SwingDJs

I hadn't checked out Lawrence's Austin site until recently. Its pretty good:
http://www.austinlindy.com/top_20_essential_cds.htm

and other stuff he writes about music, including his album of the week.

There aren't many good review sites on the web, I always appreciate finding one. I can't believe I haven't scoped it out before. I'll have to check out some of your recommendations. And I'll have to link to it from my site.

I have to say, though, your music divisions are a little wacked. I'm not sure about your division between "mainstream swing" and "groove swing". That's a fine and debatable division, in my opinion. But whatever. What I can't believe, though, is that you put Bill Elliott and George Gee into the "neo swing" category with RCR and Ray Gelato? Ouch! No way! A travesty! Not to mention that you recommend 2 each of albums from some of these neo-swing bands, so your total is more than 25!

From your albums of the week, I'm intrigued by the Sonny Clark, the Duke Ellington 46-47 box set and the Swan Silvertones. I'll have to give them a preview. Only problem is, then I'll probably want to buy some of the CDs, and I've been trying to cut back on new purchases. When is enough enough? Never, if you are a swing DJ...

Ron wrote: I have to say, though, your music divisions are a little wacked. I'm not sure about your division between "mainstream swing" and "groove swing".

Hey Ron I actually agree with you on this. I find it funny that he has OP in "main stream" and Gene in "Groove" when they shared one very importan person known for his full tone, sense of time and relentless swing, Ray Brown. In fact much of the stuff on the fisrt disc from the collection was recorded under the Ray Brown Trio. Gene was much more on the funky side with the origional Three Sounds.

Anyway the description given is more intun with the description of hard bop.

Kevin

Incidentally, at least Lawrence didn't label Slim Gaillard as "jump blues" like another DJ on this list!

OK OK, I admit I'm an instigator!

Ron wrote:Incidentally, at least Lawrence didn't label Slim Gaillard as "jump blues" like another DJ on this list!

OK OK, I admit I'm an instigator!

It's not instigating unless you name names! Who in the world did that?

Ron wrote:II have to say, though, your music divisions are a little wacked. I'm not sure about your division between "mainstream swing" and "groove swing". That's a fine and debatable division, in my opinion. But whatever. What I can't believe, though, is that you put Bill Elliott and George Gee into the "neo swing" category with RCR and Ray Gelato? Ouch! No way! A travesty!

Yes, I developed that list years ago, and have planned to address the issue of including Gee and Elliott under Neo Swing. The history goes back to long, pointless debates on the e-mail Swing mailing list years ago about whether George and Bill played Neo Swing. I wanted to avoid making a normative comment by labeling something "Neo Swing" (which became a synonym for "Neo-Crap" whenever someone labeled anything "Neo Swing.") I have abandoned doing so, but now face the problem of finding 5 "essential" neo-swing recordings to recommend once I remove Geroge or Bill. I also want to include George and Bill on the list, but can't justify including them in Big Band Swing over, say, Duke or Basie. So I leave it the way it is and focus more on the album of the week. Now that I know my laziness has resulted in a "travesty," I guess I need to finally fix it.

Regarding the distinction between "Groove" and "Mainstream," as Rueben noted elsewhere, the way in which I parse my music/recommendations certainly reflects my tastes and preferences; the distinctions become finer in the areas in which I have more material. However, I look at "Groove" as falling on the border between jazz and blues with a deep, bass-laden rhythm that dominates the music, whereas Mainstream jazz has a straight jazz "feeling" with a subtler, more straight-forward swing rhythm that does not dominate as much. Although the bass player is the same on recordings in both the Groove and Mainstream categories, and although I completely agree that Ray Brown is probably more responsible for the "groove" in Gene Harris' "Groove" music than even Gene Harris is, "Night Train" (the OP album under mainstream) is not so groove-laden as the Gene Harris material or even as other OP material.

Thanks for the feedback! I was hoping that this list could produce some.

Feedback? I was just making fun of you...! Oh, not really. But feel free to make fun of my site anytime in return.

But I like to play the game of "what category does this song belong to", too, despite the fact that it basically makes no difference to what category we put things in. But I waste a lot of time playing Freecell, too... Its fun.

I'd agree that Maxine Sullivan and Al Grey w/McDuff don't appear to fit in the same category together very well. Your "mainstream" category are basically albums that sound more classic than modern. Your "groove swing" category has the more modern stuff. So maybe your categories are not so bad after all. If all the music we play for Lindyhoppers falls on a continuum from "more classic sounding" to "more modern sounding", then categories of similar type music on that continuum make sense. But by that measure I wouldn't put 50's Basie in with your classic Big Band category, its more in the middle.

A tour thru AMG doesn't help much, with its plethora of subcategories of almost everything, and every artist labeled in multiple categories.

Basically I put all old classic Big Band, including modern bands like Bill Elliott, into a "classic" category, and all the other jazz into the "modern" category (but subdivided into vocals and non-vocal, for convenience, on my hard drive). And I often just use (abuse) "groove" as a substitute for "modern" or "slower modern".

Ron wrote:I'd agree that Maxine Sullivan and Al Grey w/McDuff don't appear to fit in the same category together very well. Your "mainstream" category are basically albums that sound more classic than modern. Your "groove swing" category has the more modern stuff. So maybe your categories are not so bad after all.

That's the point. But its not just a modern v. classic distinction on recording dates. Lots of "Soul Jazz" from the 60s would qualify as Groove Swing, and lots of modern jazz from the 90s would qualify as "Mainstream:" it depends on the richness of the rhythm, not the dates. That said, because of technological recording advances that allowed the Bass to be recorded more subtly yet more omnipresently (which enhanced Bass play quite a bit), as well as the Hammond Organ that helps boost the bass-driven rhythm, you won't find many pre-1960 "Groove" recordings.