On 05/04/2013, Tom Fine wrote:
>
> One area of debate in some circles is if tightly and precisely
> arranged Swing music is jazz music or more akin to dance-hall pop
> music with some jazz elements written into the arrangements. I lump it
> with jazz, but I can see both sides of the argument. I think strict
> classification of music genres is kind of like sorting baseball cards
> -- probably quite helpful to keep one person's shoebox of cards in an
> order that he can understand and appreciate, but probably of little
> use to anyone else.
>
It varies from song to song. Many dance bands included musicians who
liked to play jazz, and on some songs space was left in the arrangements
for improvised solos, while other songs were completely written out. But
if the arranger has a jazz background, the written out stuff sounds like
jazz.
There are many recordings where a vocalist sings fairly straight, and is
followed by an improvised solo with arranged backing. However,
collective improvisation is not possible in this setup.
And several bands had small groups who would play a couple of songs as a
jazz group to vary the evening's entertainment. They would also jam
together after hours. (Timeless have a good CD of "Glenn Miller's G.I.'s
in Paris" with Peanuts Hucko, Mel Powell, Django Reinhardt, etc playing
what is certainly jazz.)
So I don't think you can always classify a particular band as either a
popular dance band or a jazz band.
And is the key thing that makes it "jazz" improvisation, or the blues
feeling which is the most African element in jazz ? (There isn't much
blues in the ODJB.)
Regards
--
Don Cox
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