Electro-Swing or: How I Learned to Stop Complaining and Love Modernity

[Shangas]

I've heard a lot of these "jazz-fusion" thingies. Like 'jazz-rap' (what the HELL is that anyway?). To me, nothing will beat the sound of the real thing. The sound of music that was written, performed and recorded back in the 20s, 30s and 40s, before an age of synthisizers, electronics and computers, when only the best of the best of the best musicians ever made it anywhere beyond the piano in their grandmother's front parlour. These days, anyone who can pluck a guitar-string and has a web-cam thinks they're an artist...

Just because it gets a lot of views on YouTube doesn't necessarily mean it's good. That Rebecca Black song "Friday" got millions of views. But only because people couldn't believe how bad it was.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I've heard a lot of these "jazz-fusion" thingies. Like 'jazz-rap' (what the HELL is that anyway?). To me, nothing will beat the sound of the real thing. The sound of music that was written, performed and recorded back in the 20s, 30s and 40s, before an age of synthisizers, electronics and computers, when only the best of the best of the best musicians ever made it anywhere beyond the piano in their grandmother's front parlour. These days, anyone who can pluck a guitar-string and has a web-cam thinks they're an artist...

Just because it gets a lot of views on YouTube doesn't necessarily mean it's good. That Rebecca Black song "Friday" got millions of views. But only because people couldn't believe how bad it was.

Rebecca Black -- Friday
168,000 likes, 640,000 dislikes :rofl:

Is it just me or does it seem that most song lyrics today do not even rhyme??? And once again I had to switch to Smith Ballew after listening to Friday.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Rhyming's for squares, man.

 

[vitanola]

"that smooth-as-whiskey, ultra-sexy roaring twenties sound..."

No.

THIS is the "Roaring Twenties Sound":

[video=youtube_share;TjzhuXvDvfI]http://youtu.be/TjzhuXvDvfI[/video]

Or this:

[video=youtube_share;Iowt2DMPiQE]http://youtu.be/Iowt2DMPiQE[/video]

Or perhaps this:

[video=youtube_share;XHVb8L-JZFQ]http://youtu.be/XHVb8L-JZFQ[/video]

The stuff that you posted in indeed interesting, and it will hopefully introduce youngsters to the concept that dance music does not inevitably include electric guitars, which would be all to the good.

The insistent, pounding beat evident in many of the electro-swing sides which you posted may be found primarily in some 1930's swing records, most notably the first (1930) version og the "Casa Loma Stomp" which was originally a dance number, not the high-speed "Barn Burner" that it later became.

[video=youtube_share;HdQ-G-zYM2g]http://youtu.be/HdQ-G-zYM2g[/video]

Note the insistent, pounding rhythm, almost metronomic, similar to much modern dance music, but note too the building excitement in the final choruses. Without any increase in tempo, the repeated, building call-and-response choruses in this Gene Gifford chart build to a climax which usually sends the dancers bouncing off the walls. Modern dance music does not often include this sort of emotional release, the build of tension and its eventual release being left in the hands of the disc jockey.

 

[mummyjohn]

...the repeated, building call-and-response choruses in this Gene Gifford chart build to a climax which usually sends the dancers bouncing off the walls. Modern dance music does not often include this sort of emotional release, the build of tension and its eventual release being left in the hands of the disc jockey.

I will definitely agree with you on that, it's a complaint of mine as well. But that's the thing I love about this world: there's enough music in it to choose a lifetime's worth of what you like. I'd rather live in a reality where we can be musical gluttons than one where we starve from lack of it.

 

[Lafayette]

mummyjohn,

I usually lurk on The Fedora Lounge but thought I’d drop in to say a ‘thank you’ that is long overdue.

Some Fedora Loungers are vintage inspired and some tend to be a bit more into vintage as a complete way of life. I understand the majority of the latter Loungers will look down upon electro-swing for its lack of authenticity. I wouldn’t expect a genre such as electro-swing to be welcome with open arms by many Loungers.

I was looking for music that would be a reflection of my personality as well as inspiration for my lifestyle. In other words, a sonic feedback loop. I want the music I listen to to be the soundtrack for my lifestyle.

You gave me what I was looking for.

Your post inspired me to check out (via YouTube) Parov Stelar and Caravan Palace.

I’ve had one of Parov Stelar’s album playing constantly around the house for my evenings’ ‘getting ready to go out’ soundtrack. It’s also perfect for inviting people over for drinks in the evening.

Classic music (non-electro manipulated, e.g. Django) still plays during the day but now I have electro swing as my go-to modern swing soundtrack.

You have literally given me the soundtrack for my life (well, my nightlife anyway!).

