SwingDJs

Something I've been curious about for a while. I apologise that I don't have the terminology to describe this in musician's terms, because that would make it a lot easier to convey.

The style that Artie Shaw uses in this solo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6LrEkxolpk#t=1m41s where he plays with that syncopated timing which makes the clarinet seem to dance around the music (for want of a better description)
Another example from Ball of Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1QQ8UyBFoA#t=1m20s

While it's probably easiest to pick out in the likes of these clarinet solos - it seems to be a pretty pervasive technique in swing, and seems to be a huge part of what makes the music swing. My question is: where did that start? Was it always a part of trad jazz, or did it come in from somewhere? Was it a ragtime influence?

I know this might be an unanswerable question, or waaaay too wide in scope, but I'm kind of curious about more knowledgeable people's take on this.

Probably unanswerable is a year when this started. You can hear it on earlier recordings like Don Murray's clarinet on Royal Garden Blues with Bix in 27. Anyway, Sidney Bechet was doing this (among who know how many others) before the first recordings were ever cut. (I've stuck steadfastly to your clarinet theme - I should get extra points.)

Not sure if this helps or is what you mean, but the example I've used before is Fletcher Henderson's 1924 version of Shanghai Shuffle. Most of the song is a fairly straight dance tune, until around half way (1:56) when a young guy called Louis something comes in with a swinging solo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCCyE3e_39k

The story goes that Louis Armstrong was a big influence within the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and showed the rest of them (including Don Redman and Coleman Hawkins) how to swing.

trev wrote:Not sure if this helps or is what you mean, but the example I've used before is Fletcher Henderson's 1924 version of Shanghai Shuffle. Most of the song is a fairly straight dance tune, until around half way (1:56) when a young guy called Louis something comes in with a swinging solo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCCyE3e_39k

The story goes that Louis Armstrong was a big influence within the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and showed the rest of them (including Don Redman and Coleman Hawkins) how to swing.

Correct, and whoever that Louis Armstrong fella was, he got fed up with Henderson's persistently stiff arrangements among other things and left inside 12 months to go back to Chicago. Which is probably why we never heard of him since.

Yep, that Armstrong kid sure has a lot to answer for. No wonder he chose to lie low for the rest of his life.

CountBasi wrote:Probably unanswerable is a year when this started. You can hear it on earlier recordings like Don Murray's clarinet on Royal Garden Blues with Bix in 27. Anyway, Sidney Bechet was doing this (among who know how many others) before the first recordings were ever cut. (I've stuck steadfastly to your clarinet theme - I should get extra points.)

Aye - I should know better than to hope there's a simple answer - it's got to have been a slow evolutionary process. I'm not so fussed about whether it's clarinet or not - it's just that it's often easiest to pick out on the clarinet.

Here's another question though - who considers this to be a major factor when picking great danceable tracks?

trev wrote:Not sure if this helps or is what you mean, but the example I've used before is Fletcher Henderson's 1924 version of Shanghai Shuffle. Most of the song is a fairly straight dance tune, until around half way (1:56) when a young guy called Louis something comes in with a swinging solo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCCyE3e_39k

The story goes that Louis Armstrong was a big influence within the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and showed the rest of them (including Don Redman and Coleman Hawkins) how to swing.

Thanks - that's exactly the kind of thing I'm after. I know Louis Armstrong is credited with bringing swing to a lot of bands and musicians - as the Ken Burns series would have it, he "taught the Ellington orchestra to swing" - and this kind of thing might help lend some credence to that statement - I guess that from all accounts, he at the very least spread that style to a lot of people.

Are you sure it wasn't "taught the Henderson band how to swing" ?

For his part, Duke Ellington did talk about wishing he could have a Louis Armstrong in every seat in his band.

CountBasi wrote:Are you sure it wasn't "taught the Henderson band how to swing" ?

For his part, Duke Ellington did talk about wishing he could have a Louis Armstrong in every seat in his band.

I'll check

CountBasi wrote:Are you sure it wasn't "taught the Henderson band how to swing" ?

For his part, Duke Ellington did talk about wishing he could have a Louis Armstrong in every seat in his band.

Yeah - I confused two different parts of the documentary. The part I was thinking of did refer to Henderson's band, but it later made reference to the fact that Ellington "was missing something" and not knowing just what he was missing "until he heard Armstrong"