Big Band & Swing

The Big Band Era ended in 1946, but the music still lives on. Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, Artie Shaw and Harry James are still household names.

Although the first swing band was probably Fletcher Henderson's in 1924 at the time that Louis Armstrong joined, changing it from a dance orchestra to a jazz band, the Swing Era officially began in 1935. Benny Goodman's orchestra was a sensation at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles and soon there were many new big bands based on Goodman's. The best orchestras quickly developed their own personalities, featured fine jazz soloists and singers and pleased dancers with a steady tempo and a colorful repertoire.

The Swing Era lasted for a decade despite World War II and a musician's recording strike. But by 1946, big bands were breaking up every week. Competition from Dixieland, bebop, rhythm & blues and pop vocalists; musicians no longer willing to work at Depression Era wages and a tax on dance halls finished off the big bands. And most of the orchestras that somehow made it to the end of the 1940s were killed off by the rise of television. But the legacy of the Swing Era lives on in the recordings, songs and memories.

The two volumes called The Kings of Swing give today's listeners a sampling of the great bands. Mostly dating from the 1940s with a few selections (most notably that of Duke Ellington) from the 1950s, these CDs contain plenty of joyous sounds.

The first volume contains fine performances by Glenn Miller (including an extended version of "Tuxedo Junction"), Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Woody Herman,...more details