Did Adelaide Hall Invent a Style of Singing That Has Long Since Been Forgotten About?

As is sometimes the case when I'm researching a topic, I stumble upon another subject that grabs my attention. It recently happened while I was rummaging for data regarding Charles Kaley, a Chicago bandleader who came to the attention of a wider public in 1927 after briefly marrying an underage Hannah Williams, one-half of the singing duo The Williams Sisters. The marriage was annulled in Circuit Court, Cook County, Illinois, on June 30 that same year. The topic that pricked my curiosity also occurred in 1927, in Chicago, four weeks later during July, at the 3,400-seat Granada Theatre, where Charles Kaley and his Band were the pit orchestra. The stage presentation featured The Mound City Blue Blowers and 25-year-old singer Adelaide Hall. Hall had yet to star in the Broadway revue Blackbirds of 1928 that would catapult her to international fame, neither had she committed to shellac her ground-breaking vocals on the recordings "Creole Love Call" and "The Blues I Love To Sing" with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra; that milestone would come about later in October 1927. From a review I uncovered in the Exhibitors Herald of her performance at the Granada (for the week ending July 31), I discovered how Hall had developed a new style of singing she termed 'squagel,' which, from the account below, she used to significant effect at the Granada: 'Adelaide Hall, the little ebony girl with