Swing music
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era, when people were dancing the Lindy Hop. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, and Django Reinhardt.
Not to be confused with Swing (jazz performance style).Swing
1930s, United States
Overview[edit]
Swing has its roots in 1920s dance music ensembles, which began using new styles of written arrangements, incorporating rhythmic innovations pioneered by Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter and other jazzmen.[1] During the World War II era Swing began to decline in popularity, and after war, bebop and jump blues gained popularity.[2]
Swing blended with other genres to create new musical styles. In country music, artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, Milton Brown and Bob Wills introduced elements of swing along with blues to create a genre called "western swing".[3] Famous roma guitarist Django Reinhardt created gypsy swing music[4] and composed the gypsy swing standard "Minor Swing".[5] In the late 1980s to early 1990s, new urban-styled swing-beat emerged called new jack swing (New York go-go), created by young producer Teddy Riley.[6] In the late 1990s and into the 2000s, there was a swing revival, led by Squirrel Nut Zippers,[7] Brian Setzer orchestra and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.[8]
Early swing[edit]
As the 1920s turned to the 1930s, the new concepts in rhythm and ensemble playing that comprised the swing style were transforming the sounds of large and small bands. Starting in 1928, The Earl Hines Orchestra was broadcast throughout much of the midwest from the Grand Terrace Cafe in Chicago, where Hines had the opportunity to expound upon his new approaches to rhythm and phrasing with a big band. Hines' arranger Jimmy Mundy would later contribute to the catalog of the Benny Goodman Orchestra. The Duke Ellington Orchestra had its new sounds broadcast nationally from New York's Cotton Club, followed by the Cab Calloway Orchestra and the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. Also in New York, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra featured the new style at the Roseland Ballroom and the swing powerhouse Chick Webb Orchestra started its extended stay at the Savoy Ballroom in 1931.[19] Bennie Moten and the Kansas City Orchestra showcased the riff-propelled, solo-oriented form of swing that had been developing in the hothouse of Kansas City.[20][21] Emblematic of the evolving music was the change in the name of Moten's signature tune, from "Moten Stomp" to "Moten Swing". Moten's orchestra had a highly successful tour in late 1932. Audiences raved about the new music, and at the Pearl Theatre in Philadelphia in December 1932, the doors were let open to the public who crammed into the theatre to hear the new sound, demanding seven encores from Moten's orchestra.[14]
With the early 1930s came the financial difficulties of the Great Depression that curtailed recording of the new music and drove some bands out of business, including the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and McKinney's Cotton Pickers in 1934. Henderson's next business was selling arrangements to up-and-coming bandleader Benny Goodman.
At this time, "Sweet" dance music remained most popular with white audiences and was successfully showcased by bandleaders such as Guy Lombardo[22] [23] and Shep Fields,[24][25][26][27][28] but the Casa Loma Orchestra and the Benny Goodman Orchestra went against that grain, targeting the new swing style to younger audiences. Despite Benny Goodman's claim that "sweet" music was a "weak sister" as compared to the "real music" of America, Lombardo's band enjoyed widespread popularity for decades while crossing over racial divides and was even praised by Louis Armstrong as one of his favorites[29] [30]
1940s: Decline[edit]
The early 1940s saw emerging trends in popular music and jazz that would, once they had run their course, result in the end of the swing era. Vocalists were becoming the star attractions of the big bands. Vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, after joining the Chick Webb Orchestra in 1936, propelled the band to great popularity and the band continued under her name after Webb's death in 1939. In 1940 vocalist Vaughn Monroe was leading his own big band and Frank Sinatra was becoming the star attraction of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, inciting mass hysteria among bobby-soxers. Vocalist Peggy Lee joined the Goodman Orchestra in 1941 for a two-year stint, quickly becoming its star attraction on its biggest hits. Some big bands were moving away from the swing styles that dominated the late 1930s, for both commercial and creative reasons. Some of the more commercial big bands catered to more "sweet" sensibilities with string sections. Some bandleaders such as John Kirby, Raymond Scott, and Claude Thornhill were fusing swing with classical repertoire. Lower manpower requirements and simplicity favored the rise of small band swing. The Savoy Sultans and other smaller bands led by Louis Jordan, Lucky Millinder, Louis Prima, and Tony Pastor were showcasing an exuberant "jump swing" style that would lead to the postwar rise of R&B. In a 1939 Downbeat interview, Duke Ellington expressed dissatisfaction with the creative state of swing music;[34] within a few years he and other bandleaders would be delving into more ambitious, and less danceable, forms of orchestral jazz and the creative forefront for soloists would be moving into smaller ensembles and bebop. The Earl Hines Orchestra in 1943 featured a collection of young, forward-looking musicians who were at the core of the bebop movement and would in the following year be in the Billy Eckstine Orchestra, the first big band to showcase bebop. As the swing era went into decline, it secured legacies in vocalist-centered popular music, "progressive" big band jazz, R&B, and bebop.
