Important Point Here!

When Stan talks about the difference between a swing beat and a straight beat up above, he is right on, but that doesn't mean that the person keeping the rhythm(the rhythm guitar player, for instance) plays the"swing" beat. In order for swing to "swing", the rhythm player *must* play a straight beat.

The reason for this is that the "swing feel" is created by the contrast between the straight beat and the syncopated beat, which is usually carried by other voices, which could be soloists or, as is characteristic in "Big Band" arrangements, a "call and response" between the reed section and the brass section.

Ragtime, Jazz, Swing, Dixieland, Bebop, Boogie Woogie, Rock'n'Roll, Rhythm and Blues, all work with the same ideas, but develop them to different degrees.

The clipped straight four beat that propels a 20's dance arrangement would have been played by banjo, bass drum, with tubas coming in on the 1 and 3rd beat, with the syncopation happening in the melody. A New Orleans style band might have have had a clarinet playing against the melody.

A Big Band arrangement might have taken the melody and the clarinet part and had trombones and saxes play them, with bass, guitar, and drums handling the beat. A bebop combo might have that four beat only played on the snare, with the syncopated part all in the solo instruments...

Boogie Woogie would have put the syncopation in the bottom, with piano and bass. In some blues, the 4 beat wouldn't even be played, just implied, with a soloist only playing the syncopated part.