Neo/Retro Swing
THE SWING REVIVAL
This quote from the book "Swing" by Scott Yanow and published by Miller Freeman Books is possibly the best summation of what has happened to Swing Jazz at the end of the last century and serves as an excellent reference to anyone interested in learning how the Swing movement was re-born.
INTRODUCTION TO RETRO SWING
"In the mid-1990's, Swing seemed to be everywhere. The mass media, latching onto what they took to be the latest fad, breathlessly reported that young people were actually getting dressed up and touching while dancing to Swing bands. The emphasis in the stories was typical on the superficial: the vintage clothes that many converts to Swing were wearing, their collection of old cars, their adoption of aspects of the 1940's lifestyle, plus clips of the more acrobatic dancers. As far as the Swing bands went, some of the more commercial oneswere briefly seen (mostly the few bands who were connected with major labels, and Brian Setzer), but the music was generally relegated to the backgroundand very little time was actually spent discussing or analysing what was being played. The during 1998-1999, as the media tired of the story and some of the fad chasers went elsewere, the press dutifully announced the death of Swing.
In reality, the media largely missed the whole story, as did, surprisingly, the jazz magazines and the record labels. during an era when too much ink was spent in the jazz world debating the virtues of the Lincoln Jazz Orchestra (a New York repertory orchestra run by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis) and the significance of the hard bop-based Young Lions while decrying the lack of an audience for jazz, Retro Swing was exciting many listerners who were coming to Swing from pop and rock music. The possible key to jazz's future popularity was to be found in Retro Swing, but far too many purists and conservative jazz followers quickly dismissed the entire movement without even hearing it.
Jazz lost a large percentage of its audience during the second half of the 1940's and in the decades that followed due to the separation of jazz from the entertainment world. During the big band era, Swing was considered perfect music to dance to, performers smiled while doing their best to communicate with their audience, and it was considered great fun to see a jazz band. However , with the rise of bebop, most jazz musicians wanted to be taken much more seriously and to be thought of as artists rather than just merely entertainers. Laudable as that goal was and continues to be, something was lost in uplifting the music. It is true that jazz improvisers are masters and should be thought of on the same level as classical musicians, but, by deemphasizing the fun aspects of jazz (discouraging dancing and anything visual, often not even speaking to the audience, and expecting listeners to always come to the music rather than the other way around), jazz was being doomed to become a type of American classical music, an idiom that needed government grants in order to survive. Rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul music, country, rock , and rap were allowed to capture the attention of the mass public, while jazz was considered forbidding, overly intellectual, and oh-so-serious. Big Mistake!
The truth is that most jazz can be danced to, certainly any style that uses a 4/4 rhythm (which excludes just the avant-garde), but not if there are no dance floors and if would-be dancers are sneered at. Shortly before Retro Swing caught on, an odd mixture of styles called Acid Jazz seemed to have the potential of making some waves. Essentially late-60's soul jazz and R&B sprinkled with some jazz solos, Acid Jazz caught on in England and was imported to New York City. Funk bands and disc jockeys in dance clubs brought back the sound of late 1960's organ groups, often adding updated rhythms and occasional samples so as to make the music even more accessible than it originally was. However, the "new and improved music" tended to be very watered down, with overly loud bass lines (as if dancers could not hear the beat), lots of repetition, and very little spontaneity or creativity. After a few years, Acid Jazz largely faded away except in some isolated clubs, and the surviving music had very little jazz content. Overall it was a noble failure largely sunk by the participants' unwillingness to take chances and, in some cases, learn their instruments! But at least it made the attempt to create jazz-oriented dance music.
Just as Acid Jazz began to end its brief prime, Retro Swing burst upon the public's consciounness. One can trace the beginning of the Retro Swimg movement to 1989, when the Royal Crown Revue was formed. Prior to that, there had been several attempts to revive Swing since the big band era collapsed in 1946. In the early 1950's some thought that, with the low level of pop music, it was only a matter of time before Swing came back; Benny Goodman even attempted to tour with a new big band in 1952. The question "Will big bands come back?" was asked for many years, but the accurate answer always had to be "No!" Big bands were simply economically unfeasible after television brought the public free entertainment, and the Swing orchestras were too tied in to World War 11 nostalgia and recreations of early hits. When one sees film clips of the Swing survivors leading big bands before dancers in the 1950's, '60s, and '70s, it is obvious that the audience was getting older with each decade, Few young people were interested in dancing to Harry James, Benny Goodman, or someone like Guy Lombardo. It seemed so corny.
