[Dixielandjazz] swinging prestissimo

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

The fastest swing I know of takes things into bebop, notably the pianist Elmo Hope, a lyrical performer whom some members of the list might accommodate. He had a very light touch on the piano, so that unfortunately the engineering of the reoording made between a period of obscurity and his early death proved inadequate and the piano sounds a wee bit off-pitch -- the high speed swing was a matter of articulation, so that there was no mistaking where the accents fell, and plenty of flow between them, as obviously enough with Benny Goodman, Hamp and Teddy Wilson. Hope's disciple Frank Hewitt followed the same method  -- though his recordings were issued only after his death.
Some readers will have heard Brian Kellock pretending very musically to have thirty fingers. 
 
One prize example of prestissimo swing is the double tempo Honky Tonk Train Blues which Meade Lux Lewis took to playing later in his career. I remember Melvyn Bragg talking about this on TV and talking about loss of clarity etc., which is actually nonsense. Lewis when he doubled the tempo didn't play that many notes, it was all a matter of timing and using harmonic interference to imply notes not even attempted -- when the accents come so fast one after another, fewer notes serve to sustain the harmonic texture -- though only for a certain length of time. 
There's also the matter of, when a sufficient head of stream has been worked up, how you manage to stop without turning things into a bit of a joke -- though a joke might be what's wanted. 
 
Of course one has encountered some music academy graduates who could be told how they could help the band swing more: "take your big brown bass out of here... "
 
Robert R. Calder