Swing or Nothing!

Benny Goodman (1909-1986) was an American jazz musician, clarinetist & band leader, often referred to as the King of Swing. He led one of the most popular, successful and iconic big bands of the Swing Era. His band is also noteworthy as one of the first racially-integrated bands during an era of segregation.

Goodman started out learning to play clarinet at his local synagogue, and by age 16 he was playing with the Ben Pollack Orchestra, one of the top big bands in his hometown Chicago. In the late 1920s, he moved to New York City where he enjoyed a successful career as  a session musician, playing with the likes of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Joe Venuti while recording for Victor records. Under arrangements by John Hammond to record for Columbia, Goodman also played along the with greats such as Jack Teagarden, Joe Sullivan, Dick McDonough, Arthur Schutt, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, and vocalists Mildred Bailey and Billie Holiday.

Goodman’s success as a dance band owes much to the influence of African American bandleader Fletcher Henderson. In 1929, Goodman helped Henderson out by purchasing his songbooks and hiring Henderson’s musicians to teach his own. Indeed it was Goodman’s band playing Henderson’s arrangements that set dance floors crazy during the band’s three-week engagement at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles.  Because of his role in helping popularize traditionally African American jazz music to white audiences, Goodman has been compared to Elvis Presley, who played a similar role with respect to Rock’n'roll and Rhythm & Blues music.

A good place to start your exploration of Benny Goodman’s music is with the quintessential Ken Burns Jazz compilation:

Ken Burns Jazz-Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman (Primary Contributor). Columbia/Legacy 2007, MP3 Download, $9.99

Some of my favorites from this album are:

1. Roll ‘em
2. King Porter Stomp
3. Don’t Be That Way
4. Flying Home
5. Rose Room
6. Benny Rides Again
7. Why Don’t You Do Right

Another album that’s got some good solid rhythm for dancing is:

Plays Jimmy Mundy

Benny Goodman (Primary Contributor). HEP Records 2005, MP3 Download, $8.99

Favorite tunes on this album include:

1. Madhouse
2. House Hop
3. Sing me a Swing Song and Let Me Dance
4. Bugle Call Rag
5. Jam Session
6. Did you mean it?

Enjoy!

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Audrey and I recently taught a musicality workshop at the 9:20 Special in San Francisco in which we asked students to get familiar with the melodies and structure of some quintessential pieces of swing music — in order to better dance and enjoy those pieces. For the first incarnation of the workshop, we focused on a popular swing dancer’s anthem: Moten Swing.

The “Moten” in the song title Moten Swing refers to the composers’ last names, bandleader Bennie Moten and his nephew, piano and accordian player Ira “Buster” Moten. Bennie Moten was a pianist/bandleader who was at the center of the Kansas City jazz scene of the 1920s and 30s. While early music by his Kansas City Orchestra reflected a rhythmic stiffness rooted in ragtime music of the 20s, their later works — including Moten Swing — helped define a looser, blues-influenced style that used repetitive phrases and riffs.

Moten formed his band by raiding another Kansas City band, Walter Page’s Blue Devils, and in the process acquired such top talent as Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing, Hot Lips Page, Eddie Durham and Ben Webster. After Moten’s death in 1935, Count Basie took leadership of the group which evolved into the Count Basie Orchestra, and which adopted many of Moten’s charts and musical  innovations.

In the notes to his book Jazz Styles: History and Analysis author Mark C. Gridley says, “‘Moten Swing’ is a thirty-two measure AABA form that is based on the chord progression to a song called ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy.’” Here are a couple of fun versions of that song:

• You’re Driving Me Crazy (Original) – Bob Crosby’s Bobcats
• You’re Driving Me Crazy (take 2) – Helen Humes
• You’re Driving Me Crazy – Big Joe Turner

See if you can hear the similarities in Bennie Moten’s original:

Moten Swing – Benny Moten Orchestra (1930 -1932).

