaukee. His father, originally from New Orleans, was a onetime Seventh-day Adventist preacher, and his mother was a piano teacher. Jarreau sang gospel in church and doo-wop on street corners, absorbing the many musical styles of his hometown.

He had listened from an early age to Nat 'King” Cole, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, but his two greatest influences were jazz scat artist Jon Hendricks and the smooth ballad singer Johnny Mathis.

'A lot of who I am is described in the qualities of those two guys - the fiery jazz singer and the balladeer - and how they performed,” he said in 2005. 'Somewhere in there, too, is an R&B guy who went to Motown University.”

An excellent athlete, Jarreau tried out with the Milwaukee Braves baseball team and played basketball at Wisconsin's Ripon College, from which he graduated in 1962. He sang in dance bands in college and graduate school and, in 1964, received a master's degree in vocational rehabilitation from the UI.

After moving to San Francisco, Jarreau worked by day as a counselor for the disabled and sang in jazz clubs at night, quitting his counseling job in 1968 to devote himself to music.

He devised inventive versions of songs by Joni Mitchell and the Beatles, wrote songs and seemed at home in any style.

The UI honored him in 2005 as a distinguished alumni. In 2007, he won two more Grammys for a recording made with guitarist George Benson, 'Givin' It Up.”

In 2014 at the age of 74, he returned to Iowa City to give a free performance on the Pentacrest.

'It's impossible to sit still when Jarreau hits the stage. He just exudes joy,” read The Gazette's review of that performance. 'He never stopped smiling during his nearly 90-minute set. By the end of the evening, he said his ‘grin muscles' hurt. That's because he was loving every minute basking in his alma mater's glow.”

Jarreau's marriage to Phyllis Hall ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 39 years, Susan Player, and a son.

The Washington Post and Diana Nollen of The Gazette contributed to this report.