Lately he has been branching out into singing, which also suits his lineage, if not his given talent.
In 2001 a volume of his poetry, Blackbird Singing, which also included some song lyrics, was published.
The sounds turn to faint singing, which also grows louder as one by one the men rise and come forward.
They also sing, which is riskier but still pretty good fun. Louis and Floyd, long estranged, are brought back together by the death of Marcus Hooks (John Legend), the Grammy-winning superstar for whom they sang backup in the old days.
She could also sing, which she started doing as a baby, even before she could talk.
But Mr. MacFarlane, who released an album of midcentury standards in 2011, is also expected to sing, which means this may be the crooniest, jazz-handiest, razzle-dazzliest, ideally not longest, Oscar spectacle since at least last year, when Billy Crystal hosted.
As well as playing tracks from his new album he also sang, which he compared to stripping off in front of an audience.
She used a contrast of timbre while singing the song, which also featured instrumentation from strings, piano, violin and drum machine.
They showed the considerable collective flexibility of Solistes XXI (which also sings early music) and its director, Rachid Safir, who conducted from the foot of the stage.
"You got me feelin' lit, but no, it ain't the liquor," Newberry sings on the track, which also features Aleff rapping in Portuguese.