And now, for some of my favorite versions of this tune:

Moten Swing – Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy — retains some of the original punchiness and zing

Moten Swing (2003 Digital Remaster) – Count Basie — featuring the smoother and polished sound of the New Testament Basie Big Band

Moten Swing – Charlie Barnet, The Everest Years — one of my favorite versions to DJ for dancers, due to it’s creamy, textured horns, and rich crescendos that make you float, even while the rhythm section drives forward steadily

Moten Swing (2000 Digital Remaster) – Jonah Jones, Jumpin’ with Jonah — after hearing DJ Jesse Miner spin this classy, jazzy and uptempo version I had to go home and download it right away. I loved it so much, I ended up putting together a performance routine to it for my Sunset Lindy Hop Intermediate/Advanced Students

Moten Swing – the Jonah Jones Quartet — the next time I conferred with Jesse about the Jonah Jones version, he clued me in to this awesome slow version by the same musician. WOW! This is a great version to play with dancing and expressing the silent parts and pauses in the music.

Moten Swing – Barney Kessel – okay, back to fun, lively upbeat versions

Moten Swing from Kansas City: A Robert Altman Film – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack — and this version with a chunky rhythm section by Jesse Davis & James Carter could possibly warrant the purchase of the whole soundtrack CD. I don’t know…don’t ask me how I got my copy of the track

Dance/Musicality exercise:

1. Listen to a particular version of the song, and see if you can learn and hum the main theme. In which phrases and beats do you hear accents, hits, or breaks?
2. Once you feel like you can hum the theme on your own, listen to another version and hum along with it. How do the two versions line-up? How much do they share the melody? How would you describe the differences in the way the two bands express some of the same accents, hits or breaks?
3. What types of dance moves or body movements could you use to  match the character of each selection?
4. Try it!

When it comes to musicality, there really is no right or wrong way to do it, and it’s really a matter of personal interpretation and creativity. I personally find that knowing the general tune of the song adds to my dance enjoyment because, well, it’s fun to hit the breaks with my partner. At the same time, it’s always worth a good laugh with my partner when I hit a break that I thought was there because I was singing a different version of the tune in my head than the one actually playing. There’s the real challenge: knowing the basic tune enough to inform your big picture dancing, while staying present in the dance moment enough to express the nuances and subtleties as they arise.

Alright, enough commentary…happy dancing and listening!

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The Cats and the Fiddle was one of the premier R&B vocal & small combo groups of the 1930s, who followed on the heels of the success of the popular Mills Brothers. In contrast to the smooth, flowing sound of the Mills Brothers, the Cats and the Fiddle pioneered a much more rhythmic and percussive style and which featured lyrics with hip lingo and popular slang. The band formed in 1937 as a 4-man amalgam of two earlier groups. The original line-up featured lead vocalist Austin Powell of the Harlem Harmony Hounds combined with Jimmie Henderson, Chuck Barksdale and Ernie price of another Chicago-based group. The band’s name referred to it’s musicians who were hep “cats”, and the stand-up bass — the fiddle — that anchored many of their arrangements, along with guitar and an actual fiddle. The band made guest appearances in the movies “Too Hot to Handle” (1938) and “Going Places” (1939).

Check out this album, a steal deal at $8.99 for all the great music you get (44 tracks, most danceworthy!):

The Very Best Of

The Cats And The Fiddle (Primary Contributor). Master Classics Records 2009, MP3 Download, $8.99

Listen to just a few tracks, and you’ll realize that most songs have a common musical structure, chord progressions, and rhythmic attack. Learn the breaks for just one song, and you’ll be well on your way to anticipating and dancing to the breaks in other songs. The jovial, uptempo & bouncy style of the music makes it great for charleston moves and fast lindy…and it always makes me want to jump around and put more “hop” in my lindy hop.

1. Thursday Evening Swing
2. That’s On Jack, That’s On
3. Public Jitterbug Number One
4. Gone
5. Gangbusters
6. Mr. Rhythm Man
7. One is Never to Old to Swing
8. Nuts to You
9. Killing Jive
10. Swing the Scales
11. Hep Cats Holiday
12. The New Look Blues
13. Stomp Stomp
14. Blue Skies
15. When I Grow To Old Dream
16. I’m Singing, So Help Me
17. We Cats Will Swing for You

And a dance routine by Manu Smith, Nathan and Michael Terkowski performed to “Stomp Stomp” at the 9:20 Special:

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Billie Holiday (born: Elinore Harris, April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and song writer. She earned the nickname “Lady Day” from her friend and musical partner Lester Young, and was regarded for the way she manipulated musical phrasing and tempo as well as her personal and intimate singing style.

