History of Swing

Ballroom dancing

History of Swing

Many times we have heard this genre in films of the era of the 30's to 40's, which brings to mind the great orchestras in the ballroom, couples dancing to the music and shows a very merry atmosphere despite some of the problems that existed in those times. So what is the swing?

The birth of swing comes from jazz, which is predominantly orchestral music with influences from Europe and resulted in a number of innovations in this genre.

In the swing, the battery plays a very important role, since it is the only instrument with a rhythm and it is particularly important to the band. Valorize melodic themes, both by the predominance of straight passages and the emergence of the arrangements. It has a change of parts, which gives more weight to the improvisations and regulations. Used as a source of tension, the riff, short phrase repeated several times with a final crescendo.

How comes the Swing

Origins

The Swing appeared in the economic crisis of 1929 in New York. The Mainstream is marketed by and let it influence the European tradition and the music hall to get into it. White criticism begins to appreciate the most assimilated passages of jazz, seeking to produce a whole image with normal western music.

What was at stake in this process of economic denomination of jazz by white commercial interests, was the guarantee of perpetuating them through all kinds of pressure on the development of music, since most of it came thanks to the great African Americans musicians, and others wanted to gain ground on it by launching a new fashion: a style of music more cheerful compared to jazz in its infancy, for further dancing.

First bands

The first bands that are recognized as Swing, in the mid-30's are in New York, of which we include:
James Fletcher Henderson, director of the Chick Webb orchestra, in which the saxophonists were Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter, and singer Ella Fitzgerald.
Duke Ellington was the separator in swing.

The Big Bands

The marketing process begins to dominate the scene in the East Coast at the end of the 1930s. Orchestras, composed by a number of players who rarely came down from 15, are characterized by two reference points: The lead arranger and soloist.

The first becomes a true professional who works for different bands and keeps one eye on the lockers of his works on Broadway. Standardization emerges from this practice, in which all the bands sounded similar, and the leaders of readers looking for good scores and good improvisers.

Some of the bands of this school were very good, like the one of Benny Goodman (1938-1941), the Woody Herman one (1945-1949), Herman learned to adapt the pre-bop innovations, opening the way to the West Coast jazz. Apart from this last band, he launched a solo as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn and Jimmy Giuffre.

There was a band that achieved great popularity as Tommy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Paul Weston, Buddy Morrow, Les Brown and Glenn Miller was more popular.

The Kansas School

Outside New York, the hot mainstream suffered somewhat different processes of change. The so called Kansas School was to influence the boogie woogie and Texas blues.

This unusual way of looking at the Swing gave birth between 1930 and 1940, a number of Big Bands of interest, starting with the Benny Moten and Jesse Stone, and culminating with the Count Basie, legendary for its powerful and linear swing open and the intonation, sound and impacted their wind instruments. Passed by some of the best instrumentalists of the decade, and also supported a number of singers.

The Swing of small groups

Parallel to the development of the white Big Swing Bands, there is a persistent activity in small groups, mostly trios or quartets led by pianists, who have an unorthodox musically stance, although they accept the basic tenets of Swing.

These swingers are characterized by a warm phrasing and complex concept of improvisation, supported in a very linear rhythmic pulse. It can include pianists as Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Nat King Cole and Teddy Wilson.
And singers as Billie Holiday, saxophonists like Lester Young and Ben Webster; guitarists like Herb Ellis and Charlie Christian, and trumpet players like Clark Terry and Roy Elridge.

The European Swing

Jazz transcends borders and lives a strong expansion in external companies. Thus, the crisis of 1929 is pushing a number of jazzmen in Europe and begins to create forms of indigenous Swing.
The principal school is in Paris; with a swing produced a hot language and representatives are the guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grapelli.

Bibliographic Reference:
Richardson, Michael. "Swing Music." .University of Kentucky. http://www.uky.edu/StudentOrgs/HKSDC/Music.html.
Wikipedia.org, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_% 29% 28jazz.