The Swing Book

by Degen Pener

  7. At the end of a dance, always say thank you. Also, “a guy should always walk the woman back to where he asked her to dance. Don’t leave her in the middle of the dance floor,” says Overton.

  8. Support the bands and the clubs. Take the time to applaud the musicians and singers. And if you don’t drink, buy water or at least a soda at the bar. Don’t bring your own water bottles to a nightclub.

  9. Don’t wander across the dance floor looking for someone. You become a hazard.

  10. The most important etiquette advice: smile. Always be friendly, gracious, and polite to everyone.

  Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan exchange a knowing look in the Studio.

  (ARCHIVE PHOTOS/METRONOME)

  CHAPTER 4

  The Legends of Swing

  Here they are: the kings and queens of the original swing era. In the short biographies that follow, you’ll meet the best bandleaders, the most virtuoso sidemen, the loudest jump blues shouters, and the sweetest singers. You’ll find out what each musician’s classic songs are. There’s a bit of trivia included too, such as how Billie Holiday got her nickname Lady Day and which swing musician claims to have invented the electric guitar.

  Plus, the main entries feature a recommendation of the greatest CDs to purchase for an introduction. Given the thousands of CDs on the market, from original albums and reissues to compilations and imports, starting a swing music collection can be a daunting challenge. Louis Armstrong, for example, recorded at least fifty different versions of the song “Basin Street Blues,” while more than two hundred albums featuring Duke Ellington are available. Sometimes two almost identical CDs will feature the same songs by an artist, but only one will include the best performances of those numbers. These CD picks will, I hope, help you avoid getting stuck with a so-so purchase, although for many performers they only hint at the sheer volume of amazing music out there.

  So think of this as just the beginning of a lifelong journey of musical discovery. But be careful: Once you start buying albums by Louis Jordan, Nat King Cole, Jimmie Lunceford, and Ella Fitzgerald, just to name a few, you won’t be able to stop. These performers will enrich you, inspire you, and thrill you—and most important, make you want to get up and move. (Readers looking for more in-depth CD guides would do well to check out The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz; the excellent guides to swing, jazz, and lounge from the editors of MusicHound; The Penguin Guide to Jazz on Compact Disc; or The Rolling Stone Blues and Jazz Album Guide.)

  THE GIANTS

  Count Basie

  The man who made Kansas City one of the great capitals of jazz was actually raised on the East Coast. Born in the town of Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1904, Basie moved to New York in the 1920s, where Fats Waller taught him to play the organ. By the age of twenty-three, he was touring the country as part of a vaudeville show. But when the company got stranded in Kansas City, Basie stayed there. The city’s nightlife, flourishing under the corrupt Pendergast political machine, and its Southwest blues music permanently changed him. “I hadn’t ever played the blues,” wrote Basie in his autobiography, Good Morning Blues. In Kansas City, Basie first joined the Blue Devils band, then the influential Bennie Moten Orchestra, which in 1932 recorded “Moten Swing,” one of the most ahead-of-its-time early swing numbers. When Moten died in 1935, Basie took most of the band’s best members and put his own orchestra together. Before long, word traveled to New York about the hot new sound of the Basie outfit.

  What made this band distinct? Basie’s piano playing was remarkably spare and lean, a challenge to the more elaborate styles of Harlem. Fronted by singers Jimmy Rushing and Helen Humes, the band completely embraced the blues. Its tremendous sidemen all became legends: tenor sax players Lester Young and Herschel Evans; trumpeters Oran “Hot Lips” Page, Harry “Sweets” Edison, and Buck Clayton; drummer Jo Jones; and the famous bassist Walter Page. But it was Page — and his four-to-the-bar bass playing—who was the force behind the band’s unparalleled rhythm section, heavy on the backbeat and driving forward with unstoppable momentum. “Basie’s rhythm section was nothing less than a Cadillac with the force of a Mack truck,” said trombonist Dicky Wells. While Basie’s pared-down, propulsive songs pointed the way toward the next wave in music, jump blues, he was forced to disband his orchestra in 1950 as the big band era came to a close. During the fifties, however, Basie bounced back, putting together a new band and creating music that ranks among his best on such albums as April in Paris, Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings, and Sinatra-Basie. While he died in 1984, the memory of this charismatic entertainer—known in later years for his signature captain’s hat—is as bright as ever.

