Lindyhopper's Delight

[straycat]

Anyone know where I can find a breakdown of the musicians playing on the Ella / Famous Orchestra version of Lindyhoppers' Delight?

I should be able to get it from my Chick / Ella Mosaic set, but it's on loan at the moment.

Thanks!

[lipi]

Chicago, October 12th 1939:
Dick Vance, Bobby Stark, Taft Jordan (tp), George Matthews, Nat Story, Sandy Williams (tb), Eddie Barefield (cl,as), Hilton Jefferson (as), Teddy McRae, Wayman Carver (ts), Tommy Fulford (p), John Trueheart (g), Beverly Peer (b), Bill Beason (d), EF (vcl)

That's what Mosaic claims. The Bruyninckx discography, however, says Garvin Bushell was playing instead of Barefield. Ken Vail in his Jazz Itineraries volume on Ella agrees with Bruyninckx.

I'm too lazy to look in Rust, and I don't have Lord. If the clarinet player is super crucial, I'll dig more, though. Let me know.

[straycat]

Thanks! That is a big help. It's not hugely important - I just noticed something about the track which I'd not spotted before, and was wondering who was playing it, and whether it was deliberate....

Background - for a few years now, I've been giving talks about swing music at various events - and I've found that slowing down certain tracks can make it easier to highlight some of the more subtle syncopations and suchlike that the musicians put in.

I just spotted something in Lindyhopper's Delight that had me wondering... is this actually deliberate? I even wondered if it might be a sound propagation delay in recording, but I'm pretty now that certain it's not. If it's deliberate though - the precision of that timing is (to me, as a non-musician) astounding.

In the following (slowed down) snippet, where the horns are doing their
da da da da da dada daaa thing, there's one instrument (I had thought clarinet, but I'm now thinking it might be a sax - it's hard for my slightly untrained ears to pick out) which is coming in fractionally ahead of the rest of the horns, adding that tiny bit of extra syncopation.

See what you think?

For me - it's one of those many tiny subtleties that is hard to pick out even when you're consciously listening for it, but which adds an extra layer of rhythmic complexity and richness to the music. One of the many many tiny things which makes this stuff so incredibly compelling for dancing....

So if it is deliberate, who on earth is playing that? Probably an impossible question to answer, but I'm very curious.

[lipi]

I think the next two questions to ask (and answer) are:

1) does this happen in other parts of LHD?

2) does it happen in other big band recordings of the era? A good place to start is with other uptempo pieces by Ella & Her Famous Orchestra.

(I only have uninformed amateur hunches, no definitive answer, to your original question.)

[Haydn]

Thanks! That is a big help. It's not hugely important - I just noticed something about the track which I'd not spotted before, and was wondering who was playing it, and whether it was deliberate....

Background - for a few years now, I've been giving talks about swing music at various events - and I've found that slowing down certain tracks can make it easier to highlight some of the more subtle syncopations and suchlike that the musicians put in.

I just spotted something in Lindyhopper's Delight that had me wondering... is this actually deliberate? I even wondered if it might be a sound propagation delay in recording, but I'm pretty now that certain it's not. If it's deliberate though - the precision of that timing is (to me, as a non-musician) astounding.

In the following (slowed down) snippet, where the horns are doing their
da da da da da dada daaa thing, there's one instrument (I had thought clarinet, but I'm now thinking it might be a sax - it's hard for my slightly untrained ears to pick out) which is coming in fractionally ahead of the rest of the horns, adding that tiny bit of extra syncopation.

See what you think?

For me - it's one of those many tiny subtleties that is hard to pick out even when you're consciously listening for it, but which adds an extra layer of rhythmic complexity and richness to the music. One of the many many tiny things which makes this stuff so incredibly compelling for dancing....

So if it is deliberate, who on earth is playing that? Probably an impossible question to answer, but I'm very curious.

Hi Andy,

Good subject

I think the music you're referring to is part of the long intro, which I've just listened to, as well as your slowed down sample. We might be talking about different things, but one thing I notice is at the end of the

"bu bu bu bu
bu bubu- bu"

(I think this is saxophones)

sequence is the higher pitched loud "BAH BAH" (trumpets I think)

[Haydn]

But you're probably talking about just the

"bu bu bu bu
bu bubu- bu"

pattern itself, and I think you're saying you hear one instrument slightly out of time.

Without analysing it too deeply, my thinking is that musicians would often instinctively know whether to be slightly ahead or slightly behind the beat, and these subtleties tend to add to the feel and swing.

[straycat]

But you're probably talking about just the

"bu bu bu bu
bu bubu- bu"

pattern itself, and I think you're saying you hear one instrument slightly out of time.

Without analysing it too deeply, my thinking is that musicians would often instinctively know whether to be slightly ahead of slightly behind the beat, and these subtleties tend to add to the feel and swing.

Yep - that's just what I mean. Since I posted that initial query, I've managed to consult with a couple of jazz musicians, and their take was ... inconclusive.

