[Dixielandjazz] Swing Girls (used to be Great Swing Band)

[Justin Au]

This movie "Swing Girls" was actually based on a real high school jazz
called the Big Friendly Jazz Orchestra (BFJO) from Takasago High School.
Simply search for BFJO in youtube and you will find many videos of them.

While my oldest brother was Japan, he helped coach this band for two years.
He also helped organize a Performance and cultural exchange tour of Japan
for my high school.  We got play with the band, rehearse with them and stay
in their homes.  The culminuating performance with them was at the NABL
(National Amateur Bigband League) Bigband Jazz Festival in Kobe Harborland.
They were indeed very good technicians on their instruments and very precise
playing together.  Their one weakness was their swing feel, dynamics, and
improv.  When my brother first started working with the band, they VERY
apprehensive of improvising and had only two dynamic levels: loud and
louder.  They were afraid of sounding bad, so most students had been writing
out their solos.  In the Gordon Goodwin charts, some transcribed the solos
on the recordings and played them "correctly".  When we played with them,
most of the students had been playing only a couple years on their
instruments. Some were as good as or better than us (technically, not
musically).

There is of course some hollywood drama and exaggeration involved in the
movie.  Some of the scenes are fictional, but the overall story is true.
The musicians are unfortunately actors, but all of them learned how to play
their instruments for the movie and are actually playing not miming.

-Justin