Henderson daily dispatch. (Henderson, N.C.) 1914-1995, 1936-07-16
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With a Swing" Music Fanatic, Aged
18:
@. What's all this 1 hear about you
people who are as crazy about Swing
music as Henry Ford is about "Tur-
key in the Straw?
A. Oh, we're much crazier than that
l belong to two swing clubs and sub
scribe to three swing maagzines, one
English, one American and one Ger
man. saved UP my allowance for
three months to buy one "Original
Dixieland Jazz Band Record" and
studied German for six months so
could read the German magazine.
Q. What is swing music, anyhow?
A. There ought to be an article in
the Encyclopedia Britannica on it and
there probably will be. But it's really
very simple. An orchestra that plays
hot lets the boys riff a tune; they
jam it, avoiding the corny stuff, and
then couple of them begin to give
and that starts the duel, after which
Q. Wait a minute! You're way a
head of me. You must remember 1
don't speak your language very we'll.
Let's take it gradually. Isn't swing
HHuSiC SlAAPly jazz MUSIC anu HOtnlnS
else? >
A. Absolutely not. Jazz can be hot
or sweet. Take Whiteman, or even
Gershwin. They played and composed
jazz, but never swing. Swing appeals
strictly to the red corpuscles. You
never know what is going to happen
next. If you scored a swing piece it
would cease to be swing.
Q. Then swing is where the mem
bers of the orchestra improvise as
they go along?
A. That's an unimaginative way of
putting it. Take Fats Waller, or Red
Nichols, or any one of a dozen of the
great geniuses of swing. They inn
provise-but they do it in such an in
spired manner that you feel they
sense the music four or five beats
ahead maybe as Columbus felt In
his bones land was lear.
@. Then you feel about swing music
almost as if it were a sort of cult
a religion, almost?
A. Oh, sure. l want to murder bands
that play the corny stuff.
Q. What do you mean, "corny''?
A. Oh, sweet and old-fashioned
stuff
Q. Then Beethoven was corny?
A. Yes, I should say he was pretty
corny, but maybe not at the time he
was writing Maybe at the time he
was writing his music he was the Bill
Handy of his day.
@. You said you subscribed to Ger
man and an English swing magazine.
Surely the best publications dealing
with this sort Of jazz are published
in America?
A. Oh, no, the Germans are more
enthusiastic than we are and the En-
glish are, too. There are five maya
zines published in Germany dealing
with nothing but swing. One of them
carries the picture of Duke Ellington
on the cover every month.
O. But it seems to me I heard this
sO-called swing music a long time ago.
J And you yourself admitted you had
saved up to buy recording of "The
| Original Dixieland Jazz Banda
! phenomenon of at least dozen years
back.
A. Oh, sure, They swung it from
| the beginning of jazz. But the real
swing is being played now It's less
| inhibited even than the jazz orches-
tras in the South of a dozen years
ago. And, of course, 1 collect the ear
ly platters the record companies put
out just as you might collect Early
Americana or Byzantine Art.
| @. What do you think will be the
next musical fad-after swing has
| had it's day?
| A. The next musical fad? Why, you
must be either illiterate or joking
Swing is no fad. 1t is the most dy-
manic thing in musical history, the
apex of all the striving of man thro-
ugh the ages to express his restless
Swing is the absolute top.