SwingDJs

I have about one third of those records so this'll help me. I've had trouble finding Big 18 records (lots of DJ's play stuff from these two records) and I couldn't find any Widespread Depression Orchestra the last time I looked.

scowl wrote:and I couldn't find any Widespread Depression Orchestra the last time I looked.

Good luck! One of their albums i ripped from vinyl.

scowl wrote:I hope that someday I'll stumble across a decent record made by some obscure pre-neo swing band who played swing music before it got popular again.

Check out the Beatles "White Album" for Honey Pie. It's a little cartoony but basically a solid Charleston number.

A group called the Temperance Seven did a lot of British-style Charleston & Fox Trot stuff back in the '60s (the "Trad" movement in London which was popular with some kids at the time). There are some CDs out there in print that you can find with a Google web search. I use cuts from one of them occasionally when I dj. These are import CDs, not really outrageous price, but more expensive than the domestic stuff. (BTW, I believe this band is still around, but the guys are getting old and some reviewers say they have lost a lot of their edge).

A lot of the Oscar Peterson stuff that gets played is stuff he did in the 1960's also. One of my favorites that gets played now and then (Lars in Milwaukee uses this sometimes) is "Mumbles" with Clark Terry doing to vocal. Definite straight ahead swing from the pre-neo days.

None of these are/were "big bands" .... but then again neither were most neo-swing outfits.

Regarding "preferred" neo-swing:

I never liked the "rock" sound. But not all neo groups did/do the "rock" sound. The best neo-swing makes you wonder whether it is new or old on first listen if you are unfamiliar with the group or recording.

The Blues Swingers (a band that played in Chicago during the neo-swing era), for example, had a very traditional sound. I don't think their CD is in print any more, but there are a lot of copies around to burn from. They were almost a big band and created some terrific new stuff to go along with covers of Basie and all that.

Lavay Smith may not count as neo exactly either. Which is why I like her stuff so much. A lot of the arrangements are based on earlier arrangements from the original swing era. Her second album includes info on arrangement sources in the liner notes.

The Love Dogs has been mentioned here before. Some of their stuff has a neo feel to it, but they are primarily a jazz/jump blues band. My favorite of theirs is a cover of Ray Charles' "Roll With My Baby". This is a RC composition from the "Nat King Cole clone" part of his career and it's really fun to dance to. Their version of "Saffronia B" isn't bad either.

Steve Lucky & The Rhuma Bums got it right a few times as well. I play their version of "Daddy-O" all the time. It's a great arrangement that features a nice acoustic bass solo (bowed). I've never gotten any complaints about playing this one. I sometimes also play "Jumptown" even though it has a more neo sound to it. It has a kickass "hook" towards the end that many people remember fondly from the swing craze days. And a nice drum solo.

And then there is Swingerhead. I don't have any of their CDs, so I don't play their stuff, but "Pick Up the Phone" is kind of nice if you have it. The last time I saw them in concert they were focusing on Bobby Darin stuff - which you can get on CD done by the original man himself, so I haven't gone out of my way to track down Swingerhead recordings with that.


Finally - Dr. John (hard to classify him - his style is all over the place, but his heart is in "New Orleans barrel house piano style jazz") did a lot of interesting stuff during the pre-neo era. Almost all of it is in print and a lot of it works well on the lindy dance floor.

Racetrack wrote: The Blues Swingers (a band that played in Chicago during the neo-swing era), for example, had a very traditional sound. I don't think their CD is in print any more, but there are a lot of copies around to burn from. They were almost a big band and created some terrific new stuff to go along with covers of Basie and all that.

I think you can still find some of their stuff; i have the album they did with Floyd McDaniel.

Racetrack wrote:Definite straight ahead swing from the pre-neo days.

That's a contradiction in terms. Straight-ahead and Swing are not the same thing. Frankly almost all jazz (sans fusion or latin) is Straight-ahead. OP is definitely not Swing in the strict sense of the term.

Campus Five wrote:Straight-ahead and Swing are not the same thing.

I've always wondered about the term "straight ahead" since I've heard it a lot in relation to jazz. I have a general idea of what it means after listening to lots of examples, but I was wondering if there's a specific element(s)makes music "straight ahead".

1) overly broadly, anything with swung eighth notes. i.e. not latin or straight 8ths, etc.
2) the generic style of jazz the includes bop and post bop, west coast cool, hard bop - walking bassline, ride cymbal the whole time, solo after solo after solo.

Every "mainstream" jazz radio station (non-smooth jazz) plays the same general stuff Miles Davis, Trane, Sonny Rollins, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, anything on Blue Note or Verve from the early 50's-late 60's. That is straight-ahead jazz.

Straight ahead jazz is all of the contemporary jazz recorded from the early 50's upto the mid-60's, without any avante garde free jazz or fusion or funk or R&B, etc.

As I've mentioned before, the beat in modern jazz is different that Swing. Modern jazz lays back and doesn't have that push and drive; modern jazz slinks and grooooooves. Swing phraseology and feel is terribly un-hip to the modenr jazzer, and that's why its hard to find good Swing music. Playing old songs is not enough - you need to play them the proper way.

The Japanese once and may still employ a phrase - "middle period jazz" - that encompassed the era post Bop and pre Modern in which all the players from the Swing era who continued to record into the 50s, 60s and beyond in the styles they had functioned in 'back in the day' played......which is hundreds of famous and non famous jazzmen and women.

"Middle Period Jazz" is my favorite type of Jazz, along with the music of the Swing era. MPJ swings, though it is not necessarily "Swing" music and usually isn't. Leaves plenty of room for the art of the Jazz ballad, as well.

I was listening to "The Cat Walk" recorded by Gerry Mulligan & Ben Webster, off the album Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster.
I them listened to "Spanky's In The Kitchen" off Royal Crown Revue's album - "Kings Of Gangster Bop".
It is just unbelievable to hear the difference in the standard of musicianship. It's a real interesting listen.

Brian

Bob the Builder wrote:I was listening to "The Cat Walk" recorded by Gerry Mulligan & Ben Webster, off the album Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster.
I them listened to "Spanky's In The Kitchen" off Royal Crown Revue's album - "Kings Of Gangster Bop".
It is just unbelievable to hear the difference in the standard of musicianship. It's a real interesting listen.

Brian

Which one is better?

Have a listen, and draw your own conclusion.

Brian

CafeSavoy wrote:

scowl wrote:and I couldn't find any Widespread Depression Orchestra the last time I looked.

Good luck! One of their albums i ripped from vinyl.

Some guy in Seattle had an actual CD of "Downtown Uproar". He offered to burn me a copy of it but I told him, nah, I'll just buy a legal copy of it somewhere.

I do have not-quite-legal copies of some BIg 18 songs. I will buy legal versions when I come across them.

scowl wrote:Some guy in Seattle had an actual CD of "Downtown Uproar". He offered to burn me a copy of it but I told him, nah, I'll just buy a legal copy of it somewhere.

Hmm, I have it, but it wasn't me who offered it to you. I wonder who else has it up here…

main_stem wrote:

scowl wrote:Some guy in Seattle had an actual CD of "Downtown Uproar". He offered to burn me a copy of it but I told him, nah, I'll just buy a legal copy of it somewhere.

Hmm, I have it, but it wasn't me who offered it to you. I wonder who else has it up here…

I've seen that one on cd, but Paris Blues has been harder to find. It's not even listed on allmusic.com.