She lived a difficult childhood that involved her mother being frequently absent, truancy from school, getting caught up in juvenile court, and perhaps most egregiously working as a prostitute in Harlem, NYC. It was in the late 1920s that Elinore began singing songs that she had learned in the brothel.  It was in late 1929, after being released from a workhouse that she started using the name Billie Holiday and singing with a neighbor, tenor sax player Kenneth Hollan at various New York clubs. John Hammond discovered her in 1933 while she was singing as a replacement for Monette Moore, and he soon introduced her to Benny Goodman, with whom she made her recording debut singing “Your Mother’s Son-In-Law” and “Riffin’ the Scotch.”

Soon after in 1935 she collaborated with pianist Teddy Wilson, producing “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” and “Miss Brown To You”, which helped to establish Holiday as a major vocalist. She began recording under her own name a year later, producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era’s finest musicians. John Hammond signed the pair onto Brunswick Records to record swinging versions of current pop tunes for the jukeboxes that were becoming popular. Holiday recorded for Commodore Records, starting with a recording of “Strange Fruit,” a song whose subject matter — a lynching — was considered too sensitive for Brunswick.  Her final recording days were with Decca, where she recorded the hit “Lover Man.”

I’ll admit that one of the first reasons I started beefing up my Billie Holiday collection was for DJing wedding receptions, where her gentle, fragile and rhythmic vocals and matching backing bands often help set a romantic mood. I was lucky to discover some sweetly swinging tunes, that I love to DJ at lindy hop dances:

• Miss Brown To You
• Nice Work if You Can Get It
• Sugar
• Blue Moon

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Charlie Barnet was an American saxaphonist and bandleader in the 1940s. The peak of his musical career was between 1939-1941, beginning with his first hit, “Cherokee” in 1939. Another popular dance hit was Skyliner in 1944. He was an outspoken admirer of Count Basie & Duke Ellington, so much so that when Barnet lost his music charts in a Los Angeles fire, Count Basie loaned Barnet his charts. Barnet was one of the first bandleaders to integrate his bands, that is to have both black and white musicians playing together. He began to switch from playing swing to bebop music in 1947, and eventually retired altogether in 1949, as he was one of a few heirs in a wealthy family.

My first encounter with Charlie Barnet’s music was shortly after returning from the 2003 Harlem Jazz Dance Festival in NYC, which was also my first experience of a world-class Lindy Hop competition, in which amazing competitors danced to blazingly fast music. After that, I was so fired up to dance to fast lindy hop music, that I not only took workshops in “Fast Lindy Hop”, but I also asked a local DJ friend to make me a fast lindy compilation to practice too. He did, and several of the tracks became some of my favorite dance tunes, including:

• Lumby
• Redskin Rhumba

Some other great tunes performed by the Charlie Barnet Orchestra that I came across later on included more moderate tempo songs like:

• Moten Swing
• Charleston Alley
• Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
• Shake, Rattle & Roll (An Afternoon of Moax)

There are literally tons of great swing dance tunes by Mr. Barnet, so here are a few albums to help you get your collection started:

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I was recently pleased to finally locate one of my long sought-after CD albums online at Amazon.com: The Big Eighteen: Echoes of the Swinging Bands. If you have ever taken a lindy hop workshop with the late Frankie Manning, then you should know at least one of the songs on this album by heart: Easy Does It. Frankie invariably played this song, a cover of an original Count Basie tune, as he taught the basics of the dance that he helped create. You could be in any city in the world, amidst a room full of 100 or more dancers all lined up and swinging out to this delicate, graceful, elegant and simultaneously grand song.

When I first heard that song at a Frankie workshop around 2002, I fell in love with it instantly and rushed up at the end of the class find out the song, band and album names. That was easy. Actually finding the album online, however, was another story. I did find details about the album online, however, the album was no longer being produced. I talked to Jessie Miner, an authoritative swing DJ, who confirmed that the album was rare and that my best likely bet would be to find someone selling it used.