  Classic Songs: “Swingin’ the Blues,” “Taxi War Dance,” “Jumpin’ at the Woodside,” “Dickie’s Dream,” and the Frankie Manning favorite “Shiny Stockings.”

  Swing Trivia: Basie’s band could improvise much more than solos. It recorded its signature song completely on the spur of the moment. One night, when the band didn’t have a number with which to end a radio program, Basie looked at the clock, shouted out “One O’clock Jump,” and the band, renowned for its cohesion, put together this now-classic number on the spot.

  CD Pick: Don’t skimp on Basie. Buy the three-CD set Count Basie: The Complete Decca Recordings, 1937–1939 (Decca/GRP). “It represents the zenith of Kansas City jazz, the recordings that really brought Basie to the national forefront,” says Chuck Haddix, director of the Marr Sound Archives at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

  Duke Ellington

  With 1999’s celebration of what would have been Ellington’s one hundredth birthday, this multitalented musician was justly acclaimed as one of a handful of America’s most talented composers, along with Gershwin and Copland. His songs are so ingrained in our culture that even if you think you don’t know an Ellington song, you do. During a career that spanned the twenties to the seventies, Ellington composed more than two thousand pieces of music. He even popularized the word swing in his early classic “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” Born in Washington, D.C., in 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington transformed himself into the elegant Duke after moving to New York in 1923, where he formed his own orchestra. In 1927 he secured a star-making gig at the Cotton Club, where he directed the nightspots exotic floor shows in addition to creating such memorable songs as “Mood Indigo” and “Black and Tan Fantasy.” A brilliant pianist, Ellington composed songs in which he took jazz to new levels of artistry, adding an emotional depth, a lyric poetry, and an easy confidence that hadn’t been there before. “He’s one of the major impressionist painters of the twentieth century. His colors are as rich and subtle and sophisticated as Cezanne’s or Monet’s,” says bandleader Casey MacGill.

  Ellington’s renowned sidemen over the years included trombonists Juan Tizol and Lawrence Brown; trumpeters Bubber Miley, Cootie Williams, Ray Nance, and Rex Stewart; the incomparable alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges; and clarinetist Barney Bigard, plus singers Ivie Anderson and Betty Roche. Ellington’s secret talent lay in writing for the specific, and often quirky, talents of each one. The band hit its high-water mark in the late thirties with the additions of Jimmy Blanton, who imparted a new expressive voice to the bass, and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, plus arranger/composer Billy Strayhorn, with whom Ellington formed an intense and rich musical partnership. After the end of the swing era, Ellington enjoyed a huge resurgence after appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. Consistent with his ambitious artistic aims, he explored other types of music throughout his life, from long-form pieces to spiritual compositions. He died in 1974 at age seventy-five, a genius who defined swing but was never defined by it.

  Classic Songs: “Cottontail,” “Ko-Ko,” “Harlem Air Shaft,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Solitude,” and Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train.”

  Swing Trivia: According to Bill Crow’s Jazz Anecdotes, Ellington was notoriously superstitious. He feared drafts, hated to f
ly, and wouldn’t wear yellow. He also never gave shoes as gifts; to him they were a symbol that someone might walk away from him.

  CD Pick: The three-CD set The Blanton-Webster Band (RCA) includes sixty-six songs, gems one and all, from the band’s peak years.

  Benny Goodman

  Admit it, when you were a kid, his albums were collecting dust on your parents’ (or grandparents’) shelves and you probably thought he was lame. But now you realize the error of your ways. It’s about time that the King of Swing is cool again. Without Goodman, the man most responsible for bringing the hot sounds of Harlem to the masses, there might have been no swing era. After a period of disillusionment with jazz, Goodman broke through in 1935 at the now-famous Palomar engagement in Los Angeles with his truly hard-swinging music. And he challenged the color barrier by hiring such extraordinary black musicians as pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, and guitarist Charlie Christian to play in his small combos and later in his full orchestra. His string of female singers — Helen Ward, Martha Tilton, Helen Forrest, and Peggy Lee—ranks as the best lineup any band could boast. And when it came to playing the clarinet, Goodman was so crystal clear and so passionate that he carved out a new, richer place for the instrument in the jazz world. Dressing like an egghead, famous for his prickly personality, Goodman proved that you don’t have to be a flashy entertainer to become one of the most beloved and inspired musicians of all time. He died in 1986 at age seventy-seven.

