Swing

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Maybe because the frame of reference that regards music as being "IN" 3/4, 4/4, 9/8 etc etc isn't appropriate for some musics ?

That's really helpful!

[MrGongGong]

That's really helpful!

So are you suggesting that the framework of Western Art Music in terms of time signatures is UNIVERSALLY applicable ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

i did not suggest anything. I merely posed a question which no-one ever appears willing to answer.

[MrGongGong]

just asking that's all

I do remember a rather uptight student asking one of our lecturers what he meant by the word "funky"

[Quarky]

just asking that's all

I do remember a rather uptight student asking one of our lecturers what he meant by the word "funky"

Yes, I think these questions are all valid.

Is there something in Jazz which is peculiar to Jazz, or can it be found in other types of music but going by a different name?

Possibly the only way of answering this is to follow Tenor Freak and calum and listen to the examples given.

May be a definition could be constructed by building a database in two parts - one part with Jazz tracks which are agreed by every one as "swinging", and the other part Jazz tracks which everyone agrees do not swing.

Anyhow I will listen to Tenor Freak's examples later today - possibly instead of JRR (who was that awful woman singer last week? Gave my companion car-sickness!)

[MrGongGong]

I suspect (but will really need to give it some hard thinking ........ so after i've plumbed in the new taps then ) that
the set of musics which will call "Jazz"
and the set of musics which we consider to "swing"
and the set of musics which we don't call "Jazz" BUT is part of the set of musics that we consider to "swing"
might be a start ? (but then I was listening to In Our Time this week so it seems an attractive way to go ..........)

[Ian Thumwood]

I don't think time signatures really help define swing. You could play music in any of the examples given and the music would not necessary swing. For me, the use of triplets to explain swing is simply a convenient way of trying to express the anticipation of the beat in notation. In reality, the sensation of swinging is far more complex and I think that if you wanted to demonstrate exactly how this worked with the Miles Davis example that Bruce posted, you would need to write out the parts for all five instruments.

I was curious to read Bluesnik's comments about Jimmy Reed as I wanted to post a comment along the same lines. In my opinion, alot of early jazz (ODJB, etc) didn' swing and I suppose that you have to wait until such groups as King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band before you start to get some idea of this. Even then, I would totally agree with Calum as the notion of swing only really became "modern" to my ears with the arrival of the developments first made by Eddie Durham and Count Basie with Bennie Moten's band in 1932 and then with the Counts own band about 5 years later. I feel this is a real sea-change in jazz and from a rhythm / swing point of view, I believe the Basie band is as significant as Charlie Parker some ten years later. Everything before this jazz in jazz feels vintage . However, prompted by Bluesnik, I've been listening to a lot of vintage blues recordings and I think that some of the "feel" of this music reached a more "modern" and expecially relaxed feel well before jazz got there. I would cite Leroy Carr / Scrapper Blackwell as examples.

Another point I think would be worthy of investigation would be research into regional differences in jazz in the 1920's. Kansas City and the mid-West seem instrumental in a developing a more modern approach to swinging. I read in a book by Frank Driggs that Moten's band from Kansas City was appreciated in New York because of it's "stomping" style in the 20's and audiences recognised that this band "felt" the music differently. You have the same thing in New Orleans too albeit another approach to swinging which is more relaxed that the frenetic approach of New York. I would live to know how different things were in the other parts of the States prior to the arrival of radio and when musicians were first starting to perform jazz in the very early 1920's. It is a shame that Edison never pulled his finger out and got his R&D department to discover recorded sound earlier. I am convinced that there would have been some interesting regional differences as to how jazz was played and "felt" with the result that places like Kansas City had an edge by the beginning of the 1930's.

Yesterday I was playing an old CD by John Surman with the great Paul Bley on piano, Gary Peacock on bass and the wonderful Tony Oxley on drums. I hadn't played this for ages as I was a bit disappointed with it at the time although playing it in my car on Friday, I was staggered that it was so good. My point is that whilst the music is pretty abstract and disappears off into the realms of some pretty far-reaching improvisation, the music still swings. You definitely get the feel of the musians marginally holding back on the beat when they play a phrase and this anticipation makes even this pretty free-ish record swing in it's own way even if it is a million miles away from both Basie and 50's Miles.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Coming soon on R3... New Series!

"It dont mean a thing; Swing from Bing to Ming."- Prof Greg Slice, Univ Central Totnes.


