Dance songs with classical music in them

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Matthew
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Dance songs with classical music in them

#1 Post by Matthew » Tue Sep 28, 2004 2:46 am

I really like hearing and dancing with songs that have classical music in them. For example, Basie's "Ebony Rhapsody" uses the theme from Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody. What songs that you know of have substantial bits of classical (sounding) music in them? Of course, Ellington did a ton of stuff like that, but not all of it is great for DJing. I'm looking for stuff that dancers and classical-music buffs would enjoy. Another one that I know of is "Bach Goes to Town" by Benny Goodman. Also, there's that Nina Simone tune that has a big section with classical piano, but I can never remember what it is.

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kitkat
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#2 Post by kitkat » Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:02 am

We have a thread wondering what classical song Woody Herman's "Blues on Parade" riffs from.

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Jerry_Jelinek
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#3 Post by Jerry_Jelinek » Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:40 am

Hi Mathew,

It's been a while, but about 3 or so years ago, I did an entire 2 hour swing radio show featuring classical music done in a swing style.

I'll have to dig up the play list from that.

But think - John Kirby. He had several things with his late 30s and early 40s group.

There is a CD out called 'Beethoven wrote it, but it swings'. I don't have the CD in front of me. This had about 20 or so tracks in this genre. I recall some of the tracks recording quality wasn't all that great.

Probably the most famous classical music turned to swing is Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Obviously the Ellington suite. Also Shorty Rogers has an entire LP (also on CD) of the Nutcracker.

My personal favorite version of Nutcracker is the Les Brown version. I can't recall the arranger off hand. That is not for dancing, but a fantastic arrangement for listening. It runs about 7 mins and is a true gem.

Also Claude Thornhill in the early 40s had Gil Evans as arranger and they produced some fine swing things from classical music.

During the early 60s, several L.A. staff writers did a entire LP of powerful big band arrangements. 'Brass Menagerie' is the name of the LP and also the CD. I seem to recall the CD is out of print. There is some classical turned hard swing on that recording.

In thinking more aloud, I have a new recording that came across my way recently by Chuck Sagle (sp?). This is a mid 60s studio band of top notch musicians. I seem to recall there is some classical to swing stuff on that. Chuck is not a household name, but was a great arranger in the L.A. area in the 50s and 60s.

If you do some research of studio bands in the 50s and into the 60s, there is a lot of great hard swinging things done to classical music. I now recall Billy May has a killer arrangement of March of the Toy Soldiers from The Nutcracker. Billy has an entire LP called 'Naughty Operetta' that has other classical to swing things in it. The CD has 2 LPs on it 'Naughty Operetta / Playsfor Fancy Dancing'.

I'll try to remember to pull my playlist from my radio shows and post the tracks I used.

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CafeSavoy
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#4 Post by CafeSavoy » Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:10 am

You might want to look into Hazel Scott too.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=am ... djvwzva9uk

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Lawrence
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#5 Post by Lawrence » Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:19 pm

Jerry_Jelinek wrote:There is a CD out called 'Beethoven wrote it, but it swings'. I don't have the CD in front of me. This had about 20 or so tracks in this genre. I recall some of the tracks recording quality wasn't all that great.
That is the CD that came to my mind, too. It contains Benny Goodman's Swing version of "Bolero." Mostly novelty stuff, but still interesting. Goodman also did some of that stuff in his later years when he was actually playing classical music, as well.
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Jerry_Jelinek
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#6 Post by Jerry_Jelinek » Tue Oct 05, 2004 6:16 am

