SwingDJs

This kind of rut happens in radio and dance DJ work. Here is a simple trick that one of the veteran DJs at the radio station I volunteer at taught me. Keep a 30 or 60 min play list handy that you know has worked in the past. When you 'feel' the rutt happening, stop what your doing and pull out of th...

So... head arrangements and limitless improvisation make for more boring material than off-the-shelf Hefti arrangements? I could listen to KC Basie all day. Now, Cab Calloway, I can do maybe two songs. Harry James, maybe one. Yes very much so. As Brenda keeps reminding everyone, there is a differen...

The live big bands I have heard and danced to don't usually have wild-ass horn section stabs all over the place. For dancing, the only large band around here definately has the loud and blaring horns that some of the dancers don't enjoy. The charts are from the Basie, James, Henderson, Goodman, Gib...

Jerry: It is style, NOT audio fidelity! I think that most of the DJs here, whether they like the sound or not, would say that Mora's Modern, although not populated by musicians of stature of the James Orch, is not cheesy. Hi Doug, sorry for the delayed response. I've been very busy with the Easter ...

jerry, are the videos on the basie dvd complete songs? if they are, i think i might pick that one up assuming that the sound quality is any good. we have a projector that i can use on a saturday night dance, i may try my luck at using the dvd player as an external source. I have done it before and ...

Hi all, I just finished posting the artists and CDs I pulled the tracks from. I have to admit I pulled a fast one on you, but to your credit, there was a consistent dislike of the selections. All of the tracks, except the last one, was Harry James in the 1950s. Most are from the marvelous (to me) Mo...

Like Nathan, I just spotted this thread. A very significant member of the swing era who is still co,posing is Gerald Wilson. He replaced Sy Oliver on trumpet and composing/arranging for Lunceford around 1938. Gerald still composes and arranges. I saw him about 2 years ago with the Cleveland Jazz Orc...

Another angle on radio braodcast transcriptions is the dialog. I have quite a few Stan Kenton radio things from 40s and early 50s. Stan was quite the dry humorist. This comes across very clearly as he introduces songs and/or band members. Then with Kenton you get to hear many songs that Kenton never...

There's a ton of Swing Era jazz DVDs here . Great set of discs. Do you know if they are complete songs with indexes or are they snippets? Along with being a music junkie, I'm also a music VIDEO junkie. What is referenced above are releases on the IDEM label. Here are DVDs of that I own from the lab...

This is a question for more of the music fans. I'm in the process of preparing a show on John Kirby. I have 2 of the Classics Releases: "Classics" series:# 750 = 1938-1939 and # 792 = 1941-1943 These are both excellent samplings of the classic Kirby groups. I'm curious if you have any othe...

Don't know is these has been mentioned in the past or not. Oscar was also the on camera host and I seem to recall the producer of an early 1960s TV program. For the life of me I can't recall the name of the tv show. Does Jazz Scene USA sound right? Some of these have been reissued on VHS tape and ma...

... like how the swing tradition forked during & after WWII: one direction was complex bop, one direction was what became "mainstream swing," one direction was Rhythm and Blues.... This is very true. I would also add a resurgence of 'traditional jazz' to this list. The labels like Com...

Hi all, I finally got some free time to respond to Reuben's post from a few days ago. Thanks Reuben for taking the time to honestly respond to the sound clips. I really appreciate the feedback. It is truly helping me to try and learn the modern swing dancers likes and dislikes. I must admit I've a l...

Do you have songs that you play because you enjoy them, even if they may not be *the best* song at the time? Well I'm lucky in this sense. I ONLY play the music I enjoy. Obviously some of it I enjoy more than other things. The real challenge is coming up with 2 original hours a week of radio. Also ...

This CD does not do them justice as they are probaly the second best (next to lincoln center) big band that I have heard live. Thanks for the link. I'm going to try and check that out this weekend. As far as live big band jazz - the current Count Basie band under Bill Hughes is FANTASTIC. I've hear...