Jackie Cain | Jazz singer in duo, 86

Jackie Cain, 86, a sparkling jazz singer who teamed with her husband, Roy Kral, and became an acclaimed act on record and stage for more than half a century, died Monday at her home in Montclair, N.J.

The cause was complications from a stroke about four years ago, said the music writer James Gavin, a family friend.

Jackie and Roy, as they were known, rose to initial prominence as singers - she an effervescent soprano, he a warm baritone - with the bebop saxophonist Charlie Ventura and his Bop for the People band in the late 1940s.

With such songs as "East of Suez" and an up-tempo version of the pre-Jazz Age warhorse "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," Jackie and Roy were among the first to shape the art of vocalese, a wordless singing style modeled on intricate bebop harmonies and phrasing and later adopted by groups such as the Manhattan Transfer.

In addition to pulling from the Great American Songbook of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, and Cole Porter, they also stretched into Brazilian bossa nova, Broadway show tunes, and cabaret.

"They were a connoisseur's delight," said Gavin, who has written liner notes for their albums.

The couple married in 1949 and continued performing together until Kral's death in 2002.

When the jazz critic Leonard Feather asked in 1986 how Jackie and Roy kept looking and sounding so youthful after years of rigorous touring, Ms. Cain quipped: "I guess our fans are getting older and their eyesight isn't so good." - Washington Post