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 SWING! It's Back! ..And One Longtime Fan Logs In With Some Thoughts © 1999 by Bill Fogarty
Steve's ready, of course; he's been watching the swing revival catch on for the past several years. "We gave 'em 'Sing, Sing, Sing' and an up-tempo 'In the Mood,'" he says. "We're using a lot of swing charts out of the 1930s and '40s these days, plus some of the newer stuff." Vince Bilardo, another area bandleader and one of Kansas City's very best drummers, has been having similar experiences. "Each year we play for the Johnson-Wyandotte Junior League Cotillion. After the debs and their escorts are presented, we play for dancing. We used to give 'em Motown; now they want to hear swing." Vince, like Steve, can break out charts like "Pennsylvania 6-5000" or "A String of Pearls" as needed, and when they do, swing-hungry audiences, mostly in their late 'teens and early twenties, are happy. Both leaders agree that these young people want a music that separates them from the infantile tastes of younger teens (not to mention the calcified rock of their parents), but Bilardo is quick to point out how today's swing is different. "This swing is a little different from the swing we grew up with. There is less solo work and more ensemble playing. A lot of groups now are mostly derivative of Louis Jordan and Louis Prima in the 1940s." Vince is right; there is a difference. For one thing, there are groups that call themselves swing bands, but the way they handle the beat gives them away. They are primarily catering to people with rock tastes just as there have been fusion groups for years who claim to play jazz but deliver repackaged rock instead. A listen to the work of some nationally known swing groups like the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Squirrel Nut Zippers and Cherry Poppin' Daddies (what a vile name) reveals the core of the revival: a drummer whacking out the heavy backbeat of rock and R&B -- occasionally relieved with some straight 4/4 time -- and lyrics out of the rock experience. Says Chuck Haddix, curator of the Marr Sound Archives at UMKC and host of "Fish Fry" on weekends at KCUR, "It's really the old 'jump blues' style with the old R&B lineups like Jay McNeely used to use -- sax, trombone and trumpet in front of the rhythm section. There's the frantic pace of the music, the Cab Calloway clothes and so on." Haddix has seen a number of these swing bands as they pass through town. "I tell them I want to hear some Basie!" he says, but then he doesn't hear much of the swing they promise. Reflecting on a recent newspaper article in which the writer gushed that swing had finally come to Kansas City, Haddix says, "Finally come? Are they kidding? Swing came out of Kansas City in the 'thirties! The bands that swing now are the ones that understand the basic unity of the Kansas City rhythm section: piano, bass, drums and rhythm guitar." One of Kansas City's most prominent "new" swing bands has been developed by a young guy whose previous experience as a performer was fronting a rock band. Dave Stephens, 29, learned in the early 1990s that there was something better than rock. And he developed a taste for swing that led to the discoveries of the historic giants of jazz. "Somebody got me into Frank Sinatra," Stephens says, "and that led to Ella Fitzgerald and then to Louis Armstrong. That's what got me into the swing era." Stephens' timing was excellent. When the swing revival was getting underway on both coasts in the early-to-mid-1990s, Dave and guitarist Rod Fleeman noticed this emergence and thought it might be right to bring it to Kansas City. The Dave Stephens Swing Quartet was formed and has since grown into the Dave Stephens Swing Orchestra. Dave's youth included some musical training -- piano and guitar lessons, plus some time with the trumpet and French horn -- but his main function today is singing and leading the group. To his credit, Stephens has surrounded himself with some of Kansas City's leading jazz players. Russ Long is among the finest jazz pianists in town and he has had a major influence on the development of the Stephens group. ("Russ is the most underrated jazz musician in Kansas City," says Dave. "His knowledge of music is astounding. He's taken me under his wing; he's my mentor.") These days Russ Long alternates with pianist Walter Bryant in the Stephens Swing Orchestra. "Some people ask if I'm a marketing wizard to have been ready for the swing revival, but I had no idea it would grow into something so big. I just felt the music and got into it."-- Dave Stephens There are other excellent jazz musicians in the Stephens group. Sharing the duties on bass are Milt Abel and Bram Wijnands, Rod Fleeman provides the pulse on guitar, and Jurgen Welge is on drums. Wijnands and Welge arrived in Kansas City from Holland and Germany respectively in the early 1990s, and both have demonstrated an astonishing knowledge of the roots of jazz since coming to town. The regular horn players are Steve Patke on reeds, Jay Sollenberger (a veteran of the Kenton and Herman bands) on trumpet, and Marvin Hart on trombone. Bryant, Hart and Patke have worked together for years in the Red Onion Jazz Babies, the fine KC traditional band. To give you an idea of how strong the swing revival has become in Kansas City, Dave Stephens estimates that last year, the group had over 300 engagements. Five to seven gigs a week was, and is not unusual. "I'm very fortunate," he says. "Some people ask if I'm a marketing wizard to have been ready for the swing revival, but I had no idea it would grow into something so big. I just felt the music and got into it." Like the best swing bands of yore, the