In addition to his music, Duke Ellington is known for his snappy quotes about jazz. One of his song titles is "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" is probably quoted more often than it's listened to. (Which is too bad, because it's a good piece of music.) My favorite quote of all: "To keep a band together, you simply need a gimmick. The gimmick I use is to pay them money." Something to keep in mind as we explore the commercialization of music.
Today we'll listen to several different swing - and pop - musicians mentioned in Vera Lee's "Black and White of American Popular Music" and see if we agree - or disagree - with Ellington when he said, "It's all music.
The first is "Tin Pan Alley." It was named for a neighborhood in New York City where sheet-music publishers churned out pop music hits from the 1930s to the 1950s when 45rpm records and rock singers revolutionized the industry. Most of it was shlock, but that's true of any commercial product. And some of it was quite good. Which is also true of commercial products, if you think about it. One of the most popular for many years was Irving Berlin. We'll watch a tribute from the 1982 Oscars:
Vera Lee singles out Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians as a white band that played "sweet" swing music for dancers. Their stuff was sometimes called "potted palm music" because it so often featured bands playing for dances in old-fashioned hotel ballrooms decorated with potted palm trees. Here Guy's brother Carmen, who wrote a lot of their songs, on "Little Coquette" in the 50s. Note the ballroom dancers at the beginning of the clip.
Not all swing was shlock. Clarinet player and band leader Benny Goodman was known as the "King of Swing." His 1938 Carnegie Hall concert was legendary, and his was one of the first racially integrated bands. We'll see him perform a song called "Minnie's in the Money" about a World War II defense plant worker. [The YouTube title says it's ca. 1941, but it was clearly shot in the middle of the war. I'd guess 1943 at the earliest.] The jitterbug or "lindy," shown here, was the most popular dance from the 1920s into the 1950s.
We'll watch "Model of Leadership," a short (5:51-minute) documentary on Duke Ellington. Apparently directed and produced by Richard Moore and Ralph Gleason, who did a lot of jazz programs for KQED-TV San Francisco in the 1960s, it's on British saxaphonist and composer John Harle's website:
And this clip from a movie of Duke Ellington and other artists on "C Jam Blues" (1942). The movie, a three-minute R.C.M. Productions short, was produced by Sam Coslow and directed by Josef Byrne about the same time. It attempts to recreate a Harlem jam session.
A couple of performances :
A couple of other clips so we can hear more:
"It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (movie, 1943)
"Take the A Train" (in concert in Berlin, 1969)
9 comments:
Duke Ellingtons music souds swing, very upbeat, but simple, talking about how things dont mean a thing. It also sounded smooth
i don't car much for bigband music. it sounds hokey to me. it doesn't make me wanna dance. it just makes me wanna leave the room.
I really enjoyed the instruments in Duke Ellington’s songs. They were very upbeat and made me tap my foot while I was listening. They also seemed to respond to the singer letting him sing a little bit then really picking up the tempo. The piano player in the second video was pretty good. He played quick short notes at a very rapid pace. The lyrics through out both videos were virtually nonexistent with the instruments taking up most of the video.
Up- Beat, almost has the same rhythm as all the rest but different in a way (hard to explain) Put lots of emotion into the piece. There is constant change in the songs, almost keeps the listener on edge sure it may repeat but they throw in little changes here and there. There's so many different instruments to listen to that are playing at the same time.
The music we have listened to is extremely instrumental and it was interesting to find out that black persons voices were dubbed during this time period which is probably the reason why this music is so instrumental. It makes one want to tap their foot and slap their knee. The music is believable soulful. I love this type of music because I do not think it is possible for anyone not to smile and dance while listening to this. It is popular music, art, and a hint of jazz blended together. As I have stated in the past I especially love it because I played the sax as well as piano.
Duke Ellington's approach to music is timeless. The way he just let music flow is amazing. I saw a lot of improv in his presentation. He laid the ground work for modern jazz, as we know it today.
In the early 1900's many of the vocals in all Black cast movies had been dubbed over by other artist thus not allowing the African Americans to do their own singing . Television producers did not feel they had the proper voice training and that the audience would not want to hear their natuaral sounding voices although many of they were proffesional singing with huge music careers and because they wanted to work they did what was asked of them.
If you listen carefully to the piano playing of Duke Ellington you hear that his playing is much different than the playing of his that was in the movie. Much of his music's voice was put in by the instrumetal and much of jazz is just that instrumental. Voices were added in the most part for crossover.
1)Overall, the types of music we heard today. I especially liked Duke Ellington's music the best it was up beat, and seemed to be more "real" and "natural." It seemed like he was playing from the soul, and he really meant what was playing, their was a certain vulnerability to his music.
2)The other type of music seemed to be commercialized that is why I didn't like the other music that was played today.
Duke Ellington's music to me was very upbeat, and very swing. I didn't care for the music to much, but I did enjoy it much more than folk music. The band really stood out to me. The song wasn't all about the vocals, but more about the instruments. I enjoyed the second song of Duke Ellington's much more than the
first one, I thought the second song was performed much better.
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