Some Words on the Subject of Swing Music.

One day, I hope to be able to swing dance. This is not merely because I am pretentious and want to be able to say that I swing dance, but largely because I've grown a huge fondness for swing music over the last few months. For the last while, whenever I've put together a Grooveshark playlist, it's usually been made up almost entirely of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and the like. 

Dorsey, on the trombone, Goodman, the clarinetist on the right.
Portrait by Al Hirschfeld.

There's a wonderful, unique, joy to Swing; playful, perhaps mischievous but never mean. When I was home in Lansing, I loved playing Tommy Dorsey while babysitting my niece. Something about watching a baby's toddle accompanied by "On The Sunny Side of The Street" just seems so right in the most amusing way. 

Benny Goodman, especially, has been getting my attention. Often referred to as "The King of Swing", Goodman is one of those musicians of whom I would've loved to have heard right when he started getting famous, just so I could've experienced and observed his work without the goggles of nostalgia; to listen to him before his name was in music-history books; to hear his version of "Sing Sing Sing (With A Swing)" and think "I've never hear anything like this!"

                                                       "Sing, Sing, Sing, (With A Swing)"

I really like thinking about how this was the wild party music of the '30s and '40s. This is the music that parents told their children not to listen to. Jazz is the devil's music after all! I like the thought of having wild parties while listening exclusively to Swing.  

Pants above the bellybutton: sign of a true party animal.

While being one of the most innovative of the Swing bandleaders, he was also one of the most demanding. Singer, Helen Forrest, said, "The twenty or so months I spent with Benny felt like twenty years." But he was also among the first bandleaders to make a mixed-race ensemble. The guy demanded hard work, but didn't care what it looked like at a time when many did. He broke a lot of boundaries in this area. 

Nostalgia and significance aside, I really enjoy listening to this stuff. Maybe one day I'll be able to swing dance and make full use of this music, but, in the meantime, I love the music. Play, play play, Benny.