About
King Pleasure (March 24, 1922 - March 21, 1981) was a jazz vocalist and a pioneer of the 'Vocalese' style of Jazz singing. Born Clarence Beeks in Oakdale, Tennessee, he moved to New York City in the mid-1940s. Pleasure first achieved popularity by winning a talent show at the Apollo Theater in New York with the vocalese classic 'Moody's Mood for Love'. He influenced numerous other vocalists with his inovation, among then Mark Murphy, Jon Hendricks and Manhattan Transfer. Pleasure fell out of prominence in the early 1960s and died in Los Angeles, California in 1981.
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