  Classic Songs: The swing anthem “Sing, Sing, Sing,” “Christopher Columbus,” “Sometimes I’m Happy,” “Blue Skies,” and the Fletcher Henderson arrangement “King Porter Stomp.”

  Swing Trivia: When Goodman became angry at one of his sidemen, he’d glare so harshly at the guy that band members talked about avoiding “the Ray.”

  CD Pick: The two-CD set Benny Goodman On the Air, 1937–1938 (Columbia). “These are live broadcast performances that really capture the famous band with Harry James and Gene Krupa that played Carnegie Hall. There’s much more life than in some of the studio recordings,” says Loren Schoenberg, leader of the Loren Schoenberg Big Band and former director of the Benny Goodman Archive.

  LOUIS, LOUIS, AND LOU IS

  Louis Jordan

  Squawk! The seminal R&B vocalist and alto sax player Louis Jordan recorded no fewer than three songs about chickens. And once you’ve heard “There Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens,” “A Chicken Ain’t Nothing but a Bird,” and “Chicken Back,” you’ll be plucked if you don’t agree that Jordan is one of the most raucously fun singers who ever lived. But Jordan wasn’t just about laughs. This soulful singer’s voice has astonishingly expressive range. And his flyin’ combo, the Tympany Five, never failed to get a crowd’s feet moving. All three qualities have combined to make Jordan the king of the neoswing movement. The reason? His influential jump blues sound—Jordan had more than fifty Top 10 R&B hits between 1942 and 1951—stands at the crossroads of jazz and rock ’n’ roll, which is exactly where most of today’s swing fans find themselves. (Jordan, who had played for Chick Webb, led the post-big band transition toward smaller groups.) In fact, the only thing negative that can be said about this entertainer is that, since his death in 1975, he’s been in danger of overexposure. Every other new swing group seems like a Jordan cover band.

  Classic Songs: “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie,” which sold a million copies in 1946, “Caldonia,” “Knock Me a Kiss,” “What’s the Use of Gettin’ Sober.”

  Swing Trivia: According to John Chilton’s biography Let the Good Times Roll, one old-time shtick of Jordan’s was to dedicate his hit song “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” to Errol Flynn while the actor was in the midst of a paternity suit.

  CD Pick: “To me, Louis Jordan is really the most important guy out there,” says Steve Lucky, leader of Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums, who recommends The Best of Louis Jordan (MCA). “These are the hits that really define the sounds of the small jump swing band, from ‘Knock Me a Kiss’ to ‘Open the Door, Richard.’ It’s twenty great cuts.”

  Louis Prima

  Get it right. It was Prima’s classic “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail” that was featured in the Gap’s “Khakis Swing” ad, not Brian Setzer’s recent cover of the song. Prima’s original is the real deal, and just a taste of the rollicking musical banquet this superb entertainer has to offer. Influenced by the trumpet playing of Louis Armstrong and the jump blues of Louis Jordan, Prima created an unforgettable mix of the Dixieland sounds of his native New Orleans, the abbon-danza attitude of his Neapolitan heritage, and a steady stream of knockout humor. Grabbing fame in the fifties in Las Vegas, Prima created a bridge from the swing era (he composed Goodman’s most famous number, “Sing, Sing, Sing”) into the world of lounge, especially after he hooked up with his fourth wife, Keely Smith, and wild saxman Sam Butera. The latter two still perform on the Strip, but Prima died in 1978. His memory lives on, most recently in the hit indie film Big Night. Buona séera, indeed.

  Classic Songs: “That Old Black Magic,” Prima’s hit duet with Keely Smith, and “Just a Gigolo,” later covered by David Lee Roth.

  Swing Trivia: Prima was the voice of every kid’s favorite orangutan, King Louie, in Disney’s 1967 animated film The Jungle Book.

