50s bands for swing dancing

[Ron]

So Jesse, are you specifically saying that about the "B.G. in Hi-Fi" album? I don't hear the weird echo on those recordings that I do on other hi-fi recordings, I hear the same arrangements and I hear tight playing and good soloing. What makes the songs inferior, and how inferior are they?

If they are only 10% inferior because the guys playing them are a little older and have lost a little energy, I can live with that.

[GemZombie]

So Jesse, are you specifically saying that about the "B.G. in Hi-Fi" album? I don't hear the weird echo on those recordings that I do on other hi-fi recordings, I hear the same arrangements and I hear tight playing and good soloing. What makes the songs inferior, and how inferior are they?

If they are only 10% inferior because the guys playing them are a little older and have lost a little energy, I can live with that.

I can't specifically speak of the album you're talking about since I don't own it, but I suspect i have tracks *from* it on various other collections. I generally don't buy what I don't enjoy, so don't have too much to really quote from, but i'll be sure to listen to some from the radio station archives and give some examples.

I'll also note that in the later years the tunes that are most recorded are the cheeziest of his work. This pretty much goes with all swing bands re-recording their stuff. They tend to tone it down to.

Anyway, it's just a matter of preference. I think that, with exception, the original bands were better. They recorded when they were young and full of energy. I'd rather play a recording that's at it's peak, then a rehashed version.

I think i have a pretty good sense of what recordings just won't go over well at a dance event. Alan Hall (of Alan and Rudy) commented that I had a good ear for Classic music and good recordings that worked well for dancing. That made my day

[Doug]

Well I can speak directly to BG in HiFi. I'll just pick on two of the songs specifically, but the critique is more boreadly (sic) applicable:

Air Mail Special: In the Birth of Swing recording the rhythm section drives with wire brushes on the snare drum and 4 on the peddle. Solid rhythm section. I can dance to this. In BG in HiFi, the same portions of the song have had the driving rhythm replaced with weird high hat and cymbal stuff. Yawwwn. Snooze. Low energy. Doesn't make me want to dance at all!!

Big John's Special (and basically everything on HiFi) Reverb!! Listen to the Orchestra Hits that make up the first two notes of the song. If that ain't reverb, I'll eat it. To my ears it tends to thin out the song and decrease the energy, not to enrich it. Also weird cymbals scattered around this one kill the drive for me.

If I had to sum up, most of the over orchestrated bigband music of the 50s makes me want to foxtrot (or puke), especially the revival attempts, despite the quality of the musicians.

However, much of the instrumental R&B of the 50's (Eddie Chamblee - especially with "Jelly" Holt on drums, Sax Kari, Al Sears, etc.) makes me want to swing dance. I think that by the 50's, big band was for the older set who had been in their 20s or so during the 1930s, but was now in their 40s and would rather watch "The Price Is Right", Or "Lucy", etc, than dance. R&B was the dance music of the 50s. And it sounds that way too.

Ya, I'm still a curmudgeon.

[Lawrence]

I'll also note that in the later years the tunes that are most recorded are the cheeziest of his [Benny Goodman's] work. This pretty much goes with all swing bands re-recording their stuff. They tend to tone it down to.

Anyway, it's just a matter of preference. I think that, with exception, the original bands were better. They recorded when they were young and full of energy. I'd rather play a recording that's at it's peak, then a rehashed version.

There is some legitimacy to your generalizations, but there are enough exceptions (and amazing exceptions at that) to make the generalization overlook a lot of great music: sort of the flip side of dismissing all lo-fi because the sound quality sucks when some lo-fi stuff actually sounds better than some of the over-reverbed hi-fi stuff from the 50s. Harry James' recording of "Caravan" and "Roll Em" from Still Harry After All These Years (1979) are phenomenal not only in sound quality, but also energy and performance quality. Benny Goodman also has some great hi-fi stuff from the Yale Archives, although I do agree that BG in Hi-Fi is not the best Benny Goodman out there.

Sometimes experience can trump youthful enthusiasm. Sometimes.

I tend to think more and more about whether a version fits a theme, vibe, event, or even just my own mood at the moment instead of in terms of "all time favorites." As I look back on the stuff in my collection that I have overlooked only to "rediscover" it years later, one major reason why i overlooked it was that a particular recording fell just short of my "all time favorite" perception of the moment, which might very well end up being my "all time favorite" perception in another moment two days later. Granted, many of the re-recordings are just Lawrence Welk cheese trash, but a surprising number of re-recordings are "better" in that sense because they are more refined in other areas (laid back, played with a more mature, subtle feeling...) and thus might fit a different mood or need than just balls-out high energy.