Now, if I could find a literary equivalent of F. Scott Fitzgerald for the 21st century. Alas, that’ll need its own thread.

 

[mummyjohn]

I’ve had one of Parov Stelar’s album playing constantly around the house for my evenings’ ‘getting ready to go out’ soundtrack. It’s also perfect for inviting people over for drinks in the evening.

Classic music (non-electro manipulated, e.g. Django) still plays during the day but now I have electro swing as my go-to modern swing soundtrack.

You have literally given me the soundtrack for my life (well, my nightlife anyway!).

This is almost exactly what happened to me. One Friday, a friend walked in and said "stop whatever you're doing, you have to check this out." And the rest was history. I was hooked from the word go. A soundtrack to suit me, couldn't have phrased it better myself. I'm so glad to have helped someone else realize the same satisfaction from this music as I have.

 

[mummyjohn]

Of course it's hard to be familiar with pop music and not be familiar with Bei Mir Bist Du Schön, so I had to include this interesting, quieter, downtempo take on it. The thread's been rather Parov Stelar heavy (nothing wrong with that though), so I wanted to introduce a little variety. This is one of Waldeck's tracks; they are more "sit around and listen" than "my muscles refuse to do anything but dance" as the others typically are.

[video=youtube;rAi2CbVQIqw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAi2CbVQIqw[/video]

And here's Memories for free:

[video=youtube;Z4hVCvab9X8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4hVCvab9X8[/video]

 

[LolitaHaze]

This electro-swing is great! It's a perfect way to entertain my non vintage friends as well as my vintage friends at the same party. It's also a great way to slyly introduce vintage style music to those who think all old music is bad music.

 

[MikeBravo]

I have to admit to having a hard time finding the "swing" in a couple of those numbers. For me it seems a little lost underneath.

Though I quite like how modern musicians keep the spirit of jazz alive. The reason jazz has lasted so long is due to improvisation (otherwise we'd still be listening to tuba and banjo, not that there's anything wrong with that). Adding electronic components to it is just that, improvisation.

More to my taste is where musicians add layers of electronic and sampling to existing music. For example I love the Verve Remix series.

There is also a Serbian group, Gramaphonedzie, who have done similar work with Peggy Lee: [video=youtube;xucCdxnAQsY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xucCdxnAQsY[/video]


And then there's UK group Belleruche who have done the same with Django: [video=youtube;Lq9m2QT0R6M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq9m2QT0R6M[/video]

 

[mummyjohn]

Gramophonedzie is frequently cited up there as an originator to the style, even "proto electro-swing" if you will. The whole popularity that it's now getting wouldn't be there if it hadn't been for the Nu-Jazz movement. All very good stuff.

I'd unwittingly stumbled across several of the Verve Remixes long before knowing what they were (and long before being a member here), such as the deep vocals and gentle phasing in California Soul (Marlena Shaw) from the fourth album (it was used in a television advert a few years ago but I cannot remember which) and the endless classic Summertime (Sarah Vaughan in this version).

 

[VintageBaroness]

I LOVE Electroswing. Good news for those in LA, a new club has opened up. Here's their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/electroswingclubhollywood?ref=ts&fref=ts. As an aside, it's interesting how many of our reactions against electroswing as a loud and new fangled music genre probably ironically echoes the responses some had to "jazz" and "jitterbugging'" music when they first gained traction in the 20s, 30s, and 40s!!

 

[VintageBaroness]

Know what I love even more than electroswing? Electroswing mashed up with vintage film! This one is genius, IMHO!

[video=youtube_share;bq9DyAJpuKk]http://youtu.be/bq9DyAJpuKk[/video]

At certain moments, I SWEAR I see moves done by Laurel and Hardy that performers like M.C. Hammer and others brought to the dance floors in the 80s!!

 

[VintageBaroness]

[video=youtube_share;Eco4z98nIQY]http://youtu.be/Eco4z98nIQY[/video]

Another brilliant electroswing mash-up. I defy you not to dance!

 

[VintageBaroness]

[video=youtube_share;gHCgp-jA8SY]http://youtu.be/gHCgp-jA8SY[/video]
This band is pretty swingin'!

 

[vitanola]

I LOVE Electroswing. Good news for those in LA, a new club has opened up. Here's their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/electroswingclubhollywood?ref=ts&fref=ts. As an aside, it's interesting how many of our reactions against electroswing as a loud and new fangled music genre probably ironically echoes the responses some had to "jazz" and "jitterbugging'" music when they first gained traction in the 20s, 30s, and 40s!!

You make a point, but not a very strong one, I fear.