Fast foward to 2010, just this past March when I was at the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon, and directing my teammates to line up as couples to dance a swingout line: one whole song of nothing but swing outs.  I was hoping that the band playing at the time would play a nice easy song with a solid beat and moderate tempo, and as if reading my mind they started to play an uncanny rendition of Easy Does It. It was a perfect moment, and I could not have chosen a better song.

The week after the dance-a-thon, I received some videos of our team dancing the swingout line. Here it is:

With echoes of that grand song in my mind, I decided to look up the elusive album online again…and was happy to find out that Amazon.com was finally selling it. Woo-hoo! Talk about a 1-click purchase. The CD arrived about a week later and I have been playing it in my car ever since.

From www.swingmusic.net:

The Big 18 was a studio only big band assembled by RCA Victor Musical Director Fred Reynolds in 1958. Reynold’s idea was to use some of the great songs and arrangements of the big band era while showcasing some of the star sidemen of the great bands by allowing ample time for extended solos.

If you’ve ever wondered why recordings of classic big band swing music tend to be around 3 minutes long, it’s not so much about keeping the songs short for dancing. In fact, the 78rpm LP recording format forced band leaders to create shorter arrangements and reign in their musician’s solos. The studio recordings of the Big 18 were specifically arranged to give the musicians a chance to stretch out and play, which is evidenced by the song lengths, most of which are 4 minutes or longer. Just when Easy Does It seems to be winding down around 3:30, the powerhouse orchestra hits it home with a chorus that just about bowls you over.

The single track, Easy Does It, was reason enough for me to purchase the whole CD, but the many other swinging tunes on the compilation are a sweet bonus. Some of my favorite tracks are:

• Summit Ridge Drive
• Swingtime in the Rockies (also a tune originally by Count Basie)
• Celery Stalks at Midnight
• Skyliner
• Organ Grinder’s Swing
• Ton O’Rock Bump

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Louis Prima (December 7, 1910 – August 24, 1978) was an Italian-American singer, trumpter, actor and bandleader. Along with Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan, he was one of the three famous trumpeting and singing Louis’ of the swing era. Comparisons have been drawn between Armstrong and Prima, as they were New Orleans contemporaries, and both incorporated a hoarse singing voice, scatting and a sense of humor into their acts. He started out in New Orleans playing with a seven-piece jazz band, and went on to lead a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s and a Vegas lounge act in the 1950s.

One of Louis Prima’s most notable and earliest hits was his original composition “Sing, Sing, Sing” in 1936, which was later covered by Benny Goodman’s orchestra and which became an iconic tune for the entire swing era. In the 1930s, he moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles, where his band played regularly at night clubs and was featured in several films, including Rhythm on the Range with Bing Crosby. In 1940, he formed a conventional big band, and it was with this band that he developed a distinctive shuffle rhythm style that he dubbed “Gleeby Rhythm,” while singing most of the bands vocals.

In the 1949, Prima took on singer Keely Smith who went on to become his fourth wife and a key component of his 1950s Vegas lounge act, along with drummer Sam Butera and his backing band The Witnesses. In addition to Smith’s beautifully deep vocals, the two developed a lively stage act with Keely playing it straight and innocent in contrast to the wild and zany Prima.

One of my earliest CD purchases as a swing dancer (we’re talking about back in 1997) was the Capitol Collector Series: Louis Prima Compilation, which features 25 great songs featuring Prima and Smith’s harmonized vocals. Many of the songs are great for dancing, and some of my favorites are:

• Just a Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody
• Buona sera
• Jump, Jive & Wail
• The Lip
• Whistle Stop
• 5 months, 2 weeks, 2 days
• Banana Split For My Baby
• Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home
• I’ve Got The World On A String

Another fun novelty song that Prima recorded for Disney’s cartoon production of the Jungle Book is:

I Wan’Na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)

Louis Prima passed away from a brain tumor in 1978, but he left behind a great musical legacy that had an impact on many of the swing revival era bands of the 1980s and later, including the Brian Setzer Orchestra and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. San Francisco’s own swing band Stompy Jones, which plays regularly at Club Verdi on Tuesday nights covers Louis Prima songs all the time, and we were even fortunate to have a guest appearance of Keely Smith at the Red Devil Lounge about a year ago, while she was touring along with the London-based Jive Aces.

