Swing Music And The Popularity Of Swing Music

The swing era took place from 1935-1945. It took place during a time that the Great Depression was going on. People argue that the time during the Great Depression made a shift from the “hot syncopated dance music to a type of sweeter ballroom dance music. (Star, 2013) In this paper I am going to discuss how the Tin Pan Alley and Swing are similar, how Tin Pan Alley and Swing are different, and lastly why the Swing era lasted so much shorter than the Tin Pan Alley.

The Jazz Age was a period of radical behavior and care free living. This new music structure started the crazy decade that would change American life. “In the US during the 1920s, jazz was far more than a new musical style or genre”. A Focus on culture, fashion, and mostly freedom became huge. “The Jazz Age became a touchstone for a wide range of social and cultural issues.”1 Also the freedom during the period allowed for many different ethnicities, including African Americans, to gain freedom within society. This new music

Jazz was a hit in the 1920s, African Americans were given credit for leading the jazz industry, the Jazz industry had an amazing impact on many other popular cultures. Jazz was the favorite type of music among the flappers. The Jazz age was known to be powered by the prohibition of alcohol.

The second generations of Jazz musicians were some like Joe “King” Oliver, Kid Ory, and Jelly Roll Morton. These people formed a small band and started to reshape the way the original Jazz music was played. They have made it into a different style with more complications and twists and turns. And so it became known as “Hot Jazz”. King Oliver found a young artist by the name of Louis Armstrong. He soon grew to become the greatest Jazz musician anyone has known. He is still a big star in the world today. By the 20th Century, African-American musical styles became the dominant force.

A.Attention Getter: The 1930’s is a decade that will always be remembered as one of the worst times in American history, but the genre of music that began to flourish during these difficult times will forever be influential. Many turned to music as a coping mechanism during the Great Depression. Jazz became an outlet of expression for the many artists experiencing hardships and it also let countless people forget about their troubles for at least one night by dancing and having a good time.

There are many differences between cool jazz and hard bop however both were reactions in the music world after the creation of the bebop style. Cool jazz had a greater emphasis on arranging and orchestration meaning it was written ahead of time, however the improvised solos were vital as well. Hard bop was not as orchestrated as cool jazz and also implemented the use of new long-playing formats to stretch out on extended solos, which a lot of the times were improvised. The instruments that were popular in cool jazz were very classical ones including the French horn, tuba, clarinet, oboe, saxophone, clarinet and trombones, as well as the rhythm section. The ensemble sizes of cool jazz were larger than hard bops ranging from trios to nonets. The instrumentation of hard bop style ensembles were much smaller with normally around only five musicians playing together. The bands for hard bop normally consisted of two or three horns as well as the rhythm section, and these bands produced rougher and heavier sounds together.

There were many ways in which swing music and popular culture were interrelated during the time known as the swing era. Jazz became the cornerstone of popular culture during the period known as the swing era. The swing era influenced clothing styles, retail marketing, fashion, dance, and even language. Swing fans had their own clothing style and built a social phenomenon around it. With many dances coming and going the swing fans kept on dancing.

In the Great Depression, the American dream had become a nightmare. What was once the land of opportunity was now the land of desperation. The Great Depression was an economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. Nevertheless, it had immense impact on the evolution of American vernacular dance by bringing jazz music and dance to the masses, raising the nation’s spirit through music and dance.

“Walkin and Swingin” is a piece of jazz performed by Andy Kirk and his band, the Twelve Clouds of Joy, that could be described as light, bouncy, and perhaps easy or even uncluttered. This was written by Mary Lou Williams for Andy Kirk and is a thirty-two bar piece with four choruses. However, the length of the sections is handled differently, with the last chorus section being shortened to six bars after the transitions between different instruments, from the saxophone and brass to the piano (seen from 2:16 to about 2:24). The song overall has a light tone, and has many instruments that contribute, including two alto saxophones, one tenor saxophone, three trumpets, two trombones, a guitar, a piano, a bass, and drums, as observed from the written sheet music. The piece is different from others in multiple ways, perhaps the most noticeable being the piano solo played by Mary Lou Williams, the multiple solos played by members of the brass instrument section, very quick but effective transitions, and the overall swing groove of the music. There is also a walking bass used at the bridge, and a very intriguing trumpet lead of the brass instruments.

The swing era was vast and equally varietal. From Benny Goodman to Chick Webb or Artie Shaw each had their individual 'sound'. Moreover, this separated them and gave them their own appeal to the masses. However, The swing era occurred at a time when racism and prejudice still had a strong foothold in public eye. While playing swing did allow a member of a minority to have some freedom from this prejudice, they still could not expect the same treatment as the white players. In The Swing Era: Pure Pleasure swing was described as an escape for people who are “down on their luck.” Moreover, Swing gave people hope and a place to break free and forget about your trouble. This is most likely why swing climbed so aggressively into popular culture.

During the 1950s many musicians began reacting to bebop and experimenting with it and trying to put their own twist to it. These jazz players were taking a cue from 1949 Miles Davis recording “Birth of the Cool,”

the early 1940s. Many bop pieces were played at the fastest tempos yet heard in

Pbs.com Ken Burns states that just like all music jazz went through it trial era of music. The swing era was very popular through the early 1930’s into the late 1940’s. The swing style type of music consist of large number of band member featuring at least three to four saxophones, two or three trumpets, two to three trombones, a piano guitar and a bass violin. Not including the lead vocalist of the groups. Swinging was a life style that lifted anyone

Swing was the dominant idiom of the 1930s and much of the 1940s. Basically, it was a form of dance music played by a large band, and was the medium through which most white Americans first heard Jazz (Schuller,1989). Although the decade 1935-45 was called the Swing Era, swing arrangements had been played by large bands beginning in the 1920s. Bandleader-arrangers Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and, later, Count Basie, worked out arrangements for their 10 to 12 piece bands, which, unlike traditional jazz bands, were divided into instrumental sections.

The most distinctive feature of bebop is that played by very small group. The main instruments of bebop are trumpet and saxophone with rhythm section such as piano, bass and drums. And there was informal Jam sessions that many musicians are playing together without any practices or rehearsals so they could challenge and learn each other. Bebop is still the most played song at jam sessions. Most of all, African American invented bebop primarily. Later, Cool Jazz came up as a new generation of Jazz after bebop from 1949 to 1955. The Cool Jazz means like more comfortable and soft than bebop when bebop has a meaning of “hot” which means very loud and exciting. Numbers of people in group raised up to nonets (nine-piece band). When bebop musicians were playing trumpet and saxophone such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Cool Jazz musicians had more numbers of instruments to play even classical instruments were often found such as flute, French horn and so on. Unlike bebop, importance of the arrangement and the improvised solos are same when bebop cares improvised solo more than the arrangement. Bebop and Cool Jazz each has very opposite meaning to each other even locations are different. Bebop was associated with the East Coast when Cool Jazz happened in West Coast especially in California. Historically, World War ll had occurred during Cool Jazz era which made the mood of country very sad and people had worries about the uncertainty of the future. This reflects Americans attitudes to have subdued emotion and emotional self-control in times of crisis “Keeping Cool”. Finally, Hard Bop was found in New York during 1951 to 1958 and influenced by traditional African American. Instruments were similar to bebop but there are 2 different factions Funky Jazz and