Posting this electronic stuff here is akin to reviewing "Ulysses" in "The Christian Century", or substituting a copy of "Livery Stable Blues"
[video=youtube_share;5WojNaU4-kI]http://youtu.be/5WojNaU4-kI[/video]
for a copy of "Congratulations, Waltz Hesitation"
[video=youtube_share;X9f0N47aBSk]http://youtu.be/X9f0N47aBSk[/video]
in a record buyer's order.


What, exactly is the point? Why not post this tuff on a forum for electronic music enthusiasts?

The imagery is loosely (very loosely based upon "vintage" themes, perhaps, but the music is just a re-hashing of the thumpus uninterruptus which has passed for dance music lo these past thirty-five years.

Sort of an Electro-House with added fantasies of chandeliers, ties, gowns and hats.







Lovely.

 

[VintageBaroness]

Electroswing is interpreted in various different ways, depending on the band and the song. Some are more electro- and some are more 'swing.' Caravan Swing, which I've linked to below, includes some great Django Reinhardt 'gyspy' jazz samples and so forth. While musical purists may not love this genre, it is definitely appealing to many of those in the swing dance scene, both in places like LA and Paris, but here in Canada, too. As is evident both in terms of sound and in terms of accompanying videos, in my opinion, it is not trying to re-enact past sounds or styles in a straight-forward or unironic way. It is a kind of post-modern pastiche, which is pretty much an accurate reflection of the way I, as a woman living in 2012, experience my passion for the 1930s in relation to my everyday digitized life. As an aside, I still stand behind my idea that some of the rebellion against this style echoes similar responses people had to kids doing the "Charleston" or other 'manic' dances to 'wild and fast' music. You 'get' and 'feel' it or you don't, and that's OK!

As for the above comment about the inappropriateness of "posting electromusic HERE." With all due respect, where is HERE? In a thread dedicated to Electro-swing? Is this not exactly where one would be posting about it? If you allow for the idea that FL does have room for threads like this, then, perhaps YOUR videos of phonographs spinning scratchy old records are best posted in threads for musical purists LOL!!!

Seriously, though, if you mean The Fedora Lounge, then I am sorry you feel that vintage-inspired things do not have a place here. I love the past (I'm a vintage clothing wearer and seller, and I have a Ph D in Victorian Literature, History, and Culture), but am also a 21st century woman who is open to discussing, exploring, and enjoying various ways in which people of the present have revisited, re-viewed, and re-imagined various elements of the past. IN reality, that is all any of us who were not alive during the Golden Age can ever do anyway. Our access to the past is always mediated by/through our own present (not to mention our own false nostalgia). What is evident from your Ulysses analogy is that you like your historical music straight up for listening and dancing. Anything other than the original sound on a record on an early device will do. I do, too, SOMETIMES, but I also like to be a part of the zeitgeist of my own historical-cultural moment now and then, and for me, electro-swing is part of that sporadic enjoyment. Now, then, who wants to see a Robot Charleston?

[video=youtube_share;1RaKSRU60bw]http://youtu.be/1RaKSRU60bw[/video]

My last thought: disliking Electro-swing because it is not straight up swing is like hating the movie The Artist because it is not Wings or some other early silent film. Apples and oranges, in a way?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Indeed, apples and oranges. I've stayed out of this thread because it's nothing that particularly interests me, but I've allowed it here because there is at least a tenuous connection to some aspect of the Era. Those of us who don't care for this type of stuff should just leave the thread alone, and let the people who do enjoy it have their conversation. (A lot of us here want as little to do with the Contemporary Zeitgeist as possible, so you can understand there might be some strong views -- that's why it's best for the two sides to just leave each other alone. Nobody's going to change anyone else's mind.) The Bartender Has Spoken.

 

[VintageBaroness]

Indeed, apples and oranges. I've stayed out of this thread because it's nothing that particularly interests me, but I've allowed it here because there is at least a tenuous connection to some aspect of the Era. Those of us who don't care for this type of stuff should just leave the thread alone, and let the people who do enjoy it have their conversation. (A lot of us here want as little to do with the Contemporary Zeitgeist as possible, so you can understand there might be some strong views -- that's why it's best for the two sides to just leave each other alone. Nobody's going to change anyone else's mind.) The Bartender Has Spoken.

Thanks for this! I'm sort of on both sides in a way. I enjoy straight up vintage music and happily discuss it in relevant threads, and I also enjoy Electro-swing in certain moods. The same is with vintage vs. vintage-inspired fashion. I appreciate that FL concedes room for inclusion of discussions of both!

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

:spy:I will go to an electro swing party tonight. Will report if there are technoheads on pills, mindless slackers, lindy hoppers or other people. I try to avoid having fun but I can't promise.:whistle: