My Swing Archives

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

the A to Z Swing Song List

Inspired by Veit Hailperin’s (aka Dr. Jazz) post “A Jazz Song Alphabet”, Christian Bossert (aka DJ CHRiSBE) created a wonderful series of Jazz Song Alphabet Lists by various Swing DJs on his superb site “Swing DJ Resources”. Even though I am not actually a DJ myself, he was sweet enough to host my own list as well: Jazz Song Alphabet Vol.4 Now you can also find my list on the blog of the originator of the Jazz Song Alphabet, Dr Jazz: A Jazz Song Alphabet by DJ Maria

Alreet - Gene Krupa & His Orchestra

Boo Woo - Harry James And The Boogie Woogie Trio

Charleston - Enoch Light & the Charleston City All Stars

Diga Diga Doo - Rex Stewart & the Ellingtonians

Everybody Loves My Baby - Glenn Miller & his Orchestra

Fractious Fingering - Fats Waller

Get Your Boots Laced, Papa - Woody Herman

Hotter than 'Ell - Fletcher Henderson & his Orchestra

I’d Love to Take Orders from you – Mildred Bailey

Just You, Just Me - Red Norvo & his Orchestra

Krazy Kapers - The Chocolate Dandies

Let's Misbehave - Irving Aaronson & his Commanders

My Woman - Al Bowlly with Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band

Nosey Joe - Bull Moose Jackson

Old Man Mose - Louis Armstrong

Perfidia - Benny Goodman with Helen Forrest

Queen Isabelle – Cab Calloway & his Orchestra

Ring 'Dem Bells - Duke Ellington & his Orchestra

Splanky - Count Basie & his Orchestra

That's A Plenty - Louisiana Rhythm Kings

Undecided - Chick Webb & his Orchestra feat. Ella Fitzgerald

Vol Vistu Gaily Star - Tommy Dorsey & Clambake 7

Who stole the lock - Jack Bland & his Rhythmakers

X Y Z - Earl "Fatha" Hines

You've Got Me Voodoo'd - Charlie Barnet & his Orchestra

Zig Zag - Casa Loma Orchestra

You can listen to my list on 8tracks: Swing Mix #30 [The Alphabet Mix] or simply press play on the 8tracks player on the right hand side of this blog. I hope you enjoy and that you get inspired to create your own list. It’s really fun!

I urge you to visit Christian’s site for more lists and more inspiration. I am sure you’ll also enjoy his series “DJ Chrisbe’s Song of the Week”. Also do check out Christian’s other site Shuffle Projects and if you are on Facebook you can follow him there: DJ CHRiSBE on Facebook.

Image: Swing Session with Jazz Band, 1920s © Bettmann/CORBIS [Stock Photo ID: BE003362]

Thursday, January 17, 2013

'Metropolis' - A future of the Past

In 1925, while F. Scott Fitzgerald was getting the now famous “The Great Gatsby” published in the States, in Europe, the wife of a German director was having visions of the future and the husband began shooting a very bizarre film. Two years later, in 1927, Charles Lindbergh was making his famous non-stop flight from the United States to Europe and Shorty Snowden was naming this crazy dance he had been doing, the “Lindy Hop”, after Lindbergh’s “Hop” over the Atlantic; in Europe, Fritz Lang was having his premiere.

The futuristic Metropolis, set in 2026, a future which is future even for us, opened in Berlin impressing the audience but leaving most critics of the time rather unimpressed. In Wikipedia, I read something quite interesting regarding the film’s reception. Apparently, Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was impressed by the film saying that "the political bourgeoisie is about to leave the stage of history. In its place advance the oppressed producers of the head and hand, the forces of Labor, to begin their historical mission."

Later in an interview, Lang, maybe because of the Nazi Party's fascination with the film, said that he was in fact dissatisfied with the result. In Lang’s own words: "The main thesis was Mrs. Von Harbou's [his wife's], but I am at least 50 percent responsible because I did it. I was not so politically minded in those days as I am now. You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale – definitely. But I was very interested in machines. Anyway, I didn't like the picture – thought it was silly and stupid…” (from an interview with Peter Bogdanovich in Who The Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors, published in 1998). His wife who had written the script “became a passionate member of the Nazi Party in 1933" and Lang divorced her the following year.

Regardless of the film's socio-political naiveté and questionable political messages, Metropolis is, still, one of the greatest examples of German Expressionism and one of the first futuristic, science-fiction films in film history which would influence many artists and film-makers to come. A small note: Metropolis is not a movie celebrating machines and technology since one of its major themes is the worker's enslavement by the machines and the film's villain is a female robot. Still, the film remains one of the most awe inspiring visualizations of the Machine Age!