[julius]

If you can, check out this Woody Herman album from 1980. Amazing musicianship and rhythmic drive; the rhythm section is a little lighter than I'd like it to be, but still awesome. Of course I haven't listened to it 1000 times like my Basie CDs but my overall recollection is of pretty hard swinging, modern-recording, live music.

[Doug]

Julius - You make a good point. But I think that Woody Herman is leading a bunch of the young turks like Scott Hamilton, Vache, etc. I love (some of) these guys, think that several play great dance stuff, and do DJ with them. So why is it that Scott Hamilton makes me want to dance, but most of the revival big bands, despite their stellar musicians, don't??

Is it just me?? I'll just argue with myself for a while here. Mumble, mumble, mumbles.

[julius]

Because Scott Hamilton is possibly the greatest modern swing tenor alive today.

One thing that has long bothered me is the focus of modern mainstream jazz on "legends". While it awesome that the old-timers are still around and playing, I think that there is almost too much respect accorded them, at the expense of young musicians. Part of this is of course because the jazz tradition was nearly killed in the 70s, but also it is because it is easier to sell albums by an established "name" now that jazz is virtually a niche market.

I think there is a tremendous amount of great, swinging jazz that we can dance to that is played by younger musicians (meaning not 70-90 years old) that is overlooked by lindy hop DJs. Players like the Vaches, Scott Hamilton, Bob Draga, Ronni Magri, Rebecca Kilgore, Hal Smith, Duke Heitger (my new favorite, although not that overlooked since I have seen DJs here refer to his Rhythm Is Our Business CD, which is great), Evan Christopher, and of course most of the musicians featured on the Lindy Binge CD...plus other "festival circuit" musicians are all very much playing in the traditional swing style and are SMOKING. While they don't necessarily play in big bands as would be my choice, they still have that sensational pulse and sound that really, really makes me want to dance.

[julius]

Now, on to the surviving big bands:

These bands don't make you (by which I mean "me") want to dance so much because big bands have evolved over the years. The focus has become much less about rhythmic support for the soloist with solid, basic arrangements. It is now about the arranger's wizardry. Unless the arranger is grounded in traditional swing music (or chooses to arrange in that way) the music produced by the big band inevitably feels less fun to dance to. For me.

As an example, I saw LCJO recently. They played Benny Goodman's version of Ravel's Bolero .. swung it hard. They played Duke's "Afro-Bolsa" which uses Bolero's rhythm but not the melody. Not swing at all, but still firmly grounded in swing music. Then for the last half of the show they played Ornette Coleman big band arrangements. This is about as far from swing as you can get. While the musicianship and arrangements were impeccable, they were clearly playing music designed for musicians and appreciative audiences, not dancers.

In essence history conspires against the wholescale resurrection of swing music. One of the reasons given for its demise was that everything that was possible to say in that genre had been said. I'm not so sure I believe that, but then I haven't listened and lived through 15 years of amazing music to notice if it had begun degenerating into cliches.

[GemZombie]

I did not that there were exceptions, and I'm certainly willing to admit that my prejudice against all the bad "hi-fi" remakes i've heard makes me more likley to pass up some good works. But that's what I got you folks for, to let me know when the good stuff *really* does show up.

[GemZombie]

Well I can speak directly to BG in HiFi. I'll just pick on two of the songs specifically, but the critique is more boreadly (sic) applicable:

lots more stuff about reverb and 50's stuff...

I totally agree with you here... reverb is overused, and the 50's R&B had the energy that the swing bands used to provide... definitely the dance music of the time.

Of course, lots of people are purists and don't dig the late 40's early 50's R&B. I part company with that opinion.

[Ron]

Doug-
Interesting. I just spent a lot of time comparing "Jersey Bounce" (135 BPM) from "B.G. in Hi-Fi" versus the classic version in Frankie's Favorites. They are fundamentally the same song and arrangement. There are a few minor changes, and certainly the jazz solos are different. This was was a really interesting exercise.

The 50's version on "B.G. in Hi-Fi" has all the tight playing of the big-band era version, but the sax solo is definitely wilder, more modern and I don't like it as well as the classic version by far. The classic version has this cool muted trumpet solo playing over the melody line carried by the saxes near the end and the hi-fi version lacks this.

Other than that, I like the hi-fi version much better. The bass line is clear and driving. In the classic version, you can hear the bass, but there's no ooomph due to the lack of dynamic range. In the hi-fi version, when all the instruments come in for the climax at the end, the louder dynamics gives me more of a sense of energy than the tinniness evident in the old version. In the hi-fi version when it gets all quiet with just the bass, drums, and piano it still sounds full, in the classic version, it sounds empty. The intro of the classic version has drums but the new one doesn't and maybe in general the drums are more evident in the classic version, but the change of drum playing style doesn't affect my enjoyment of the hi-fi version of this song, or my desire to dance to it.

