About 1930s bands
1930s bands are quite likely to have a lot
of the characteristics of the 1920s bands, but the music is
now starting to swing (as in America, and sounding much more
hip). Indeed the swing era is the 1930s and 1940s.
You can keep the slick back hair of the
1920s – think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In the 1930s
bands, crooners such as Bing Crosby and Al Bowley were becoming big
stars, not just vocalists with the dance bands.
Billie Holiday was breaking through with a
completely new vocal style and Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins were
leading the way with gorgeous seemingly effortless wistful sax
improvisations.
The idiosyncratic and lovely evocative
songs of Hoagy Carmichael , such as Stardust, Georgia On My Mind
and Skylark were penned in the 1930s.
Many of George and Ira Gershwin’s
most famous songs, and the tunes penned by Rodgers and
Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart, and Irving Berlin were written in the
1920s and 1930s.
These songs would be played over and
over again through the 1940s, 1950s and onwards – reworked,
reharmonised , re-arranged and used as the basis for millions of
improvisations and templates for future songwriters.
These would include songs such as:
- I Got Rhythm
- Puttin on the Ritz
- Cheek to Cheek
- Top Hat White Tie and Tails
- Lets Face The Music and Dance
- I’ve Got You Under My Skin
- I Get A Kick Out Of You
- Night And Day
- It Had To Be You
- The Lady Is A Tramp
- and Love For Sale.
1930s bands are indelibly associated with
‘The Golden Age of Hollywood’ through the 1930s and
1940s.
Of course many of the swing bands of the
1930s and 1940s would have upwards of 15 players in them , and
this size of swing band can be prohibitively expensive nowadays.
However you can get a great performance of swing
music with a small swing band of 5 or 6 players. A small swing
band can evoke the swing era with a line-up of piano, double bass, sax,
drums and trumpet , with great swing tempos, songs and melodies from
the 1930s performed by accomplished jazz musicians.
If you like the sound of 1930s music, read more about the Charleston Charlies, or click here to see our showcase.
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