Favourite Swing tune?

Subject: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 07:17 PM

Either Charlie Barnet's "Flying Home" or Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing (with a Swing)". "Tuxedo Junction" is cool too.

Yeah, I know, BillD. It's not folk. I'll sleep easy anyway.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 07:41 PM

Hmmmm. "Sing Sing Sing (with a Swing)" and "Tuxedo Junction" would be on the top of my list. "Take the A Train" is right up there, and I also like "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" for some cockeyed reason.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 08:03 PM

Excuse me, but what is the definition of "swing"?

Is is the same as "jazz"?

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Beer
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 08:32 PM

How about Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. They had some great Swing tunes. But I guess that is not what your looking for.
Beer

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: John Hardly
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 06:27 AM

Too hard to pick a favorite from a favorite music form. Here are a couple of favorites that usually get overlooked...

Opus One

Big John's Special

As far as Texas swing, it doesn't get much better than "Stay All Night", and nobody does that'n better than Fiddle Fever.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 07:05 AM

Not sure if I'm explaining it well, but swing is a form of jazz. Very flash, big-band stuff. You'd know it if you hear it.
It Don't mean a Thing or A Train are best, I think.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 09:07 AM

Another vote for Sing Sing Sing, The Carnegie Hall version of it is electrifying. It was written by Louis Prima.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 09:25 AM

Thanks, Le Scaramouche for that definition.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: alanabit
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 09:32 AM

I am not sure, but I would have no problem putting "Take The A Train" or "Pennsylvannia 6500" on that list. They absolutely surge with life and optimism.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 09:49 AM

Dinah!

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Flash Company
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 11:55 AM

Flying Home!
i bet wherever Lionel Hampton is right now he is still telling the management 'I've got a great new arrangement of Flying Home!'
It will sound just like all the other arragements did, but it will swing like crazy!

FC

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 12:23 PM

Quiz time. What's the connection between two-headed vultures and Pennsylvania 6500?

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 05:03 PM

Yep, "Take the A-Train" (Duke E.) and "Lady Be Good" (Artie Shaw) and "East Steet Toodle-O" (Duke) and "Two O'Clock Jump" (Harry James) and of course "In the Mood" (Glenn Miller) and "American Patrol" (again Miller) and "Jump Jive an' Wail" (Louis Prima) and...

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 05:08 PM

Not to forget Prima's I Wanna Be Like You....

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 05:09 PM

Who could?

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:18 PM

OK, Le Scaramouche, it's been two days and I give up. What's the connection between two-headed vultures and Pennsylvania 6500?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 09:41 PM

A Loony Tunes episode called Transylvania 6500.
Bugs Bunny takes the wrong turn again and ends up in Dracula's (Karloff look-alike) castle and there is a two-headed vulture, a sort of English Old Dear one. Agatha and Emily.
I apologise for the irrelevant, somewhat silly question.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 01:49 AM

Trying to define swing and/or jazz is a lot like trying to do the "What is Folk?" thing. Swing and jazz are terms that were flang around in about the same time space, with the distinction in that era that:

If it's done for dancing, it's probably swing.
If it's done for listening, it's probably jazz.
It can be a little bit of both, but you have to have been there to know.

(slightly t.i.c.)

Not exactly a "favorite," but one I've heard just often enough to wish I could figure out the chord modulations and can't quite get - due to a bad ear and poor memory: "Black and Tan Fantasy." It's not in any of my fakebooks, and web searches haven't turned up anything useful - including who made it known. Anybody got a clue where to find something on it?

John

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 05:32 AM

Pretty sure it's the Duke's.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 06:20 AM

I've seen some vague references that seem to say someone else may have written B&TF, but I'm pretty sure you're right about the Duke making in known; and I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote it. I did see it in a fake book on the shelf a couple of years ago, but it was one of those $80 books, so I passed - assuming I'd run into it again somewhere. No such.

There seems to have been a highschool band arrangement of it that was pretty popular ca. late 50s. Having heard it played badly so many times probably is why I don't seem to be able to nail it by ear.

John

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: GUEST,Mooh
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 06:21 AM

Azizi...Swing is more or less when the timing of a pair of eighth notes equal a triplet with the first two notes tied, giving a sort of long/short/long/short feel to the half beats. Also a general style as indicated above.