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Miss Rhythm herself: Ruth Brown

Ruth Brown was an American R&B singer who was notable for bringing a popular style to the rhythm and blues, through a series of hit songs in the 1950s, including “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean” and “Teardrops from My Eyes.”

Brown’s father was the director of the local church choir, but she was more interested in singing in USO shows and nightclubs. She ran away from her childhood home of Portsmouth Virginia, with trumpeter Jimmy Brown, whom she married, to sing in bars and clubs. After a brief stint with the Lucky Millinder Orchetra, Blanch Calloway — Cab Calloway’s sister and bandleader– took Ruth under her wing, helping manage her act and setting Ruth up with a regular gig in Washington D.C. She was taken up by Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson at Atlantic Records, and Ertegün convinced her to switch from ballads to an R&B style. At the same time, Ertegün’s arrangements retained her “pop” style, with clean, fresh arrangements and the singing spot on the beat with little of the usual blues singer’s embroidery.

Teardrops from My Eyes, written by Rudy Toombs, was one of her earliest hits that featured her upbeat musical style, and topped the Billboard R&B charts for 11 weeks, earning her the nickname “Miss Rhythm.” A stream of hits followed including “I’ll Wait for You” (1951), “I Know” (1951), “5-10-15 Hours” (1953), “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean” (1953), “Oh What a Dream” (1954), “Mambo Baby” (1954) and “Don’t Deceive Me” (1960).

In her later years, Ruth Brown went on to pursue a bit of acting on television, film and on Broadway, where she won a Tony award for performance in Black and Blue.

“Rockin’ in Rhythm: The Best of Ruth Brown” is a particularly good compilation that features great tunes to rock out your lindy hop as well as some bluesy ballads to get your groove on.

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The 24-Hour Cancer Dance-A-Thon is coming up soon on March 13-14,  2010 in Irvine, CA, and a team of San Francisco swing dancers is heading down to dance all day and night, while collecting sponsorship funds to support the all important cause of cancer research and treatment. We’ve already raised over $9K toward our $30K team goal — at last fall’s local Swing Dance for Life event — and we need YOUR help to raise the remaining $21K!

If you would like to join our team, or even if you’re just thinking of it, please come to our open house and informational meeting:

Sunday, January 17, 4-5pm
Nathan’s House
1479 17th Ave @ Kirkham
San Francisco, CA 94122

Thanks! We hope to see you there!

The San Francisco Dance-A-Thon Team

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Thick. That’s how I would describe the heavy-hitting sound of alto saxophone player Buster Smith. He was instrumental in developing, along with Count Basie & Lester Young, what came to be called the Texas Sax Sound. Buster’s contribution to this sound was that he used a tenor saxophone reed with his alto saxophone to achieve a louder, “fatter” sound. Lester Young, who had played with Smith and Basie on the Oklahoma City Blue Devils and the Buster Smith-Count Basie Band of Rhythm, followed suit using a heavier baritone reed with his tenor saxophone. Buster Smith definitely had plenty of practice creating a bold sound from his early music days playing medicine shows around Dallas…where he had to play loud to help attract customers.

Buster Smith was a huge influence on the Texan music scene and industry and was known for teaching, mentoring and influencing the sounds many important musicians including Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian, Aaron “T-Bone” Walker and Red Garland. Although he did plenty of session work with famous musicians such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Earl Hines, he only ever recorded one solo album, The Legendary Buster Smith in 1959. What a powerful album though!

I remember the first time I heard Buster Smith. Jesse Miner used to DJ Kansas City Riffs (and still does) as a birthday jam song and I loved that hard-hitting sax & rhythm instantly…so much so I rushed to the DJ booth to identify the artist. Alas, that single solo album was a rare one to find in the record stores so imagine my delight when I found it online finally available for download….what a score!

My favorite tracks for dancing:

1. Kansas City Riffs
2. E-Flat Boogie
3. Organ Grinder’s Swing

They’re a bit lengthy in the 5-6 minute range which is why DJs often use them as birthday jam songs.

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