[78-L] 1950s big bands

[Kristjan Saag]

Cary,
Your definition of a Big Band is, in fact, a nice definition of a Big Jazz 
Orchestra playing jazz music. But there were big bands in "the jazz era", 
with similar line-up as Ellington's or Henderson's, who rarely played jazz. 
You'll find them listed in Leo Walker's "Big Band Almanac", for instance, 
but not much about them in Rust's "Jazz Records": Art Kassell, Frankie 
Carle, Ray Noble etc.
Some people prefer to distinguish them from Big Bands, calling them Dance 
Bands. It may be convenient when you compile discographies. But there's no 
point identifying Artie Shaw & His Orchestra as a Big Band on side A 
(without strings) and as a Dance Orchestra on side B (with strings). Or the 
one when he plays swing music and the other when he plays sweet.
Of course I know that many of the recordings I listed were made by studio 
orchestras. And that they were MOR. But what are we trying to prove? That 
Big Band music got its form once and for all in the 1930's? Or that it 
changed with time?
Tex Beneke, Les Brown, Harry James, Benny Goodman and many other Big Bands 
recorded pop hits in the 1960's and 70's. "Honey", "Little Green Apples", 
"Aquarius" - you name them. That wasn't even MOR, it was in the ditch. Big 
Band music?
The truth is: it wasn't so much the Big Bands that died in the 1950's, it 
was jazz music as popular music. You won't find any jazz combos, other than 
the Dixieland units, in the charts either after 1954. Big Band music, be it 
dance music, sweet music, music played by studio orchestras, with or without 
strings, soundtracks or backings for Patience & Prudence (no, they managed 
themselves), survived longer than popular jazz, thanks to the arrangers and 
all the first class musicians from the classical Big Bands who soon made up 
the core of the studio orchestras.
Big Band Jazz has survived too, of course, but so has Calypso, Ragtime, Palm 
Court music, Oom-pah and other hitmaking styles and formats - for those who 
care. But we aren't many enough to affect the sales charts.
Kristjan



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cary Ginell" <soundthink at live.com>
To: <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 7:03 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] 1950s big bands


>
> That's precisely my point. The orchestras were no longer the attraction. 
> Popular mainstream music became personality-driven rather than 
> song-driven. Most of the top singers from the '50s - Sinatra, Doris Day, 
> Como, got their start as big band vocalists. Big bands became background 
> musicians. All the examples you cite below are what I classify as 
> instrumental groups, not big bands. None of those hits had vocals either. 
> You are confusing "big bands" with "studio orchestras." There's a major 
> difference between Benny Goodman in the '40s and Ray Conniff in the '60s. 
> The difference is string sections, which is what drove most orchestral 
> backing in the '50s and '60s. Only a few big bands of the '30s and '40s 
> used strings (Artie Shaw tried it, but it didn't always work). Nelson 
> Riddle, Percy Faith, Andre Kostelanetz, Hugo Winterhalter, Billy Vaughn - 
> that was the new MOR. But those weren't big bands. The big bands of the 
> '30s and '40s, which were diluted from the smaller, hotter band
> s of the late '20s and early '30s, were now diluted even further into what 
> became known as "easy listening."
>
>
>
> Cary Ginell
>
>> From: saag at telia.com
>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>> Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:47:49 +0100
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] 1950s big band (was Frosty)
>>
>> David Lennick wrote:
>>
>> > Nobody's saying they weren't popular, only that there were virtually no
>> > big
>> > band hit singles after 1954. And I think we've listed the two 
>> > exceptions.
>> --
>> There were more exceptions.
>> Art Mooney reached the no 6 spot in the US 1955 with "Honey-Babe"
>> Les Baxter no 2 in the US and no 10 in the UK 1955 with "Unchained 
>> Melody"
>> Les Baxter no 10 in the US in 1955 with "Wake The Town And Tell The 
>> People"
>> Perez Prado no 1 in the US and UK 1955 with "Cherry Pink And Apple 
>> Blossom
>> White"
>> Billy May no 9 in the UK 1956 with theme from "The Man With The Gold Arm"
>> Nelson Riddle no 1 in the US 1956 with "Lisbon Antigua"
>> Les Baxter no 1 the US 1956 with "The Poor People Of Paris"
>> Perez Prado no 2 in the US and no 8 in the UK 1958 with "Patricia"
>> Ted Heath no 3 in the UK 1958 with "Swingin' Shepherd Blues"
>> Reg Owen no 10 in the US 1959 with "Manhattan Spiritual"
>> Ray Anthony no 8 in the US 1959 with "Peter Gunn"
>>
>> And this was just Top 10.
>> True: most of these weren't jazz tunes, not even jazz arrangements, but 
>> who
>> said Big Bands always played jazz music?
>> Big Band arrangements though, were still commonplace on many, if not most
>> vocal hits of the 1950's. Who backed Jo Stafford, Frank Sinatra, Perry 
>> Como
>> and all the successful vocal quartets? It wasn't Bill Haley's Comets or 
>> The
>> Kingston Trio. Many of those hits would have been released under the
>> orchestra's name in the early 1940's.
>> Kristjan
>>
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