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Archive 9

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(Text is adapted from “The Swing Book”):

“THE JUMP BLUES ERA”!!!!  Nellee says this is the best type of swing music!!

WHILE THE BIG BANDS WERE EFFECTIVELY OVER WITH THE END OF WWII, HOWEVER SWING WAS JUST EVOLVING AGAIN.  Driven by Count Basie’s fast-moving blues sound, a new musical form grew out of swing.  You could catch a glimpse  of it in 1942 when Illinois Jacquet honked and wailed his way through his sax solo on the Lionel Hampton tune “Flying Home.”  By the end of the forties, it even had its own name, JUMP BLUES, a powerful, hard-rockin’ mix of jazz arrangements and solos with the deep soul of the blues.  The saxes blasted and the horns keened like never before.  The singers shouted the lyrics, and a strong backbeat pushed the music.  And it was all firmly rooted in swing. 

Jump blues’ most famous artist Louis Jordan, sold millions of records after the war.  Jordan had been a saxophonist with Chick Webb.  The trumpeter Louis Prima wrote “Sing, Sing, Sing” for Benny Goodman.  And singer Wynonie Harris had performed for Luck Millinder’s swing band.  “Whether you are stompin’ or your’re jimpin’ or you’re swingin’ . . , your’re talking about the same type of beat, said Albert Murray in the documentary Bluesland.  But Jordan – whose smash hits included “Caldonia” and “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” –Led the way in paring down the size of the orchestras, finding a big sound with his small new sleek seven-piece combo.

Louis & His Jump Band

Louis Jordan was a decisive catalyst in creating both rock ‘n’ roll and R&B.  Promoters began to use the terms swing and rock fairly interchangeably to describe jump blues bands like Jordan’s.  As Claude Trenier, who sang with the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra explained:  “We went to the Blue Note in Chicago and the owner said what kind of music was that, and we said we’re just having fun.  It’s swinging.  But he put on the marqueee ‘The rock and roll’ Treniers.’  They just changed the name.”

Claude & Cliff Trenier – “The Trenier Twins”

Once the rock era exploded in the mind-1950’s, Jordan’s influence was still pervasive.  Rock legend Chuck Berry once said, “I identify myself with Louis Jordan more than any other artist.”  James Brown said, “He was everything.”  And while rocker Bill Haley never acknowledged Jordan’s influence on his music, Jordan himself claimed, “When Bill Haley came along in 1953, he was doing the same shuffle boogie I was.”

Bill Haley – “Rock Around The Clock!”

I’s clear that as much as Haley and Elvis were rocking, they were swinging, too.  As bandleader Bill Elliott put it, “What people forget is that all through the 1950’s, even though there was rock and roll, the dancing was still essentially swing dancing.”  Everyone knows now, how white musicians and record labels repackaged black R&B and created rock in the 1950’s.  But a line can be traced from rock back to $&B and then further back to swing.  And that’s exactly the path that today’s neoswingers took to find their musical roots.

ELVIS

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