The trend away from big-band swing was accelerated by wartime conditions and royalty conflicts.[35] In 1941 the American Society of Composers and Producers (ASCAP) demanded bigger royalties from broadcasters and the broadcasters refused. Consequently, ASCAP banned the large repertoire they controlled from airplay, severely restricting what the radio audience could hear. ASCAP also demanded pre-approval of set lists and even written solos for live broadcasts, to assure that not even a quoted fragment of ASCAP repertoire was broadcast. Those restrictions made broadcast swing much less appealing for the year in which the ban was in place. Big band swing remained popular during the war years, but the resources required to support it became problematic. Wartime restriction on travel, coupled with rising expenses, curtailed road touring. The manpower requirements for big swing bands placed a burden on the scarce resources available for touring and were impacted by the military draft. In July 1942 the American Federation of Musicians called a ban on recording until record labels agreed to pay royalties to musicians. That stopped recording of instrumental music for major labels for over a year, with the last labels agreeing to new contract terms in November 1944. In the meantime, vocalists continued to record backed by vocal groups and the recording industry released earlier swing recordings from their vaults, increasingly reflecting the popularity of big band vocalists. In 1943 Columbia Records re-released the 1939 recording of "All or Nothing at All" by the Harry James Orchestra with Frank Sinatra, giving Sinatra top billing ("Acc. Harry James and his Orchestra"). The recording found the commercial success that had eluded its original release. Small band swing was recorded for small specialty labels not affected by the ban. These labels had limited distribution centered in large urban markets, which tended to limit the size of the ensembles with which recording could be a money-making proposition. Another blow fell on the market for dance-oriented swing in 1944 when the federal government levied a 30% excise tax on "dancing" nightclubs, undercutting the market for dance music in smaller venues.[36]
Cross-genre swing[edit]
In country music Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, and Bob Wills combined elements of swing and blues to create a Western swing. Mullican left the Cliff Bruner band to pursue solo career that included many songs that maintained a swing structure. Artists like Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel have continued the swing elements of country music. Asleep at the Wheel has also recorded the Count Basie tunes "One O'Clock Jump", "Jumpin' at the Woodside", and "Song of the Wanderer" using a steel guitar as a stand-in for a horn section. Nat King Cole followed Sinatra into pop music, bringing with him a similar combination of swing and ballads. Like Mullican, he was important in bringing piano to the fore of popular music.
Gypsy swing is an outgrowth of the jazz violin swing of Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang. In Europe it was heard in the music of guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Their repertoire overlaps 1930s swing, including French popular music, gypsy songs, and compositions by Reinhardt, but gypsy swing bands are formulated differently. There is no brass or percussion; guitars and bass form the backbone, with violin, accordion, clarinet or guitar taking the lead. Gypsy swing groups generally have no more than five players. Although they originated in different continents, similarities have often been noted between gypsy swing and Western swing]l, leading to various fusions.
Rock music hitmakers like Fats Domino and Elvis Presley included swing-era standards in their repertoire, making crooning ballads "Are You Lonesome Tonight" and "My Blue Heaven" into rock and roll-era hits. The doo-wop vocal group the Marcels had a big hit with their lively version of the swing-era ballad "Blue Moon".
Multi-genre mandolinist Jethro Burns is widely known for playing Swing, Jazz, and many other forms of the genre on the mandolin. He has produced many albums that feature Jazz rhythms and swing chord progressions. He is often considered "The Father of Jazz Mandolin".
1990s to present: swing house, electro swing, and swing pop[edit]
Another modern development consists of fusing swing (original, or remixes of classics) with hip hop and house techniques. "Swing house" is a sub genre of swing that has been influenced by the likes of Louis Jordan and Louis Prima. Electro swing is mainly popular in Europe, and electro swing artists incorporate influences such as tango and Django Reinhardt's gypsy swing. Leading artists include Caravan Palace and Parov Stelar , who were made popular in by the late 2010's. Both genres of swing house and electro swing have been connected with the revival of swing dances, such as the Lindy hop.