Prof Slice also plays semi-pro jazz drums with the Brown Ale Stompers, Totnes's top trad band.
BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't think time signatures really help define swing. You could play music in any of the examples given and the music would not necessary swing. For me, the use of triplets to explain swing is simply a convenient way of trying to express the anticipation of the beat in notation. In reality, the sensation of swinging is far more complex and I think that if you wanted to demonstrate exactly how this worked with the Miles Davis example that Bruce posted, you would need to write out the parts for all five instruments.

I was curious to read Bluesnik's comments about Jimmy Reed as I wanted to post a comment along the same lines. In my opinion, alot of early jazz (ODJB, etc) didn' swing and I suppose that you have to wait until such groups as King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band before you start to get some idea of this. Even then, I would totally agree with Calum as the notion of swing only really became "modern" to my ears with the arrival of the developments first made by Eddie Durham and Count Basie with Bennie Moten's band in 1932 and then with the Counts own band about 5 years later. I feel this is a real sea-change in jazz and from a rhythm / swing point of view, I believe the Basie band is as significant as Charlie Parker some ten years later. Everything before this jazz in jazz feels vintage . However, prompted by Bluesnik, I've been listening to a lot of vintage blues recordings and I think that some of the "feel" of this music reached a more "modern" and expecially relaxed feel well before jazz got there. I would cite Leroy Carr / Scrapper Blackwell as examples.

Another point I think would be worthy of investigation would be research into regional differences in jazz in the 1920's. Kansas City and the mid-West seem instrumental in a developing a more modern approach to swinging. I read in a book by Frank Driggs that Moten's band from Kansas City was appreciated in New York because of it's "stomping" style in the 20's and audiences recognised that this band "felt" the music differently. You have the same thing in New Orleans too albeit another approach to swinging which is more relaxed that the frenetic approach of New York. I would live to know how different things were in the other parts of the States prior to the arrival of radio and when musicians were first starting to perform jazz in the very early 1920's. It is a shame that Edison never pulled his finger out and got his R&D department to discover recorded sound earlier. I am convinced that there would have been some interesting regional differences as to how jazz was played and "felt" with the result that places like Kansas City had an edge by the beginning of the 1930's.

Yesterday I was playing an old CD by John Surman with the great Paul Bley on piano, Gary Peacock on bass and the wonderful Tony Oxley on drums. I hadn't played this for ages as I was a bit disappointed with it at the time although playing it in my car on Friday, I was staggered that it was so good. My point is that whilst the music is pretty abstract and disappears off into the realms of some pretty far-reaching improvisation, the music still swings. You definitely get the feel of the musians marginally holding back on the beat when they play a phrase and this anticipation makes even this pretty free-ish record swing in it's own way even if it is a million miles away from both Basie and 50's Miles.

Very much agree with what you've written here, Ian. I think you're right to claim the old blues guys got there first in defining swing. I think this is what many jazz musicians mean when they make claims for top artists who started out in blues or r 'n' b bands, and speak of the "blues feel" as indispensable to jazz swing. Your comments link in well with the great links provided by Calum and Tenor Freak, exemplifications of what I was trying to put forward earlier re relationship to the beat.

Berendt, in one of the earlier editions of The Jazz Book, made the, I think, erroneous over-generalisation that "hot" improvisers pre-empt the beat by placing their notes a fraction in advance, while "cool" players fractionally delay. Billie H was notorious for epitomising the latter approach, but her influence as far as behind-phrasing was concerned was probably Louis Armstrong, whom few could plausibly place in any "cool" category. The fact was, Armstrong would often anticipate the beat, often slip off it; Sonny Rollins and Ornette wouild be two other examples. Slightly off-topic, but maybe worthy of mention in the context of swing. And TF is certainly right in saying swing has little or nothing to do with technique, all to do with "getting the feel". Inability to have this is probably less inborn than acquired by over-assiduous classical training: Mike Garrick, while maybe not citable as an instance of a non-swinging pianist, certainly envied John Taylor's ability to float for several bars across the beat, telling me it was one of the hardest things he had ever managed to achieve. Others who shall remain nameless have surmised this may have accounted for Garrick's "obsession" with complex time signatures - a way of disguising this self-perceived deficiency.

