Stand-out years in swing history?

Everything about the swinging music we love to DJ

Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy

Message
Author
Haydn
Posts: 1277
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:36 am
Location: London

Stand-out years in swing history?

#1 Post by Haydn » Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:30 am

Cataloging an increasing number of songs by year (with the help of CD notes and http://www.lordisco.com/), I've started to take more notice of the year a song was recorded. So I wondered - which years stand out for you in the history of Swing music?

(Yeah, the 'smart' answer might be '1935-1945', but I was hoping for slightly more specific comments :wink: - for example, which year was better, 1936 or 1937)

penguin
Posts: 118
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:59 pm
Contact:

#2 Post by penguin » Thu Jan 15, 2009 3:13 am

Hell, I can do better than that. I'll give you an exact date and place:

January 16th, 1938, Savoy Ballroom, New York, New York.

It's the first one I'm programming into my time machine when it comes in the post.

Haydn
Posts: 1277
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:36 am
Location: London

#3 Post by Haydn » Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:30 am

penguin wrote:Hell, I can do better than that. I'll give you an exact date and place:

January 16th, 1938, Savoy Ballroom, New York, New York.
What happened on that day?

User avatar
trev
Posts: 736
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 8:20 pm
Location: Perth, Australia

#4 Post by trev » Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:19 am

I think you'll find a certain battle of the bands took place ;)

User avatar
trev
Posts: 736
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 8:20 pm
Location: Perth, Australia

#5 Post by trev » Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:21 am

Oh, and I vote 1937

User avatar
J-h:n
Posts: 193
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:09 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

#6 Post by J-h:n » Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:37 am

trev wrote:I think you'll find a certain battle of the bands took place ;)
Amongst other things. Earlier that night, there seems to have been a little something going on at Carnegie Hall. Amen to the time machine suggestion.

1938. Yeah. The year Basie made it big at the Famous Door, the year of the concert mentioned above - and the year before Glenn Miller made it big ;)

Toon Town Dave
Posts: 661
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:52 pm
Location: Saskatoon, Canada

#7 Post by Toon Town Dave » Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:29 pm

penguin wrote:Hell, I can do better than that. I'll give you an exact date and place:

January 16th, 1938, Savoy Ballroom, New York, New York.

It's the first one I'm programming into my time machine when it comes in the post.
I'd be at Carnegie Hall for the Goodman concert the same night. Wouldn't miss the Honeysuckle Rose jam, all 16 minutes of swinging awesomeness with jazz superstars including Basie, Lester Young and Buck Clayton! Maybe head up to the Savoy afterward.

I think '38 was the pinnacle year of swing although '37 was pretty good too for the hard swinging sound that I dig from both big bands and smaller groups.

User avatar
trev
Posts: 736
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 8:20 pm
Location: Perth, Australia

#8 Post by trev » Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:22 pm

Maybe I should have picked 1935: things where swingin but it was still something only the cool people knew about. By 1939 it was everywhere. ;)

penguin
Posts: 118
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:59 pm
Contact:

#9 Post by penguin » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:32 am

Toon Town Dave wrote:
penguin wrote:Hell, I can do better than that. I'll give you an exact date and place:

January 16th, 1938, Savoy Ballroom, New York, New York.

It's the first one I'm programming into my time machine when it comes in the post.
I'd be at Carnegie Hall for the Goodman concert the same night. Wouldn't miss the Honeysuckle Rose jam, all 16 minutes of swinging awesomeness with jazz superstars including Basie, Lester Young and Buck Clayton! Maybe head up to the Savoy afterward.

I think '38 was the pinnacle year of swing although '37 was pretty good too for the hard swinging sound that I dig from both big bands and smaller groups.
It's a time machine - I can do the concerts in the reverse order (and multiple times, just have to careful I don't end up dancing with myself, wonder what sort of paradox that would create).

