Swing or Nothing!

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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Artie Shaw was an American jazz clarinetist, composer and bandleader. He started out playing the saxophone when he was 13, but by age 16 had switched to the clarinet, the instrument for which he became famous. During the 1930s he played as a session musician in New York City, and eventually put together his own big band that rivaled that of contemporary Benny Goodman in popularity. With Benny Goodman already laying claim to the title “King of Swing”, Artie Shaw became known as the “King of Clarinet”, although Shaw argued that the titles should have been reversed.

Artie Shaw was known to be a musical innovator, experimenting with unusual instrumentation, incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythms, and especially breaking away from the patterns of traditional big band dance music. Dancers wanting to express the breaks and accents in a piece of music often latch onto repeated themes and recognizable riffs and patterns. Artie Shaw tried to keep dancers on their toes by mixing up the riffs in less predictable ways…a way to challenge all but the best dancers.

Indeed, I remember that two of my early swing dance instructors, Kevin and Carla, loved performing to music by Artie Shaw as well as playing his music in classes…precisely because the unpredictability and surprise element in his music made it challenging and fun to dance to.

Artie Shaw was quite prolific, so I’m not going to list all my favorite songs, but here are two sets of music that you might like:

Mellower Tunes with a Nice Steady Beat:

1. Begin the Beguine
2. Stardust
3. Moonglow
4. Frensi
5. Softly as a Morning Sunrise

High-Energy & Fast Lindy Tunes

1. Traffic Jam
2. Diga Diga Doo*
3. Carioca*
4. Lady Be Good*
5. Man From Mars*
6. Scuttlebutt
7. All the Cats Join In

* indicates tunes that I’ve performed to at one time or another.

Here’s a great Lindy Hop routine that’s danced to a splice of All the Cats Join in and Traffic Jam.

One2Swing Jitterbugs

And a great Artie Shaw album on Amazon.com to help you jump start your collection:

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LaVerne, Maxene and Patricia Andrews were three sisters from Minnesota who developed a harmonic style of singing and specialized in swing and boogie-woogie styles, and rose to international fame during the WWII era. With Laverne singing contraalto, Maxene singing soprano and Patricia singing mezzo-soprano, and all of them singing at the top of their lungs, the trio modeled themselves after the Boswell sisters, an earlier singing group, and they also originally sought to imitate the sound of a blaring trio of trumpets.

The Andrews Sisters rose to fame through their 1937 radio broadcast, during which time Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen became one of their earliest smash hits. They played with nearly all of the most famous big bands of the era, including those led by Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Joe Venuti, Freddie Slack, Eddie Heywood, Bob Crosby (Bing’s brother), Desi Arnaz, Guy Lombardo, Les Brown, Bunny Berigan. They also enjoyed a particularly successful collaboration with singer Bing Crosby — nearly half the songs they recorded with him made the Billboard Charts.

The Sisters were active and generous in helping to entertain America’s Armed Forces during WWII and support the war cause. Along with several other prominent actors and musicians, the Andrews Sisters helped found the Hollywood Canteen, a retreat for American servicemen. Indeed, many of their songs contained war related lyrics and themes. The Andrews Sisters appeared in a handful of films, especially after being snatched up by Universal Pictures. They appeared in three Abbot & Costello comedies, including Buck Privates and Universal eventually had them star in their own B-Musicals, including What’s Cooking, Private Buckaroo, and Give Out, Sisters.

Here’s a good starting compilation of Andrews Sisters tunes for dancing:

as well as some individual tunes from other albums that I really like:

1. Rhumboogie
2. Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)
3. Shortnin’ Bread

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Una Mae Carlisle was a singer, pianist & songwriter, who like Fats Waller, enjoyed success playing in a boogie woogie/stride piano style and incorporating comedy into her act. She did in fact collaborate with Fats Waller who first discovered her around 1932 in Cincinatti where she was already established as a live radio performer. You can hear her accompanying him on the 1939 Waller recording of “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love.”

Two tracks on this album are my absolute favorites:

• Oh I’m Evil
• The Boogie Wooglie Piggy

I love the way that Miss Carlisle’s vocals manage to blend an innocent and carefree sweetness with a deep tone and smoky delivery. Her song lyrics crack me up

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