Berendt, whose reputation as historian, commentator and analyst has diminished for some, was imo nevertheless good on the rhythm and swing sections of The Jazz Book - those of you who have 1 or another edition. Evan Parker has been recorded in print speaking of "natural breathing rhythms" definingn free music, and, when hearing him, and other erstwhile jazz musicians of his calibre operating in free improvisation, I have often wondered how many other listeners find themselves "imposing" their own metrical and pulse continuities on what they are hearing. I don't happen to believe this to be some "aural Rorschach", or mental substitution for a lack operating, but is actually there in the music, even though it may be internally changing as it moves along, even stopping into what in jazz is seen as "outside time" referring often, if not exclusively, to some kinds of slow ballad playing. Part 2 of "Heyoke", which I cite from Kenny Wheeler's 1975 ECM album "Gun High", because many people have it, is a magnificent example of "outside time" playing between the group which nevertheless continues to swing as much as the earlier 3/4 part because one subconsciously infers an underlying pules the musicians are playing off, and thereby swinging - though maybe it requires a special kind of sensitivity to "hear" this, (he said modestly!!!)

Finally, (huh!), Berendt appears to contradict all that he says, including citings of others, on swing, when, in the final chapter of the 1976 edition, devoted to European jazz, he writes:

"The new European drummers, whose exemplary poles can be designated by the names of the Swiss drummer Pierre Favre and his Dutch colleague Han Bennink, have transcended the image of the conventional jazz drummer. They no longer derive their intensity only from the black tradition (that is much more difficult to assimilate in Europe than in the U.S.), but from all sources in the world that generate ecstasy and convey ritual power and trance - i.e., swing is only one of many sources! These musicians have widened the rhythmic base just as they have widened their instrumental range - incorporating instruments from all over the world. This is something quite different from the element in European jazz that appealed to John Lewis in the fifties. What appeared respectable at that time because it included counterpoint, strict formal rules, and the textbook knowledge of conservatory professors, was - at best - a cautious start. Today's European jazz musician has at his command a musical palette with colours mixed from all the great musical cultures and folklore of the world. And he also - naturally - knows his Stockhausen and Ligeti better than any of his musical colleagues. And he uses them with less inhibition and more skill tha either American jazzmen [sic] or European concert musicians, because the former are as hidebouind by the jazz tradition as the latter by the tradition of European concert music". (Granada Publishing, St Albans, Herts, 1976, PP 407-408)

Appears, because if one can incorporate implicit feel into swing as defined, because so few have managed to cover all ports on the subject - what he says here covers it. Things of course have changed - America is much more congiseant of all-round musical developments as we have seen - but Berendt's position would still be being argued on its same grounds - against by Branford Marsalis, on the one hand, and against from an opposite pov by someone like Tony Oxley, today, on the other; and I think it is in the sense I have tried to convey of implicit swing - swing that doesn't have to be rammed down the throat like the worst kinds of offbeat reiterating jazz-rock drumming to makes its presence clear - that Ian articulates well in describing the Surman/Bley album at the end of his posting.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Illustration: listen to Sonny Rollins on the superb Worktime album from 55...he retards and advances the beat to create this totally glorious elastic tension and drive. Aka Swing. Avec Max.

The best album Sonny ever made - Steve Lacy

BN

[burning dog]

Sonny (especially) also uses the device of non swinging passages ie playing square, to contrast with the swinging passages. its easy to recognise but hard to explain.

Its almost unconscious now for mainstream bands to play with a 2/4 feel in heads and alternate straight (for jazz) 4/4 and 2/4 feels thoughout.

If a group of experienced listeners were independently tested to record which of 20 new performances across the genres of jazz, plus "rock n roll", blues, funk and soul,( devoid of any pointers like someone shouting "Swing that thing!" "Yeah baby" etc.) "swung" the most, came up with similar answers, it would pehaps suggest it is a tangible phenomena rather than a collective "social" response. A techinical definition may not be needed, though it may be worth pursuing.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The way of 50s R et B tenor playing, that ahead of the beat tenor sax, pulling the band behind, is a lost art form.
There is a solo on the Drifter's Drip Drop on Atlantic by Sam The Man Taylor that is to die for....OK, its not art, but.....
BN.

[eighthobstruction]

#24....as scrolled up through this post I thought , "I bet this is an Ian Thurmwood post"....then I saw that it was an answer to an IT post....just a banal thought , no fence meant....honest

[Serial_Apologist]

#24....as scrolled up through this post I thought , "I bet this is an Ian Thurmwood post"....then I saw that it was an answer to an IT post....just a banal thought , no fence meant....honest

Long or short form - Bruckner or Webern - no half-measures, Mozart Jupiters, Middle Piddlecombes - that's me! hic.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Bartok Swings! Well I guess he never had to make a connection before heading to record with a drunk bass player and a strung out drummer...

Do he swing? Do anything.

BN.