[Dixielandjazz] Duke's band-one example

[Marek Boym]

We don't necessarily need to agree on everything.  Wit hall due respect, I
believe that the early Yerba Buena recordings, while they may not swing as
hard as some of their predecessors (King Oliver, Morton) burst with
emotion.  And so does music of Bob Wilber, Chris Barber, Acker Bilk at his
best, Humph, Kenny Davern, clint Baker, Ruby Braff - the list is too long
to include them all.

Only yesterday I listened to Ellington's 1929-30 recordings ("The Works of
Duke," vol. 4. RCA 741039), with Wellman Braud, Cootie, Bigard, and they
don't swing all that hard, despite the Orleanians and the other great
Ellingtonians.
Cheers

On 6 February 2015 at 21:25, Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net> wrote:

> A version of the comments below was part of an off-list message to Marek
> Boym. But since the topic is "swinging," and the examples are from
> Ellington's bands, I thought I'd add it to this strand.--Charlie
>
>  I (and many others, like Gunter Schuler, Marshall Stearns, Ted Goia)
> believe  it was the mid- and late 20s recordings of the Hot 5 & 7, Louis
> and Hines, Bix, Jelly's band, etc., that defined "swinging" for the jazz
> community, as opposed to zippy "getting hot". The internal
> evidence--listening to the recordings--supports that.  (I'll grant there
> are exceptions to this, but they don't disprove the observably overwhelming
> changes.) Ellington's early recordings underline this. The 1925 recording
> below is replete with chunky ragtime phrasing and other signs of pre-jazz.
> Fast forward to 1930, and the soloists have mostly assimilated a swinging
> jazz conception. Dig Bigard, in particular. And behind him Duke is
> actuallly COMPING, prefiguring piano backup of the swing and bop eras.
> Bottom line--after the teens and early 20s, most jazz moved to a more
> fluid conception--I'm okay with saying that the playing "evolved." The trad
> revivalists, starting roughly with Lu Waters, returned to some of the
> earlier elements, IMO without capturing the core emotional essence of the
> foundational players.
>
> Charlie
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5g8IBsx8t4
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaSKL1iqpf8
> _________________________________________
>
> On Feb 3, 2015, at 4:12 PM, ROBERT R. CALDER wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > Ellington certainly swung in "Hot and Bothered" and that species
> composition has been taken up by later stride pianists, Clarence Profit to
> Johnny Guarnieri, Dick Wellstood etc...  But when did stride pianists start
> to SWING rather than present virtuoso rhythmic tours de force?
> >
>
>
>
>
>