User avatar
CafeSavoy
Posts: 1138
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 6:25 pm
Location: Mobtown
Contact:

#10 Post by CafeSavoy » Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:08 am

Great suggestions so far, but if I'd had a time machine I'd first go check out those battles between Walter Page's and Benny Moten's bands. Then I'd go check out the Savoy Sultans who are so under-recorded. As to the original question, I don't know if i can answer it since i don't think like that. I'd rather discover good music regardless of the year or band; if fact the unexpected gem is even better. But you can generalize somewhat about the years with the larger hard swinging bands in the latter half of the 30s. But how can you exclude Mckinney Cotton Pickers, early Chick Webb, early Fletcher Henderson, and all the early hot bands of the early 30s.

User avatar
anton
Posts: 409
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:41 pm
Location: Malmö, Sweden

#11 Post by anton » Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:36 am

I'll interpret the question as: "If you had to DJ for three hours and could only use music recorded one specific year, what year would that be?"

Quantitatively, my answer would be 1940 - that's the peak in the histogram of my mp3 collection for DJing. Quality-wise, peak year for Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Erskine Hawkins, Lionel Hampton (well, maybe).

User avatar
remysun
Posts: 141
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:39 pm
Location: Motown

#12 Post by remysun » Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:00 am

penguin wrote: It's a time machine - I can do the concerts in the reverse order (and multiple times, just have to careful I don't end up dancing with myself, wonder what sort of paradox that would create).
You mean you swing both ways?

Haydn
Posts: 1277
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:36 am
Location: London

#13 Post by Haydn » Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:19 am

anton wrote:I'll interpret the question as: "If you had to DJ for three hours and could only use music recorded one specific year, what year would that be?"
Yes, that was the sort of question in my mind when I started the thread - songs recorded in year X versus year Y versus year P. I found it really interesting making separate playlists by year, and then playing at random from that year only. After a while, you sort of become used to the 1937 sound, as opposed to the 1939 sound or the 41 sound. I was listening to songs from 37, and then 38, and thought the 37 lot sounded much more exciting. But then I listened a second time and started to like the 38 selection :P The Time Machine angle's an interesting one too.

User avatar
dogpossum
Posts: 299
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 10:42 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia
Contact:

#14 Post by dogpossum » Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:01 pm

I'm going to answer this in reference to how I actually DJ, rather than how I listen to music at home.


I guess I don't have a favourite year. Or, rather, I am very fond of the early 30s (ie 30-35) and play a lot of that at home, but when I'm DJing I'm not so specific - I can't afford to be in my regular gigs with such mixed crowds. So I guess I tend to favour particular artists (especially ones like Basie and Ellington who had such long careers) rather than particular years. I like hearing how their music changes over the years.

I'm also beginning to get interested in groups of artists playing in particular cities in particular years/series of years. I like the thought of a town full of musicians influencing each other... if I had access to a time machine (after flying to the US) I'd probably visit a particular city and wander around during the evening into the early hours. I'd need a guide who knew a bunch of fun people, and that guide'd probably have to be male, as I'm not sure a white chick like myself would have a terribly great time wandering the streets of a foreign city in the middle of the night in the early 20th century. I'd like to see the big names, but I'd also like to see smaller names - the venue and vibe of the gig would be as important as the actual musicians, I think.


I've noticed lately that I tend to move between years or periods when I'm DJing - it's a nice way of doing smooth transitions. I like the way the musical changes between periods make for obvious transitions.

So I might play:

- 50s Jimmy Witherspoon with Jay McShann
- 50s Basie with a shouter vocalist (Rushing perhaps)
- late 40s Basie instrumental
- early 40s Hampton (something fun and high energy)
- 30s Lunceford
- early 30s Ellington
- late 20s or perhaps something 'charleston'
- a modern band doing an early 30s/'sounds early 30s' song (Boilermakers perhaps)
- a modern band doing something that sounds both 'old' and modern (someone like Carol Ralph is good here) - I'd think of this as 'modern new orleans' in my head, though I know it's not an accurate description. From here I could go modern again, or...
- 30s Bechet
- 40s Ory
- something 'new orleans'/'swing' cross over (eg 'All Star Strut' (1940) by the Metronome All Stars or 'The Blues A' (1937) by Artie Shaw)
- mid 30s Andy Kirk (1936 or so)
- late 30s Ellington
- early 40s Artie Shaw
- mid 40s Louis Jordan
- some 'Kansas' vocal stuff from the mid to late 40s - Bus Moten or Julia Lee or Walter Brown with Jay McShann

- and then I'm back where I started - with the shouters. I could go on to the 'modern' stuff (ie 50s and later) or go back to the earlier stuff. I've noticed that by the time I get to this point I'm really relaxed and have a better idea of what the dancers are into. Then I tend to play a whole heap of that - get a bit more specific.

