[Dixielandjazz] Swing

[Steve Barbone]

Speaking of Swing, interested Listmates may want to check out WFMU's blog
about Charlie's Orchestra. (The Nazi Swing Band started as a propaganda ploy
by Josef Goebbels during World War II) Charlie's Orchestra was the subject
of some discussions on the DJML a few years ago.

Complete story, plus 2 albums of MP3 of this famous non-swinging Germanic
Oom Pah, swing band. Brings back memories for us old timers who remember WW
2. For example, check out Bye Bye Blackbird with lyric reference to Winston
Churchill and Bye Bye Empire, etc.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/12/still_more_nazi.html

Great fun to surf this site. WFMU is a sort of underground radio station in
NYC with locally famous personnel and the site has some neat posts.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis at larrys.bands at charter.net wrote:

> When I was young I started playing with Gary Dammer and the worst thing he
> could say about a situation or player was that he didn't or couldn't swing..
> I always lived in dread that he would say that about me.  For those of you
> who don't know Gary he's a trumpet player who definitely swings.  His
> understanding of jazz just simply exceeds almost everyone else.  He still
> uses me so I guess I passed.
> Larry
> St. Louis
 
>> dingle at baldwin-net.com wrote
>> 
>>> To paraphrase Louis : "It is swings, you know it. If you have to ask,
>>> you ain't never going to know it!"
>>> Now that's a philosophy to live with.
>> 
>> Hear hear, Don. IMO Louis was the real inventor of "swing" in jazz. He was
>> the primary swing influence on the musicians in Fletcher Henderson's band
>> during the mid 1920s.
>> 
>> During that period, he probably wasn't reading tied triplets and/or dotted
>> 8ths or anything else. More like Artie Shaw's definition as Russ G.,
>> stated;
>> "playing in a relaxed manner". He was a swing player before the style
>> became
>> codified and countless musicians followed his swinging rhythmic concept.
>> 
>> I think it is hard to state firm conclusions about what swinging is, other
>> than that. We can read the dots all we want, but if we don't play relaxed,
>> it probably won't swing. Proof? The many swing bands playing today,
>> reading
>> the dots and understanding the concepts that simply don't swing.
>> 
>> And it is hard to make general statements like trad jazz doesn't swing.
>> Because Louis was playing trad jazz in his small band groups all of his
>> life
>> and most, if not all, everything he played swung.
>> 
>> He also differentiated between the New Orleans four beat rhythm that
>> Oliver
>> used vs. the two beat style that most Dixieland dance bands used in those
>> days. The two beat was great for the older dancers who knew what foot went
>> where on the beats. Four beat took a little getting used to but eventually
>> the young Lindy Hoppers made it look easy.
>> 
>> And his All Stars from 1947 on? Pure, Swinging, 4 beat, Dixieland Jazz.
>> Now
>> whether that fits one's definition of trad jazz or not depends upon, I
>> guess, whether one defines Armstrong as a trad jazz player or not.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Steve Barbone
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>