The appearance of the city in Metropolis is strongly influenced by the Art Deco movement, and it was born "...one evening in October 1924...whilst [Lang was] gazing out at the flickering, neon-lit New York skyline from a vantage point on board the ship which had brought him and fellow UFA officials to America. That skyscraper-dominated skyline would come to define progress and the city of the future. Its adoption by Lang as a central motif for his film was indeed prophetic" (http://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/metroa.htm). Describing his first impressions of the city, Lang said that "the buildings seemed to be a vertical sail, scintillating and very light, a luxurious backdrop, suspended in the dark sky to dazzle, distract and hypnotize" (Wikipedia).

Lower Manhattan Skyline in the 1920s at Night © E.O. Hoppé/CORBIS

You can find everything you need to know about the film in this exceptional electronic archive: Metropolis Film Archive 2011. The posters & the still come from the same site.

DJ Fellow Hopper will be hosting a Metropolis inspired swing event

@ Floral on Saturday, January 26, 2013

taking us back to a time when the future could still inspire awe...

Art Deco vs. Art Nouveau

Alphonse Mucha, "Princezna Hyacinta", 1911

Personally, I’ve always been a huge fan of Art Nouveau, probably because I grew up in a house decorated with Alphonse Mucha posters [Mucha was the “father” of Art Nouveau]. I love the flowery, flowing, asymmetrical patterns in Art Nouveau architecture and design and how they try to blend in with the natural surroundings. I mean look at these examples!!

Casa Battló, restored by Gaudí, Barcelona

La Fermette Marbeau, Paris

[images: Tiffany Studios Double Poinsettia table lamp, blog.chasenantiques.com /

Hector Guimard furniture / Door by architect Emile André]

Chrysler Building © Bettmann/CORBIS

Art Nouveau, however, was a style popular from 1890 to 1910 and unfortunately it did not coincide with my favorite decade in fashion, which was the 1920’s and which was defined by another movement called Art Deco. During the 1920's, in the same way the flappers reacted to the austerity of the previous generation’s morals and fashion, so did Art Deco artists react to the flowery, ornamental, nature loving, romantic style of their predecessors. Art Deco was all about angles, symmetry and geometry; it celebrated machinery and technology; it used aluminum, stainless steel, chrome and plastic. One of the most famous Art Deco buildings and one that absolutely fascinates me is the Chrysler Building in New York, designed by architect William Van Alen. However, I cannot say that I am a big fan of Art Deco in general.

Art Deco was a movement in the decorative arts, design and architecture that originated in the 1920s in France and developed into a major style in western Europe and the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.

Deco emerged from the Interwar period when rapid industrialization was transforming culture, therefore it's not surprising that one of its major attributes was an embrace of technology. Deco drew inspiration from Machine Age and streamline technologies,such as modern aviation, electric lighting, radio, ocean liners and skyscrapers. Art Deco also came to represent luxury, glamour and exuberance, especially in the United States which were booming materially, if not spiritually...

Chrysler Building Entrance

Inspiration also came from abroad. During the 1920s, the ability for long-distance travel and the consequent encounter with foreign cultures, but also the popularity of archeology due to excavations in Pompeii and Troy and the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, influenced artists and designers who used motifs from other cultures than their own - ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Asia, Mesoamerica, and Oceania. Here are some fetching pieces of jewellery with evident influences...

[images: Pendant Brooch, Charlton 1925, Christie's / Egyptian revival comb, circa 1923 / No information / Aquamarine Pendant, 1930s 1stdibs.com]

Deco was also influenced by Cubism, Constructivism, Functionalism, Modernism, and Futurism, but while most of these design movements have political or philosophical beginnings or intentions, art deco was purely decorative.

Art Deco was a globally popular style and influenced many areas of design, including industrial design, interior design...

...fashion and jewelry...

[images: Erté / evening dress, 1928 from the Minnesota Historical Society]

...as well as the visual arts such as painting, graphic arts and film. Fritz Lang's Metropolis is one such example. You can read more about it in the post ‘Metropolis' – A Future of the Past.

"The austerities imposed by World War II caused Art Deco to decline in popularity." In the States, society had already entered an era of Great Depression after the stock market crash in 1929 and the Art Deco style "was perceived by many as inappropriately luxurious." No wonder...

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_deco

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/36505/Art-Deco

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/art-deco.html