You may know him as the superbly expressive bass-baritone, but Thomas Quasthoff is also a jazz nut with a penchant for performing McFerrin-like improv vocals. When he was a student, he picked up some extra cash by singing in jazz and cabaret clubs, where he became intimate with the works of Gershwin, Ellington, and the like. America first got a taste of his scat stylings some years back at a secret show he put on while working the Oregon Bach Festival. The pirate recordings from that show are revelatory. Quasthoff's sensitivity to text and delicacy with rhythm in the classical concert setting translate perfectly to the jazz idiom.

But this is probably old news. You heard the final live track—a six-minute jazz improv from a 2004 Berlin concert—from his album The Voice. But—but—have you ever seen him perform jazz? The cunning lingual movements, the ease and playfulness in his gestures and swaying, his interaction with the space around the microphone, the jungle animal mimicry, the crazy person faces?!? Check him out, here with the Spardosen-Terzett on the Fitz Oblong show:

If you haven't had enough, then you'll be delighted to know that he's in the studio with jazz trumpeter and vocalist Till Brönner working on a proper ("pure as glass") jazz album. If cheesy Quasthoff & Friends PBS specials spring to mind, never fear. In a pointed 2000 interview with Norman Lebrecht, Quasthoff had this to say:

To a DG proposal that he should record jazz and cabaret numbers, he replied: 'I may do it some time, but if I do I don't want to sound like "the classical" Thomas Quasthoff. I won't do that kind of Bocelli crossover.'

Zang, Tommy! You may be a little prickly (and rightfully so), but New York (and America) is going to fall in love with you all over again come March. Hell, maybe sooner. Git 'er done, Deutsche-Grammophon!