"30 Good Hot Records" from LIFE

Everything about the swinging music we love to DJ

Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy

Locked
Message
Author
User avatar
Capt Morgan
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:33 pm
Location: Riverside, CA
Contact:

"30 Good Hot Records" from LIFE

#1 Post by Capt Morgan » Fri Feb 12, 2010 1:44 pm

In the August 8, 1938 issue of Life Magazine there's a great article about swing, and toward the end, there's a list of "30 Good Hot Records".

They Are:
1) Albert Ammons - Boogie Woogie Stomp
2) Louis Armstrong - West End Blues
3) Mildred Bailey - Long About Midnight
4) Bix Beiderbecke - Riverboat Shuffle
5) Bix Beiderbeck - In A Mist
6) Bunny Berrigan - I Can't Get Started
7) Connie Boswell - Bob White
8) Eddy Condon's Windy City Seven - Carnegie Drag
9) Bob Crosby's Band - South Rampart Street Parade
10) Tommy Dorsey - Stardust
11) Duke Ellington's Band - Clarinet Lament
12) Ella Fizgerald (Chick Webb's Band) - A-Tisket A-Tasket
13) Benny Goodman - Don't Be That Way
14) Benny Goodman Quartet - Moonglow
15) Fletcher Henderson - Money Blues
16) Gene Krupa - Blues of Israel
17) Meade Lux Lewis - Yancy Special
18) Joe Marsala - Hot String Beans
19) Red Norvo - Blues in E Flat
20) King Oliver - Dipper Mouth Blues
21) Artie Shaw - Nightmare
22) Bessie Smith - Young Woman's Blues
23) Stuff Smith - You'se A Viper
24) Joe Sullivan - Honeysuckle Rose
25) Jack Teagarden - Diane
26) Fats Waller - Dinah
27) Teddy Wilson - Body and Soul
28) Mary Lou Williams - Overhand
29) Maxine Sullivan - Loch Lomond
30) Slim and Slam - Flat Foot Floogie


So what do you think of this list?
Image

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

#2 Post by Haydn » Fri Feb 12, 2010 7:13 pm

From a quick glance, I wouldn't really say they are all 'hot'. Moonglow? Loch Lomond? It's always interesting to read articles from the time.

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

#3 Post by J-h:n » Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:15 am

In a Mist? Come on. It's hardly even jazz.

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

#4 Post by Haydn » Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:35 am

It's a great article anyway. A few quotes from it:

"Life has compiled, from considered opinions of experts, a list of good swing records. Printed below, they form the nucleus of a good collection for those who would like to know more about hot music. Included are some items of special interest like the Beiderbecke piano solo ... and the freak swing success, Flat Foot Floogie."


Earlier in the article ...

"It was the fashion two years ago, and a year ago, and six months ago to say that the form of jazz called "Swing" was on the way out. It is still the fashion to say that Swing is on the way out. Maybe so - but the fact is that, as of August 1938, Swing is the most popular kind of popular music.

Proof comes most emphatically from broadcasting chains who report that more than half the dance numbers played today are done in swing style and that Swing is played 50% more frequently today than it was a year ago ... The public wants Swing even though it isn't sure what Swing is.

The most articulate hot musician cannot give a strict definition of Swing. But all definitions agree that Swing is based on:

1) a driving but fluid and unmechanical rhythm over which
2) soloists improvise as they play

Whatever the definition, everyone admits that of all jazz Swing is musically the most vital and interesting. Today it is enjoying its golden era not only popularly but artistically. Never before have there been so many fine swing musicians playing being permitted to play their own unhampered style."

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

#5 Post by J-h:n » Sat Feb 13, 2010 12:39 pm

Actually, the list makes more sense if you read the article. The terminology is a bit confusing; they seem to use the words "swing" and "hot" as synonyms of jazz. There's much emphasis on Bix, who certainly was a great jazzman but hardly what we'd call a swing musician.

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

#6 Post by CafeSavoy » Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:19 pm

Haydn wrote:From a quick glance, I wouldn't really say they are all 'hot'. Moonglow? Loch Lomond? It's always interesting to read articles from the time.
I think it's because they are using "hot" differently then we would. I suspect it is used as contrast to "sweet" bands.

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

#7 Post by Haydn » Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:23 am

It's still hard to see how some of these songs belong on the same list. If South Rampart Street Parade and You'se A Viper are 'hot', Stardust and I Can't Get Started are lukewarm at most. Actually, I think if you classified songs as sweet or hot, then the latter two should be on the sweet list.

User avatar
kitkat
Posts: 606
Joined: Tue May 27, 2003 10:34 am
Location: Minneapolis, MN

#8 Post by kitkat » Mon Feb 15, 2010 4:58 pm

Don't forget how many non-jazz bands probably existed at the time.
Movie music, show music, other random pop-but-not-jazz...maybe that's what people are getting at by them meaning "hot" for jazz (whether sappy or not) and "sweet" for non-jazz sappy things?

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

#9 Post by dogpossum » Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:31 pm

I love lists of iconic or 'good' songs/books/films/texts. I love them because though they are presented as definitive, they are always more effective as a provocation than a definitive answer to questions about what counts and is important enough to be listed. Discograhies work, pretty much, as definitive 'lists' or 'canons'.


I've come across a few different uses of 'hot' in articles and books from the 1930s, particularly in reference to discographies. Kenney's discussion of jazz in Chicago outlines the differences between 'jazz' or 'hot' bands and music and 'dance' bands. These differences are not only musical, but also inflected by race, class, the recording industry, live venue management and ownership, gender... and so on. I've also come across quite a few discussions in an academic (rather than populist or 'music critic') sources about the expression 'hot jazz'. The most useful sources point out that any attempt to finally define 'hot' or 'jazz' is not only difficult, but also problematic.