I tend to do this sort of movement between eras and styles if I'm playing a mixed crowd - a range of ability levels, experience, musical interests (like a weekly gig or an earlier set in the main room at an exchange). That way I can get a bit closer to pleasing everyone (I can always hope, right?) and set up the room for the next DJ who can then get more specialised.

If I've just spent the evening dancing my arse off to a fabulous band and am now playing my second set of the weekend at a late night 'prime lindy hopping time' set on perfect equipment in the perfect room on the second night of an exchange where the crowd's mostly hardcore dancers who've been dancing for a while and who're warmed up, ready to dance and interested in hearing 'new' (as in unfamiliar) music*, then I tend to get more specific with the music. I usually drop the modern bands and 50s and 60s stuff.

I've done a few band break sets where I've had to play around the specific era the band are playing, avoiding the songs they'll do. That's fun.


[I'm more flexible with my blues DJing - I have a thing for 40s and 50s blues atm]


*pretty much my dream set.

User avatar
CafeSavoy
Posts: 1138
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 6:25 pm
Location: Mobtown
Contact:

#15 Post by CafeSavoy » Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:46 am

dogpossum wrote: So I guess I tend to favour particular artists (especially ones like Basie and Ellington who had such long careers) rather than particular years. I like hearing how their music changes over the years.

I'm also beginning to get interested in groups of artists playing in particular cities in particular years/series of years. I like the thought of a town full of musicians influencing each other... if I had access to a time machine (after flying to the US) I'd probably visit a particular city and wander around during the evening into the early hours. I'd need a guide who knew a bunch of fun people, and that guide'd probably have to be male, as I'm not sure a white chick like myself would have a terribly great time wandering the streets of a foreign city in the middle of the night in the early 20th century. I'd like to see the big names, but I'd also like to see smaller names - the venue and vibe of the gig would be as important as the actual musicians, I think.
I agree that it's fun to trace how artists develop over time. Also it's interesting to see which songs they keep in their book and how they've changed (e.g., old and new testament "Shorty George") and also which songs they didn't seem to repeat (e.g., "shout and feel it"). Ellington did alot of both since some of his songs were designed for specific instrumentalists and he would retire them until he had an instrumentalist who he felt could do it justice. Also Duke was open to ideas from the instrumentalists, so when Ray Nance joined the band he added to violin to C Jam Blues and it has pretty much stuck.

And Duke was also open to influences outside his band as when his palette expanded after he heard Louis Armstrong in the 20s. Incidentally, lots of musicians changed after they heard Armstrong, I think Coleman Hawkins said he totally changed after he heard Armstrong.

Speaking of people to hang out with, there is a great story about Coleman Hawkins when he returned to New York just before War War 2 after a long sojourn in Europe. He was met at the docks by Benny Carter, and he immediately wanted to go and check out all the pretenders to the tenor throne. So they went directly from the docks to check out Ben Webster with Duke Ellington, there picked up some musicians who went with them to the Savoy to check Lester Young with Basie. Afterwards with an even larger entourage they went to one of the afterhours club, probably Mintons, to check out, I think it was Byas. The story is repeated in the liner notes to the original body and soul cd; it included a who's who of jazz, billie, sarah, etc. and that was just the first night.

So definitely NYC, both uptown and downtown would have to be on the tour. And definitely Kansas City in the wide open days, and then you'd have to follow the chitlin circuit to get the full flavor. Another good glimpse into the early days can come from Jimmy Rushing who traveled out west in the 20s and writes about his experience. The Basie biography, good morning blues, also gives a great glimpse of KC, places on the chitlin circuit, and NYC. And that's just the beginning cause there still New Orleans and the southwest.

Locked