Yet largely overlooked in the 1970's and '80s were the occasional Swing-based combos that did well, such as Panama Francis's Savoy Sultans, Roomful of Blues, and the Cheathams, With the rise of Scott Hamilton, Warren Vache, and those that followed, by the 1980s it was acceptable for younger musicians to be playing Swing-styled jazz. But, except for rare occasions, the Swing musicians of the period were performing mostly for club and concert crowds that sat down and barely tapped their feet.
The Royal Crown Revue and those that followed changed all of that, although not withought a struggle. Rather than merely recreate the past and get buried in nostalgia for an era in which they did not live, the new Retro Swing bands were often not shy to display their influences (rock, punk, rockabilly, ska, R&B) and mix them together in varying amounts with a swinging rhythm section and riffing horns. Lead vocalists were much more important than they had been during the actual Swing era, the combos in most cases were medium-size rather than big bands, and most of the groups were not playing the music of Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman, opting instead for jump music and originals. It sometimes made for bizarre combinations but resulted in originality for some of the bands.
Many of the newer groups latched onto some parts of the past. Most popular were the singing style of Cab Calloway,the repertoire of louis Jordan, the eclectic nature of louis Prima's music, Gene Krupa's drumming (particularly from "Sing, Sing,Sing"), basic chord changes (especially blues), honking tenors influenced by Illinios Jacquet and ArnettCobb, 1050's guitar styles (from Charlie Christian's followers and rockabilly to Chuck Berry), and boogie-woogie pianists with a dash of Jerry Lee Lewis. At its best Retro Swing is infectious, a reinvention of the past, and crazy fun. At its worst (as with some of the bands that came from rock after the mid-1990's), it is an amateurish caricature of the real thing played by musicians who have little knowledge of their predecessors.
When the Royal Crown Revue was formed in 1989, there was no Swing scene and very little Swing dancing; the noun "Swing" (as opposed to the verb) was associated primarily with a historical style. Through pure persistence and a desire to perform, the Royal Crown Revue (after two years of playing locally in Los Angeles) went on some pioneering and influential national tours during 1991-92 that made at least the musical underground aware of Retro Swing. Often inspired by that band, during 1991-92 the Swing movement was fully under way, with such groups as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, the Erik Ekstrand Ensemble, Full Swing, and Eddie Reed's big band being formed; Lavay Smith's Red Hot Skillet Lickers and George Gee's Orchestra had already started in 1989. With opening of the Derby in 1993, the Retro Swing movement had an offical home, a place where many different Swing bands could play before increasingly adventurous dancers. The Derby offered its customers free dance lessons before the night's performance, a practice also adopted by many other clubs in L.A., San Francisco, and New York. When Brian Setzer, a top rock star, decided to fulfill a longtime dream and lead a big band, after a few years the media noticed and he was able to fill large halls. And Royal Crown Revue's appearance in the 1994 The Mask added to the momentum.
By the mid-1990's, as the no-longer-underground Rerto Swing movement greatly increased in size, it was thought of by some as the latest fad. Some record labels, smelling a quick profit, signed a few of the more potentially commercial bands (a practice that escalated after the Squirrell Nut Zippers had a surprise hit with "Hell"). Musicians from the rock world who never before had shown any interest in Swing decided to jump on the bandwagon and form Swing bands, without bothering to study the idiom. And newcomers to the music were often disappointed after hearing some of these inferior groups, writing off the new Swing completely. As with "blues" in the early 1920's and "bop" in 1949, the word "Swing" was everywhere, often being misused. The main jazz world, instead of learning from Retro Swing, just ignored the whole thing, feeling that if a style or idiom was popular, it could not be any good. By 1998-99, some of the swing clubs were closing for various reasons and the movement seemed to be shrinking, yet the best bands and the more dedicated musicians and fans showned no sign of abondoning the music that they loved."
Here in Australia the Swing movement is 3000-5000 strong and still increasing.
SWING IT!! showcase Retro Swing as well as paying tribute to the smaller jump blues bands that emerged mid-forties and a re-working of a few jazz standards.