In this case I'd choose the hi-fi version of Goodman's "Jersey Bounce" over the classic version.

There is some reverb in the B.G. in Hi-Fi songs, but I don't find it that objectionable, and not nearly as objectionable as other 50's big-band stuff I've heard.

[Doug]

Ron:

Your are right about Jersey Bounce, but it is pretty mellow (almost sweet?? and only 133 bpm) even in the original so it hasn't lost much in the translation to the HiFi album. Also, the original was recorded in 1942 and by then - actually by late '41 - Goodman starts losing my interest anyway. I love his stuff from the 30's through late '41. But then it generally, but not entirely, gets less interesting for me until 1947-49. I really like Goodman's short lived bebop band. It typically had a solid swing, or sorta swing, rhythm section, and Goodman himself of course still played in a swing style. But the boppers in the band really added some much needed life.

So although I don't disagree with you regarding Jersey Bounce, put some of his high energy pieces to the comparison test and see how you feel.

Doug

[Yakov]

late 40's early 50's R&B is exactly where the action is at for that period... i agree 200%. of course, that stuff is anything BUT "hi-fi," having been recorded primarily for the "race" market by small labels on inferior equipment

[Jerry_Jelinek]

Jerry: It is style, NOT audio fidelity! I think that most of the DJs here, whether they like the sound or not, would say that Mora's Modern, although not populated by musicians of stature of the James Orch, is not cheesy.

Hi Doug, sorry for the delayed response. I've been very busy with the Easter Holiday etc. I truly hope everyone had a joyous holiday full of love with family and friends.

I have read your reference to Mora's Modern and you have me at an disadvantage. I have no idea who this group is.

You also mentioned that many of the big bands had become boppish and were no longer swing bands..... but spare me the ...blaring horns arrangements...

Here is my point. The bands of the classical swing era (Basie, Goodman, Ellington, Lunceford, Henderson, etc) all had blaring horns. By having a full 15-20 piece group it is nearly impossible to not have some blaring in the arrangements. One of the big reasons to have a large group in the 30s and 40s was the ability to play large halls. They didn't have good sound systems and the bands would be mainly accoustic. It is nearly impossible to project in a large hall without VOLUME and blaring.

The reason you don't associate these bands with blaring horns is the lo-fi fidely couldn't give you the wide dynamics associated with the loud bands.

I also noticed you mention the small groups of Sonny Stitt, Wardell Gray, Charlie Parker etc. I was trying to stear toward big bands of the 50s that the pro swing dance DJs like to play.

And although Basie is much loved, I think that most dance DJs draw a distinction between the Basie band of the 30's and that of the 70's. And it is not just recording fidelity.

There is a difference in style between the different eras of Basie. The 30s and early 40s groups was based on head arrangements. They may be very good for dancing and for letting the soloists (Clayton, Edison, Basie, Young, etc) blow, but honestly the lack of defined and written out arrangements make a constant diet of Basie a wee bit boring.

When you get into the 50s and on, you have a whole host of great arrangers writing for the band - Hefti, Wilkins, Foster, O'Farrell, Nestico (70s), etc.

I love to listen to all eras of the Basie band, but for pure quality arranging and for listening to swing and hard swing, the Basie from the 50s and on is in my opinion a better band.

OK. So I am a curmudgeon.

Nope, you have a very articulate way of communicating!!!

[julius]

The reason you don't associate these bands with blaring horns is the lo-fi fidely couldn't give you the wide dynamics associated with the loud bands.

The live big bands I have heard and danced to don't usually have wild-ass horn section stabs all over the place. "Blaring" doesn't just mean loud to the critics here, I think. It means *waves hands wildly* sudden violent volume change for no apparent reason. At least, in my book. Most of the older big band songs I hear in my head seem to build up to the blasting riffing. It doesn't go "sneak sneak sneak BWAAAAH sneak sneak sneak BWAAAAH" it goes "BWAAH BWAAH BWAAH" ... um, where are my pills.

There is a difference in style between the different eras of Basie. The 30s and early 40s groups was based on head arrangements. They may be very good for dancing and for letting the soloists (Clayton, Edison, Basie, Young, etc) blow, but honestly the lack of defined and written out arrangements make a constant diet of Basie a wee bit boring.

When you get into the 50s and on, you have a whole host of great arrangers writing for the band - Hefti, Wilkins, Foster, O'Farrell, Nestico (70s), etc.

I recall I read somewhere that head arrangements arose out of riffs that band members would play in solos. So in a sense those arrangements were a little more loose, a little more improvisatory, and more organic, for lack of a better word. (In my opinion of course.) I don't find them boring at all. I could listen to the Proper Records Basie box set forever.

For me it's hard not to filter my appreciation of jazz through the lens of dancing since I learned to appreciate the music through dancing.