January 31, 2007

cover bands

Posted by dogpossum on January 31, 2007 10:19 PM in the category music

Ok, so this is some freaking amazing fan action. Check out this post from Solomon on the SwingDJs board:

(Posted by Solomon: Wed Jan 31, 2007 07:20)
Post subject: Seeking recommendations of pre-Swing big band recordings
I'm always writing new arrangements to expand the reportoire of my ten-piece orchestra, and right now I want to do so by regressing in time. Currently most of my book is stuff from the late 1930s to the mid 1960s, with a special emphasis on late 1950s (New Testament Basie etc.) I want to start doing a bunch of music from the period 1915-1935.

Therefore, I'm asking for recommendations ("requests", if you will) of recordings from that period that I should take a listen to! Here are my parameters. Because of the size of my band (three reeds, three brass, four rhythm), I'm going to focus on songs with great written arrangements rather than collective improvisation. In other words, I'm more interested in pre-Swing big band repertoire (or small-group repertoire with a minimum of group improvisation) than polyphonic New Orleans hot jazz. I'm also looking for instrumental music rather than vocals.

For example, here are some artists I'm thinking of (with examples of the sort of song I mean)

Duke Ellington (The Mooche, Saturday Night Function, Black Beauty, many others)
Benny Moten (Moten Swing)
Jimmie Lunceford (Flaming Reeds And Screaming Brass, White Heat, Stomp It Off)
Fletcher Henderson (King Porter Stomp, Sugar Foot Stomp)
Jelly Roll Morton (Deep Creek, New Orleans Bump)
Fats Waller (The Minor Drag)
King Oliver (Struggle Buggy)
Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra (Casa Loma Stomp, San Sue Strut)
Mound City Blue Blowers (Hello Lola!)
Reuben Reeves (Yellow Five)

By the way, I love vocal music, and I love New Orleans-style group improvisation. It's just that my band is not well-suited to playing that kind of stuff.

Oh, and also, I'd especially appreciate stuff that's between 120bpm and 220bpm... it seems much easier to come up with great stuff outside of that range, as you can see from my list above. But feel free to suggest songs at any tempo, as long as they were recorded before 1936.

Thanks in advance! I look forward to seeing what suggestions you guys can come up with.

Solomon

And when you read that in light of this interesting post on onlinefandom...

It's a bit late for me to be touching the computer (I have to have a mandatory 2 hour cool off period or else I'm up all night IMing buddies overseas, buying music on amazon and writing shit on international discussion boards), so I won't write anything more.
... but that's some really interesting shit. Especially when it was Solomon who transcribed the Keep Punchin' music for the Big Apple (he wasn't the only one, but his version is the better of his and JW's). Solomon is also a keen dancer and dance teacher as well as DJ and pianist. He's also a mathematician.

Posted by dogpossum on January 31, 2007 10:19 PM in the category music