© Michael J. Kramer

Warning: These slides are intended for student reference only. Distributing these slides to others, whether on campus or off, is a violation of Northwestern University’s Academic Integrity Policy.

Subject to removal if lecture attendance declines. Swingin’ the Machine: Swing and the 1930s A Night in Tunisia: Bebop in the 1940s

Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra, “Wrappin’ It Up” (1934) Reminder: Assignment #1 Due Monday, 2/3, midnight. ! Upload to NUCanvas website: https://northwestern.instructure.com/ courses/236/assignments/2154

No class on Tuesday…intermission. a little video…

from Jazz, dir. Ken Burns Episode 6: Swing - The Velocity of Celebration How Swing Became a Thing… starts as a verb or adjective a certain quality of rhythm derived from African-American aesthetics “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” - Duke Ellington, 1931 how did it become a noun? a genre of music, a particular sound -the consolidation of music business -dancing across the color line (but not erasing it) -responding to Great Depression, industrialization -the consolidation of music business Record sales: 1921 $106 million 1933 $6 million 90% decline Great Depression

Consolidation and struggle Emergence of systematized, rationalized national network (for local, embodied fun, joy, pleasure) Clubs - Radio - Jukeboxes - Recordings - Advertising - Films Booking agency: MCA - Music Corporation of America aka “Star-Spangled Octopus” Swing as “a thing”

By 1940, music marketed as “Swing” = 80% of US popular music sales

Saved pop music industry

One genre blurs with all popular music (later with rock): tension between “sweet” + “hot” bands

“The Sentimental Gentleman” Tommy Dorsey Artie Shaw Jimmie Lunceford The “Big Band”

Glenn Miller Orchestra, late 1930s

assembly line music? does the collective trumps the individual voice? Routinization of music but also… but also the sound of collective action in an industrial age? Labor activism, 1930s: AFL to CIO -dancing across the color line (but not erasing it) Poor Chicago boy Jewish immigrant

“King of Swing”

“Taking a Chance on Love” (1940) n.b. arranged by Fletcher Henderson singer Helen Forrest Benny Goodman b. 1909 d. 1986 b 1918 d. 1999 Big bands and small combos… Benny Goodman’s integrated trio/quartet

Lionel Hampton Teddy Wilson Gene Krupa b. 1908 d. 2002 b. 1912 d. 1986 b. 1909 d. 1973 Count Basie b. 1904 d. 1984 “Stomp” “Territory Band” New compositional mode: the “head” and “riffs” New rhythmic feel of swing: “walking the bass” steady 4/4 (“four on the floor”) rhythm “One O’Clock Jump” (1937) margins to center (record producer John Hammond, key mediator): Stomp out-swings Swing -responding to Great Depression, industrialization

“The Negroes of the United States have breathed into jazz the song, the rhythm and the sound of machines.” - Le Corbusier (French modernist architect), “The Spirit of the Machine and Negroes in the USA,” 1935 “Our power to go beyond the machine rests upon the power to assimilate the machine.” - Lewis Mumford (American cultural critic), 1934 “Velocity of celebration” - Albert Murray, novelist and essayist

an “aesthetics of acceleration” - Joel Dinerstein, historian A Night in Tunisia: Bebop in the 1940s

<< Miles Davis b. 1926 d. 1991

Charlie Parker b. 1920 d. 1955 Dizzy Gillespie b. 1917 d. 1993 Bebop

1940s: traumas and triumphs of World War II “Double V” campaign: hypocrisy of fighting racialized fascism abroad with a racially segregated army and Jim Crow

The resurgence of the individual rebel, outlaw against the system, routinization, conformity, standardization?

but…

within traditions: being an individual within/against the collective Parker, for instance, came out of territory bands in KC Earl Hines Orchestra

^Gillespie Parker^ recall: Hines was pianist on Armstrong’s “West End Blues” Unlike Cab Calloway, liked Gillespie’s “Chinese music” sounds "People talk about the Hines band being 'the incubator of bop' and the leading exponents of that music ended up in the Hines band. But people also have the erroneous impression that the music was new. It was not. The music evolved from what went before. It was the same basic music. The difference was in how you got from here to here to here ... naturally each age has got its own shit” - Dizzy Gillespie Coleman Hawkins (b. 1904 d. 1969) & Charlie Parker

Swing and Bebop across the color line

Zoot suit riots, Los Angeles, 1943 Zoot suit as bebop in dress style perhaps? Multi-ethnic youth movement: oppositional cultural, weird, challenging, Noir-ish …as a “subcultural” politics in WWII America “Latin Jazz”

Mario Bauza b. 1911 d. 1993

Xavier Cugat b. 1900 d. 1990

Chano Pozo b. 1915 d. 1948

Machito (Frank Grillo) b. 1908? d. 1984 Dizzy Gillespie, on the creation of “Manteca” (1947) with Machito and Chano Pozo © Michael J. Kramer

Warning: These slides are intended for student reference only. Distributing these slides to others, whether on campus or off, is a violation of Northwestern University’s Academic Integrity Policy.

Subject to removal if lecture attendance declines.