Dave Stephens Swing Orchestra tends to use mostly head arrangements. "We don't want to get so that everything is charted," Dave says. "We want to keep the jazz feel, to keep things interesting every night. We say to each other, 'Let's play it this way tonight and see what happens.'" The editor of JAM assigned this piece to me because he knows that I'm old enough to have caught the first wave of the great swing bands. And I did. I saw Basie at Municipal Auditorium when Jo Jones, Don Byas, Buck Clayton and Sweets Edison were on the band. I saw Tommy Dorsey when his band included Buddy Rich, Ziggy Elman and Frank Sinatra. I caught Glenn Miller just before he joined the Air Corps. I didn't know it at the time, but when I saw Earl Hines in 1942, Dizzy, 'Bird and Billy Eckstine were in the band. At a Kenton one-nighter in 1944, I saw Stan feature a young, unknown tenor man named Stan Getz. I caught Duke, Lunceford, Woody's first herd, Hamp, Krupa and many others at various midwestern venues in the 1940s. Forgive the name dropping, but it was a major part of my life. I was blessed. If there was one thing most of us jazz nuts realized back then -- even as youths -- it was this: there was swing, the noun, and then there was swing, the verb. Plenty of bands were playing a style of swing (noun), but there wasn't always that much swinging (verb). It was -- and is -- very hard for a big band to achieve that with consistency. (I also have to recall that even the greatest bands of 1935-1947 had to play mediocre ballads and dreadful novelties now and then just to please the public and pay the bills.) The best soloists might have swung our socks off every time, but for an entire sax or trumpet section to get that same swinging feel was breathtaking. Some of the great bands did swing mightily with the help of great soloists and an almost military discipline -- Benny Goodman's, for example. Paradoxically, the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands could swing better than most, but they did it with a joyous looseness that brought everybody together, including the audiences. When things were swinging on that level, there was nothing else in the world like it. There still isn't. And now here is the swing revival, or craze, or whatever we want to call it, of the 1990s. Here are the Gap and Buick commercials with swing soundtracks. Here are the young people dressing up in the vines that were so hip when I was a kid. What do I think of all this, you ask? Well, I could get up on my high horse and say that none of it swings like Basie did in 1940, or Woody in 1945. I could write the whole thing off. But that would be unfair, at least with regard to the groups today who are really trying to achieve a level of authentic swing. So, I say hats off to those fired-up groups who want to do more than just cash in on a trend, and who recognize what it means musically to swing. They are bringing vast segments of a younger generation closer to something that represents the very best of American culture. And that is jazz. "This swing is a little different from the swing we grew up with. There is less solo work and more ensemble playing. A lot of groups now are mostly derivative of Louis Jordan and Louis Prima in the 1940s." -- Vince Bilardo Others agree with me. "I think it's good," says Chuck Haddix. "Some of these bands are not my cup of tea, but the swing movement will bring a lot of young people into the real deal." Chuck even sees value in the tendency of many in the swing audience to dress up in neo-zoot fashions. "Here's a generation that has grown up through the grunge rock era. They want a style, and this appeals to them." Dave Stephens, however, understands that the current popularity of the swing revival probably won't sustain itself. "I think we're at a peak now," he says. "The wild commercial aspects of it will fade and the media attention is bound to decline. But the swing movement has broadened lots of musical horizons among young people, and I think there will always be a core of them who will stick with it. It's a very positive music, with lyrics full of good sentiments. It's a big step away from rock lyrics about sex, drinking and fighting." Some closing advice from a longtime fan of great jazz. Young musicians who want to get deeper into this new swing thing should begin by exploring the work of the people who made it great to begin with. Start with the Basie band of 1936 to 1940. Listen to Benny Goodman's small units and big bands from 1935 to 1942. Check out the small group recordings of Lionel Hampton from the same period. Soon you'll be ready for Ellington's 1940-1942 band. Also, listen to Charlie Barnet, the pre-success recordings of Louis Armstrong and Nat Cole, and the precision of Glenn Miller and Jimmy Lunceford. Those who can absorb the swing messages of those days may even get a modest edge on some of our older, more advanced jazzmen, many of whom have forgotten much of swing's real history. And one other thing. While you're listening to that early Count Basie, take note of Freddie Green's rhythm guitar, which added so much to everything Basie's band was doing. When amplified basses came along and sound systems improved, many bands dropped the guitar completely for economic reasons. But Basie kept Freddie. And isn't it interesting that while most of those other bands disappeared by 1950, Basie's band went on forever. So: long live the beat generated by the Kansas City-style rhythm section. It's the soul of the swing revival. And it's reason enough to say: Keep jumpin', you guys! RETURN TO FEBRUARY/MARCH 1999 MAIN INDEX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved. |
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