The END of the Swing Era?

NO not the Swing Era!

Possibly my favorite type of music after Emo and Pierce the Veil is Swing Music. Swing Music makes me feel truly happy inside. "Well, until the song is over at least" and can even be a sanctuary for me during bad times. But, the question I ask is why has the music stopped? "Party's over guys," a fellow blogger has written a very good response to my question. 

Thanks to JUstTheSwing"The swing era was killed by a number of factors, World War 2 being one of them. Although swing music was popular among the sailors and soldiers off at war, the war drafted many of the band members forcing the remainder of the band to hire unskilled performers. Glenn Miller broke up his band and joined the Army Air Corpse (which later split from the Army to become the Air Force) where Glenn Miller was lost. Fuel rationing also hurt swing bands - band tours became next to impossible.

Another factor can be blamed on the Musicians Union which went on strike on August 1, 1942. No agreement was made until September of 1943 when Decca Records made an agreement. Blue Note followed in November, and other record labels later that year. However, most swing bands were signed to Columbia and Victor Records. These two record labels would not settle until November 1944, a full 27 months; that's over 2 years in which no swing bands from these two labels were published.

However, singers were not part of the Musicians Union, and thus they were not on strike and could be recorded. The result of this was that singers became popular and the bands, particularly swing bands, diminished in status.

Additional factor was a cabaret tax in 1941 causing clubs to pay 30% of their ticket sales in taxes. This meant that bands that were hired by the clubs had to be smaller and cheaper, something swing bands - especially swing jazz big bands - could not easily adjusted to.

A new jazz sound, Bebop, began to grow in popularity as did the inexpensive rhythm & blues bands.

Finally, with the end of the what became known as World War 2 and of what became known as the Great Depression, people did not want to be reminded of either of them. Swing, which became popular during the depression and was so popular when the war started, became a reminder of those bad years. With the bad memories and the bad emotions that swing music brought back to mind, people simply stopped listening.

With that the Swing Era was dead.

Very soon, partner dancing in general would be dead, too. East coast swing, the dance that replaced Lindy Hop at the end of the Swing Era, as well as dances like the Waltz, Foxtrot, and others would die off when in the early 1960s, Chubby Checker's "The Twist" killed partner dancing."-JUstTheSwing

Thanks, that explains a lot.

Here's a list of my favorite Swing Music."Not in rated order"

  1. Sing, Sing, Sing - Benny Goodman & His Orchestra (1937)
  2. Take The A Train - Duke Ellington (1941)  
3. In The Mood - Glenn Miller Band (1939)  
4. God Bless The Child - Billie Holiday (1941)  
5. White Christmas - Bing Crosby (1942) 
 6. Begin The Beguine - Artie Shaw & His Orchestra (1938) 
 7. Stardust - Artie Shaw & His Orchestra (1940)  
8. Chattanooga Choo-Choo - Glenn Miller Band, w/Tex Benecke & The Modernaires (v) (1941) 
 9. I'll Never Smile Again - Tommy Dorsey Orchestra w/Frank Sinatra & the Pied Pipers (v) (1940)
10. Mack The Knife - Louis Armstrong (1955)
11. Bei Mir Bist Du Schon - The Andrews Sisters (1937)
12. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - The Andrews Sisters (1941)
13. String of Pearls - Glenn Miller Band (1942)
14. At The Woodchoppers Ball - Woody Herman Orchestra (1939, Decca/MCA)
15. The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me - Sidney Bechet & His Hot Six (1951)
16. Over The Rainbow - Judy Garland (1939)
17. T'Aint What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It) - Jimmie Lunceford Band (1939)
18. One O'Clock Jump - Count Basie Orchestra (1937)
19. Flying Home - Lionel Hampton Band (1942)
20. Blues In The Night - Woody Herman (v) w/His Orchestra (1941)

Thanks for reading,
Jared Smith