Code: Select all

Here is my play list from a classical to swing show I did in 2001

Beethoven Wrote It, but it Swings       Dolly Dawn and her Dawn Patrol
Bublitchki                              Ziggy Elman
Humoresque                              Glenn Miller
Full Moon and Empty Arms                Maynard Ferguson
The Quintette Plays Carmen              Raymond Scott
Let's Dance                             Benny Goodman
Arab Dance                              Claude Thornhill
Bazaar                                  Pete Rugolo
O Sole Mio                              Red Nichols
O Mio Babbino Caro                      Ralph Marterie
Artistry in Rhythm                      Stan Kenton
Chopins Prelude No. 7                   Jimmie Lunceford
Tha Lamp is Low                         Eddie Reed
Farandole                               Xavier Cugat
La Virgen De La Macarena                Duke Ellington
Song of India                           Tommy Dorsey
Sabre Dance                             Woody Herman
Danny Boy                               Maynard Ferguson
Full Moon and Empty Arms                J. J. Johnson
Bounce of the Sugar Plum Faires         Don Byron tribute to Raymond Scott
Procession of the Sardar                Les Brown
Carnival of Venice                      Harry James
Ritual Fire Dance                       Jerry Fielding Orch
Morning Mood                            Duke Ellington
Pilgrims Chorus from Tannhaeuser        Stan Kenton
Hungarian Dance No. 5                   Claude Thornhill
March of the Toys                       Tommy Dorsey
Malaguena                               Stan Kenton
Now in thinking about these tracks, many of them are not dance related. At least not lindy related dance things. But some fine performances.

Oddly I didn't use any John Kirby. Strange on my part. I must have had a brain freeze when programming this show.

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Matthew
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#7 Post by Matthew » Tue Oct 05, 2004 9:31 am

Cool! Many thanks, all!

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RaleighRob
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#8 Post by RaleighRob » Mon Oct 25, 2004 4:33 pm

How about Les Brown's "Bizet Has His Day"?

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RaleighRob
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Re: Dance songs with classical music in them

#9 Post by RaleighRob » Mon Oct 25, 2004 4:38 pm

Matthew wrote:Also, there's that Nina Simone tune that has a big section with classical piano, but I can never remember what it is.
I think you're talking about "Love Me Or Leave Me".

How about Django Reinhart's "Interprétation Swing du Premier Mouvement du Conceto en Ré Mineur" and "Improvisation Sur le Premier Mouvement du Concerto en Ré Mineur", both based on a J.S. Bach theme?

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#10 Post by BigCash » Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:16 am

I was under the impression that Ellington had a swingin' arrangement of the entire Nutcracker Suite as well as some other additions.

Great for Xmas dances.
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#11 Post by Mr Awesomer » Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:29 pm

BigCash wrote:I was under the impression that Ellington had a swingin' arrangement of the entire Nutcracker Suite as well as some other additions.

Great for Xmas dances.
Great album indeed. Duke Ellington: Three Suites
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Greg Avakian
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#12 Post by Greg Avakian » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:16 am

It needs to be edited or faded in/out, but one of the very best is Ray Brown's "classical in G". It's on "3 dimensional" - a sweet album with Gene Harris and Jeff Hamilton.

This also fits into the tempo/dance change catagory: Blues->swing->blues
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#13 Post by lipi » Tue Jan 18, 2005 8:34 pm

random bits and pieces i didn't see mentioned:

anitra's boogie (carmen cavallaro, who played classicaly for a long time)
bumble boogie (freddy martin)
sabre dance boogie (freddy martin -- don't know whether it's the same as the harry james version mentioned above)

all three can be found on bmg's "boogie woogie hits", which i'm afraid is out of print. freddy martin did a bunch of boogie woogie classical covers. amazon has one or two albums on backorder, but i don't know much about them.

harry james recorded a flight of the bumblebee, too, but it's not as "danceable" as the rest -- lots of big slow passages and tempo changes to drive you mad. i have it on some cheap compilation cd called, imaginatively, "the legendary big bands" (don't have it in front of me, so don't know the label).

finally, there's glenn miller's version of tchaikovsky's piano concerto, which cracks me up every time i hear it. (the jazz collector edition, delta).

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Yakov
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#14 Post by Yakov » Wed Jan 19, 2005 6:11 am

Definitely Raymond Scott.

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#15 Post by Utah_Nate » Wed Jan 19, 2005 10:42 am

Hadda Brooks has a few songs he threw classical music into. Hungarian Rhapsody #2 in Boogie is pretty good. I got them off of the Boogie Box.

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