Opus 57 (David Grisman), L-O-V-E, Sweet Geogia Brown, etc. Also like to swing things which aren't always swung, like Limehouse Blues, and traditional hornpipes like Rights Of Man, and Boys Of Bluehill. Lots of swing blues too.

Mooh-ve It On Over.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 12:09 PM

String of Pearls.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 12:15 PM

I love to swing "Limerock" with a good fiddler. Also "The Gal I Left Behind", "Liberty" and "Red Wing".

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 12:19 PM

There's a Duke Ellington box-set hidden around my house somewhere, and I'm sure that "Black and Tan Fantasy" is on it.

If it wasn't written by Duke, it's probably the work of Billy Strayhorn , his close collaborator (and the actual composer of "Take the 'A' Train").

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 12:37 PM

For more on "Black and Tan Fantasy," a discussion of the short film made featuring this tune. There is mention of an anthology DVD which includes this performance:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019701/

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: moongoddess
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 01:03 PM

When at guitar camp this summer there was a female bass player, Barb, who could take any tune at all and make it swing. I just love "The Sheil of Araby" done with a swing. And it's even better if you say "without my/your pants on" after each line. Jeez, someone played it that way for me hundreds of years ago and I can't get that tune out of my head. Say, that's another thead in here somewhere.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: number 6
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 01:11 PM

Right now it's Poinciana ... really don't know if it's classified as a swing toone .. but what the hell, it swings regardless ... just learned how to play that on my geetar.

sIx

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 01:16 PM

The traditional New Orleans version of that extra bit of lyric is "without no pants on."

Araby, Louisiana is a small working-class suburb to the immediate downriver side of the city. I don't know that the song originated hereabouts, but for anyone who performs or hears "The Sheik of Araby" here in this area, it's almost impossible not to speculate whether the narrative is set in Rudolph Valentino's tent on the desert sands, or in the shadow of the oil refinery and aluminum plant smokestacks down in St. Bernard Parish!

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 01:41 PM

Another good one from the era is "Clarinet Polka." I think it was a Woody Herman piece. It's even, sort of, in a couple of the bluegrass fakebooks that are around the house somewhere, and I've heard people try it as a bluegrass piece. Really hard to get the "pop" on the arpeggio's on anything but a clarinet, and based on the way it's done by the "bluegrassers" I've heard, it must be hard to get the "swing" on a guitar.

"Stardust" was one of the most popular requests in the era, but quite a few players seemed to have a lot of trouble with it. Willie ain't got no problems with it though. It got played a lot less than it deserved because of the predatory copyright management by Hoagy's heirs(?).

"In the Mood" was very popular, and was requested often by the dance crowd into the late 50s, but for some reason trumpet players always seemed to have trouble with the accent shifts.

Too many good ones to pick favorites.

John

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: moongoddess
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 03:36 PM

Thanks! I'll remember "without No pants on" the next time I sing it.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: GUEST,Mooh
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 05:15 PM

Of all the stupid moves one can make, this one worked. Once played a wedding when the cue to start the procession was unexpectedly early. We had been playing something with a swing beat, I don't remember what, but folks seem to love the upbeat stuff just prior to the ceremony. Anyway we were still swinging when we started that old warhorse Pachelbel's Canon In D. We kept it up for two chord progressions (what's that, 16 bars or so?) before going "straight". Strangely, it was very well received.

Yup, anything can swing, including the bride down the aisle.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 05:52 PM

Conversely: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Kaleea
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 09:46 AM

Those Wills boys always said, "It don't mean a thang if it ain't got that Western Swayng!"

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 01:22 PM

A still (somewhat) active mostly Western Swing band in the Texas Panhandle used to be called by the leader "The ExLax Symphony - music to make you move." Kind of a western version of what swing was about.

John

Subject: RE: Favourite Swing tune?
From: Kaleea
Date: 21 Aug 05 - 08:53 AM

exlax??!! harharharhardeehar!!

Swing TUNE? As in no words, just playing? I don't know that I could narrow it down to only one "Swingish era" tune which is my fav, if you are including the Big Band stuff, the popular Jazz such as the Duke, the Count, et.al., however, one of my faves I often liked to have the youngsters listen to was the One O'Clock Jump-the one which had the wild frenzy of cascading trumpets at the end. Of course, Basie, & it was covered by others.