Krin Gabbard discusses the cultural effects of constructing canons - in which discographies play a key role - and points out that lists of 'hot' or 'important' or 'real' jazz records aren't neutral or objective lists of songs - they are highly subjective and negotiated by the author's own ideas about music and place in society generally.

Kenney (who's written some absolutely fascinating stuff about jazz music in Chicago in the 20s) discusses Brian Rust's discographies, making the point that Rust distinguishes between 'hot' and other types of jazz recordings. Friedwald talks a bit about Rust (and other discographers) in his jazz.com articles. Kenney's research into the recording and live music industry in Chicago suggests that who got to record or play what types of music was actually dictated in large part by record companies' ideas about race and class and markets rather than musicians' personal inclination.
That last point suggests that you could make some interesting observations about the correlation between race, class, recorded songs, 'popularity' and 'jazz' in Chicago jazz during this period. I don't know enough about it, though, so all I'll say is that you could, but you'd better have some badass sources to support your arguments. And you'd also better be prepared to accept the idea that though America had a national music industry, different state legislations and music cultures resulted in quite different local practices: it'd be tricky to generalise Chicago's story across other cities and states. Not to mention countries.


Life and other magazines' comments on and participation in music promotion in the 30s are also pretty interesting - these guys had ideological barrows to push, just as did Rust and other discographers. One of the effects of publishing this type of list in Life (which was no doubt as hotly contested then as it is now - except by a wider audience :D) is that it does stimulate discussion and debate. And, (someone was hoping), magazine, record and ticket sales. One thing I'd be interested in knowing is who owned Life at that time, and whether that entity had any interests in record companies.
As an example, every time I see that Great Day In Jazz photo, I think about the fact that it was a photo for Esquire magazine, and that Esquire also produced a series of live concerts, recordings... and of course, photo spreads in magazines. While GDIJ works a fabulous representation of jazz it also serves as a canon, and as such is also subjective, ideologically framed and interpreted (eg asking why are there so few women in this photo leads us to questions about gender and jazz.)
Canons are fascinating things, and can be the jumping off place for all sorts of great discussions and debates. I think this is why I was so excited by Rayned's session on Yehoodi Radio where he used the GDIJ photo as an organising structure for the music he chose. In that case, the photo became a listening guide for a radio program. I'd just rather not use these lists as definitive or fixed; I like them more as provocations, or a place from which to begin discussing (and arguing about) a topic.


If I saw a list like the one in Life today, I'd be extra-suspicious. Songs on So You Think You Can Dance, for example, are owned by the company which produces that tv show. There's been quite a lot written about the Ken Burns' Jazz series and its role in cross-promoting sales of records from catalogues owned by the same media corporation. The Ken Burns example is an especially interesting one: that series does not present an 'objective' list of important artists and songs. It is a jumping off place for a very successful marketing project surrounding back catalogues and contemporary musicians like Marsalis. George Lipsitz has written quite a bit about histories of jazz (including Burns'), and he makes this point:
…the film is a spectator’s story aimed at generating a canon to be consumed. Viewers are not encouraged to make jazz music, to support contemporary jazz artists, or even to advocate jazz education. But they are urged to buy the nine-part home video version of Jazz produced and distributed by Time Warner AOL, the nearly twenty albums of recorded music on Columbia/Sony promoting the show’s artists and ‘greatest hits,’ and the book published by Knopf as a companion to the broadcast of the television program underwritten by General Motors. Thus a film purporting to honor modernist innovation actually promotes nostalgic satisfaction. The film celebrates the centrality of African Americans to the national experience but voices no demands for either rights or recognition on behalf of contemporary African American people. The film venerates the struggles of alienated artists to rise above the formulaic patterns of commercial culture, but comes into existence and enjoys wide exposure only because it works so well to augment the commercial reach and scope of a fully integrated marketing campaign linking ‘educational’ public television to media conglomerates. (17)
Lipsitz is interesting because he says thinks like 'Why not think about jazz as a history of dance?' 'Why not look into the lives of musicians who gave up fame and fortune in massively famous bands to work in their local communities?'



Friedwald, Will. "On Discography" www.jazz.com, May 27, 2009 http://www.jazz.com/jazz-blog/2009/5/27/on-discography

Gabbard, Krin. “The Jazz Canon and its consequences” Jazz Among the Discourses. Duke U Press, Durham and London 1995. 1-28.

Kenney, William Howland. “Historical Context and the Definition of Jazz: Putting More of the History in ‘Jazz History’”. Jazz Among the Discourses. Duke U Press, Durham and London 1995. 100-116

Lipsitz, George. “Songs of the Unsung: The Darby Hicks History of Jazz,” Uptown Conversation: the new Jazz studies, ed. Robert O’Meally, Brent Hayes Edwards, Farah Jasmin Griffin. Columbia U Press, NY: 2004: 9-26.
Last edited by dogpossum on Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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

#10 Post by dogpossum » Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:49 pm

I just have to add some magazine-themed jazz prn:

Image

From the 'Jam Session' pics in the Google/Life set Gjon Mili did for Esquire. Mili of course made Jumpin' the Blues, and also this freekin great clip of rockstars.


(NB that little group in the bottom left hand corner are from Vogue magazine)

Campus Five
Posts: 251
Joined: Mon May 31, 2004 12:57 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

#11 Post by Campus Five » Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:32 pm

You mean "Jammin' the Blues."
"I don''t dig that two beat jive the New Orleans cats play.
My boys and I have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating!
--Count Basie
www.campusfive.com
www.myspace.com/campusfive
www.swingguitar.blogspot.com

Locked