The Swing Book by Degen Pener Read Free Book Online Page B

and, of course, Prima and Jordan became the guiding inspirations of the new scene. By contrast, at this point in the revival the more traditional big band leaders, such as Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and, pointedly, Glenn Miller, were not. Looking back, it’s easy to see why. For ears attuned to rock but yearning to get back in touch with America’s musical roots, jump blues was the natural entry point. “The late forties is the most entertaining period to me,” says Nichols. “It was like a crossroads where there are aspects of jazz and rock and rhythm and blues. It’s when there were still a lot of interesting chord changes but the beat started rocking too.”
    These revivalists, while searching for the roots of rock, found swing unexpectedly. And in the process they began to question whether the supposed great divide between the two genres is
     really as enormous as most of us have been taught, the idea that before rock came on the scene nothing else cool ever existed.
     They began to discover that not only did jazz have an influence on early rock but also swing music could be just as wild and
     energetic. Instead of focusing on the differences between swing and rock, they began to hear similarities and see progressions.
     To today’s ears, bands like Bill Haley and the Comets have begun to sound very swing. The distance between Lionel Hampton’s
     1946 hit “Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop” and Gene Vincent’s 1956 hit “Be-Bop-A-Lula” doesn’t really seem so far. “To me, swing encompasses
     band, jump blues, and the beginnings of rock and roll. The current term
swing
has become a convention for talking about retro dance music in general,” says Carmen Getit, vocalist and guitarist with Steve
     Lucky and the Rhumba Bums.
    Intriguingly, the rockabilly revival of the late seventies and eighties had taken modern musicians back to the sound of the
     fifties and tantalizingly close to the brink of jump blues. Inspired by such rebellious rockin’ fifties singers as Jerry Lee
     Lewis, Gene Vincent, and Eddie Cochran, early eighties bands like the Blasters and Brian Setzer’s Stray Cats made hits of
     such songs as Little Richard’s “Keep A-Knockin’” and “Rock This Town,” respectively. The rockabilly rebirth helped bring back
     partner dancing too. “That’s when kids started couples dancing. They were doing the jitterbug, which is like a fifties mishmash.
     I called it sling dancing. It was just grab your girl and spin her around,” says Reed.
    By the late eighties and on into the early nineties, the rockabilly scene in Los Angeles had become a vibrant “roots” music
     movement. Centered around such clubs as the King King and the Palomino, the roots scene included musicians looking back toward
     traditional country, western swing, and even Louis Jordan. “It was a great crossroads moment. It was very diverse,” says Royal
     Crown Revue guitarist James Achor, who recalls going to performances by Chris Isaak, Dwight Yoakum, the rockabilly and Western
     swing band Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys, and a ska-type band fronted by Joey Altruda. “They were the first band I really
     saw do a Jordan song,” says Achor. Exploring the musical past was suddenly hip. “Once kids started getting into vintage Americana,”
     says Nichols, “there was more of a tendency to enjoy other styles like swing and rhythm and blues.”
    From all this inspirational ferment, Royal Crown Revue—which officially formed in 1989—created a sound they call “hard-boiled
     swing,” or “gangster bop.” The Stern brothers and Achor brought their punk attitude to the music. Nichols brought in his experiences
     in both punk and rockabilly, while the band’s saxophonist, Mando Dorame, had grown up listening to the doo-wop and blues albums
     of his sax-playing father. They tracked down and met Sam Butera, Prima’s colorful saxophonist and arranger. The band members
     were all watching old film noir movies and reading gangster