swing
Thursday, 02 May 2019
swing
- SwingMusic.net – Fan portal offering historical articles, biographies, RealAudio radio archives, photographs and extensive links.
- Any Swing Goes – An online magazine dedicated to the revival of swing and big band music and dancing, including the latest swing news, reviews, an online chat lounge, and a comprehensive links directory to everything swing on the Internet.
- ATOMIC Online – An online magazine about all things retro, including swing music, bands, venues, and dancing.
- Australian Dance Bands 1925-1970 – A discussion forum/website for all who love the Australian Dance Bands from this fabulous era. Other dance bands and vocalists can also be discussed from the same era.
- The Boogie-Woogie Preservation Society – Celebrating the art of improvisational, syncopational, two-fisted, barrelhouse and boogie-woogie piano. Meetings schedule in Hull, UK along with extensive links to performers past and present.
- Craig’s BigBands and BigNames – Historic reviews and photographs of performers from the Big Band Era.
- The Derby – One of the original Hollywood Brown Derbys, this swing nightclub features a soaring ribbed ceiling and an oval bar featured in the 1945 film «Mildred Pierce.» Bookings, history, mailing list.
- The Kingdom of Swing – Articles, reviews, and other content about swing and occasionally other jazz.
- The Los Angeles Swing Times – A calendar of swing and lindy hop events in and around Los Angeles. Also features reviews of swing music and information on retro hairstyles.
- Pennsylvania 65000 – Links to swing bands, radio stations, clubs and venues, societies, calendars, and other retro sites.
- San Diego Swings – San Diego swing and big band information.
- Soundies – A Chicago based music label specializing in the development of previously unreleased music from the Golden Age of American entertainment.
- Swing Baby, Swing – Swing dancing photographs for the San Francisco Bay area along with CD shopping links for an extensive list of swing bands and artists.
- The Swing Lounge – Information on swing etiquette, fashion, and the Atlanta swing scene.
- Swing Out New York – Information on the swing scene in New York City.
- Swiss Swing Dance Society – For lindy hop dance enthusiasts in Switzerland. Event schedule, photo gallery, links to swing dance classes.
- Tuxedo Junction – Features articles about Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and George Shearing, with swing era hits in MP3 format.
Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of jazz music that developed during the 1920s and solidified as a distinctive style during the 1930s in the United States. Swing is distinguished primarily by a strong rhythm section, usually including double bass and drums, medium to fast tempo, and the distinctive swing time rhythm that is common to many forms of jazz.
History
The first recordings labelled swing style date from the 1920s, and come from both the United States and the United Kingdom. They are characterised by the swing rhythm already at that time common in jazz music, and a lively style which is harder to define but distinctive. Although swing evolved out of the lively jazz experimentation that began in New Orleans and that developed further (and in varying forms) in Kansas City and New York City, what is now called swing diverged from other jazz music in ways that distinguished it as a form in its own right.
Swing bands tended to be bigger and more crowded than other jazz bands, necessitating a slightly more detailed and organized type of composition and notation than was then the norm. Band leaders put more energy into developing arrangements, perhaps reducing the chaos that might result from as many as 12 or 16 musicians spontaneously improvising. But the best swing bands at the height of the era explored the full gamut of possibilities from spontaneous ensemble playing to highly orchestrated music in the vein of European art music.
A typical song played in swing style would feature a strong, anchoring rhythm section in support of more loosely tied wind, brass, string, and vocal sections. The level of improvisation that the audience might expect at any one time varied depending on the arrangement, the band, the song, and the band-leader. The most common style consisted of having one soloist at a time taking center stage, and take up an improvised routine, with her/his bandmates playing support. As a song progressed, multiple soloists might be expected to pick up the baton, and then pass it on. That said, it was far from uncommon to have two or three band members improvising at any one time.
As jazz in general, and swing jazz in particular, began to grow in popularity throughout the States, a number of changes occurred in the culture that surrounded the music. For one, the introduction of swing in the early 1930s(during the Great Depression), with its strong rhythms, loud tunes, and «swinging» style led to an explosion of creative dance in the black community. The various rowdy, energetic, creative, and improvisational dances that came into effect during that time came to be known, collectively, as swing dance.
The second change that occurred as swing music increased in popularity outside the black community, was, to some extent, an increasing pressure on musicians and band leaders to soften (some would say dumb-down) the music to cater to a more staid and conservative, Anglo-American audience.
Similar conflicts arose when Swing spread to other countries. In Germany, it conflicted with Nazi ideology (see Swing Kids) and was declared officially forbidden by the Nazi regime. And, while jazz music was initially embraced during the early years of the Soviet Union, it was soon forbidden as a result of being deemed politically unacceptable. After a long hiatus, though, jazz music was eventually readmitted to Soviet audiences.
In later decades, the popular, sterilized, mass-market form of swing music would often, and unfortunately, be the first taste that younger generations might be exposed to, which often led to it begin labeled something akin to ‘old fogey big-band dance music’.
Ironically, early swing musicians were often in fact annoyed by the young people who would throw a room into chaos by seemingly tossing each other across the floor at random — thus somewhat nullifying the idea that swing was developed as dance music, when in fact, swing dancing evolved among young aficionados to complement the energy of the music.