  CD Pick: “Something you have to have in your collection is the Louis Prima Collector’s Series” (Capitol), says Marc Berman, host of Philadelphia’s Swingtime radio show. “It’s not only an introduction, it’s the essential Louis Prima, and you can find it in every store. It’s got all the hits, but what it also has is Louis’s version of ‘Sing, Sing, Sing.’”

  Louis Armstrong

  Every swing musician spoke Louis Armstrong’s language. With his remarkable trumpet solos and raspy but rich voice, Armstrong had an effect on jazz so profound he might as well have redirected the course of the Mississippi. Born in New Orleans in 1901 and put in a waif’s home by the age of twelve, Armstrong got his start as a protégé of cornetist King Oliver and gained experience playing in bands on the Mississippi’s riverboats. Early on, his soaring range was literally incredible. Armstrong hit so many high Cs and Fs, that he was occasionally accused of using a trick instrument. But it was Armstrong’s gift for creating new rhythms, phrases, and harmonies, on his landmark Hot Fives and Hot Sevens recordings of the mid- to late twenties, that really shook up the jazz world. Exuberant, warm, and full of life, he appeared in scores of movies; recorded unforgettable duets with fellow legend Ella Fitzgerald; put out a seemingly limitless catalog of albums; and in 1964, seven years before his death in 1971, dislodged the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” from the Billboard No. 1 spot with his rendition of “Hello Dolly.” Armstrong was jazz’s first international star and is arguably still its most famous.

  Classic Songs: The Hot Fives cuts “Potato Head Blues” and “West End Blues”; “Weather Bird,” with pianist Earl Hines; “Basin Street Blues”; and “What a Wonderful World,” which became a hit after its appearance in the film Good Morning, Vietnam.

  Swing Trivia: Armstrong’s nickname Satchmo was taken from the song “Satchel Mouth Swing.”

  CD Pick: To witness the birth of the swing solo and Armstrong at his most stunning, buy The Hot Fives, Volume 1 (which features the pioneering scat song “Heebie Jeebies”), plus The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, Volumes 2 and 3 (Columbia). For later Armstrong check out a great live performance, the two-CD Complete Town Hall Concert 17 May 1947 (BMG/RCA), which includes solos by trombonist Jack Teagarden.

  * * *

  Tommy Dorsey (left) and saxophonist Bud Freeman watch as Louis Armstrong launches into a solo. (CHARLES PETERSON/ARCHIVE PHOTOS)

  THE ENTERTAINERS

  Cab Calloway

  The biggest showman of them all, Calloway seemed practically possessed onstage, stomping around in his extreme zoot suit, throwing his hair back, and baring his teeth with gleeful abandon. “His spirit was life or death,” says his daughter, singer Chris Calloway. “He always felt as if you owed everything to your audie
nce.” On countless songs, such as “Are You All Reet?” and “Are You Hep to the Jive?” he established himself as the avatar of rap. Calloway—who published his own slang guide called The Hep-ster’s Dictionary in 1936—could rhyme, jive talk, and scat to Mars and back in the course of a three-minute number. And while the high points of his career extend from his appearances at the Cotton Club beginning in 1930 to his performance in The Blues Brothers in 1980, Calloway was once remembered more as a cartoonish novelty act than a serious musician. Lately, however, he’s gained hugely increased respect. His stylistic influence is, of course, undebatable. From clothes to slang to songs about reefer, he practically invented the concept of hipness. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that back in the day, Calloway’s orchestra was one of the highest-class outfits out there, boasting such stellar sidemen as bassist Milt Hinton and sax player Chu Berry. The Professor of Jive knew how to keep ’em dancing too.

  Classic Songs: The one and only “Minnie the Moodier,” which made Calloway known as the Hi-De-Ho man.

  Swing Trivia: One swing-era account credits Calloway’s orchestra with the origin of the term jitterbug. A trombone player in the band was a lush who purportedly concocted a drink called “jitter sauce” to quell his shakes.

  CD Pick: There’s no dispute here. Fly out and buy Are You Hep to the Jive? (Columbia), which includes twenty-two of his all-time most righteous tunes, from signatures like “Minnie” to his teasing of violinist Yehudi Menuhin in “Who’s Yehoodi?” It’s even got great cover art featuring Cab in one of his widest, wildest hats.