One believed that it was so small a difference as to be on the edge of what was humanly possible, but couldn't quite commit himself either way - but it is reasonably consistent in all the A phrases of the first AABA. He thought it was likely less a conscious "I will come in slightly early" decision on the part of the player - but more likely to be a natural product of the dynamic between the different musicians, and the way they'd learned to work together. I think I see what he means, but I suspect I'd have to be a musician to understand properly.

There's a few other places in the classic LHD where something like this happens, but generally, it's something like the whole horn section coming in a little ahead of the rhythm section and it's a much bigger difference - much more noticeable, and less ... impossible ... to play (I don't think the term 'easier' could possibly apply here)

I need to listen through the whole song more closely, and through a lot more of the Chick / Ella / Famous Orchestra songs to see if I can spot anywhere else this happens.

Interestingly, I've compared this against the two other versions of LHD that I have - George Gee's doesn't have any trace of this, and sounds a bit ... lifeless .. in comparison. The Wynton Marsalis version is interesting, as it doesn't have that delay / syncopation - but it feels like the horn section plays with the dynamics in some cool subtle ways, so you get a similar driving / swinging effect.

[JesseMiner]

Interestingly, I've compared this against the two other versions of LHD that I have - George Gee's doesn't have any trace of this, and sounds a bit ... lifeless .. in comparison. The Wynton Marsalis version is interesting, as it doesn't have that delay / syncopation - but it feels like the horn section plays with the dynamics in some cool subtle ways, so you get a similar driving / swinging effect.

Interesting discussion. But my burning question...Wynton Marsalis has a recording of "Lindyhopper's Delight"???!? Never heard of it before. Do tell!

Jesse

[Haydn]

While browsing youtube, I realised Swingtime in the Rockies by Benny Goodman has a similar pattern around the main driving high energy riff "da da-de-dade da dade da da DA DA". To my ear, the instruments playing it aren't quite in time with each other, which somehow adds to the amazing drive and swing of this piece …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlc0s2ROPOY

[straycat]

Interestingly, I've compared this against the two other versions of LHD that I have - George Gee's doesn't have any trace of this, and sounds a bit ... lifeless .. in comparison. The Wynton Marsalis version is interesting, as it doesn't have that delay / syncopation - but it feels like the horn section plays with the dynamics in some cool subtle ways, so you get a similar driving / swinging effect.

Interesting discussion. But my burning question...Wynton Marsalis has a recording of "Lindyhopper's Delight"???!? Never heard of it before. Do tell!

Jesse

I was wondering when someone would bite on that one.

Also - I (sadly) might have to backtrack on that slightly.

Anyway - a month or two back, WM was doing a livestream - and I managed to record a small chunk of it - it included an absolutely kickass version of Lindyhopper's Delight. Which was in the bit I managed to record. I was doing about ten things at once though - so I thought I'd recorded the whole live stream, video and all, but now that life has settled down a bitsomehow I can't find the video - which is utterly infuriating. I can only find the one song I extracted from it. And it no longer seems to be online anywhere.

However - I realised after posting this that it was from one of the Essentially Ellington broadcasts - so it's quite likely that it wasn't WM himself, but one of the participating bands. It's still an awesome version though - I just wish I'd been paying more attention when I spotted it, rather than assuming I could come back to it later

[edit] Here's a clip for anyone who's interested [/edit]

[Haydn]

I've been thinking about this a little … it struck me that handclaps (which usually add a lot to the energy and drive of a recording) are musically very imprecise. If you sampled a section with handclaps and slowed it down (as you did above) I'm sure you would notice that the sounds aren't made at the same time - but I think this overlapping and variation helps the swing feel.

Examples of hand clapping:

Hot Toddy (Ted Heath)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M0C0S7BPoQ

Solid as a Rock (Basie)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6rmfRHaKg

[straycat]

I've been thinking about this a little … it struck me that handclaps (which usually add a lot to the energy and drive of a recording) are musically very imprecise. If you sampled a section with handclaps and slowed it down (as you did above) I'm sure you would notice that the sounds aren't made at the same time - but I think this overlapping and variation helps the swing feel.

Examples of hand clapping:

Hot Toddy (Ted Heath)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M0C0S7BPoQ

Solid as a Rock (Basie)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6rmfRHaKg

Absolutely. I think there's a lot of ways that kind effect is achieved by jazz and swing bands - and it's why a lot of the rougher, more raw recordings can sound so wildly exciting, where some of the more precise and clinical songs can sound a bit dull (I think this factors into the whole studio recording vs live recording thing as well)

[Surreal]

I can't remember the term, but it's a psychological effect where if something is just slightly off from "perfect", it activates more regions of the brain... particularly in the psychoacoustic realm, where it's such a brief transient. The 'ol grey matter is stimulated by processing those bits that are just slightly off and merging it all together. Things that are too perfect don't register as strongly, and things that are too far out may get dismissed or filtered out.

[lipi]

If you had remembered the proper term, I wouldn't have cared about your post, but now that it's just slightly vague, I am incredibly intrigued by it.

[straycat]

If you had remembered the proper term, I wouldn't have cared about your post, but now that it's just slightly vague, I am incredibly intrigued by it.

Yeah - I'd love to find out a bit more on the theory of this.

Especially considering how many of the best aspects of swing are probably based around such effects.