quaver

The tart, bluesy quaver in Andra Day’s voice has a long heritage.

Throughout the history of American music, blues, jazz and soul singers have used the jazzy quaver for the subtlest nuances of emotion: for tension, playfulness, defiance, flirtatiousness, ache or just blithe ornamentation.

For one thing, she’s got two songs, one of which — the standard “Part of Your World” — does manage to let her quaver some toward the end.

Crucially, too, Bailey has the set of pipes that every Ariel needs and a gift for modulating her emotions through music, shifting from a rich, confident vibrato one moment to a hesitant quaver the next.

The tight quaver in his voice and his frayed tone as he sings about “sleepless nights” are classic country, but the way he stretches some words and holds back others until the last moment is still his own.