Every time I hear "Penny Lane" lately,

[firby]

It's nice to see a thread about swing. I assumed it was about the beatles and I tuned out.

I am a jazz drummer. Not only am I into swing, but I am into some of the more esoteric forms of it. I have spent a good amount of my life getting my swing on.

Swing needen't be jazz. Swing is basically a style/religion of playing that revolves around musical events in time.

My favorite analogy is this:

Swinging is like that lumber jack sport of log rolling. Somebody is running on a log suspended in water. So, their feet are not always right on top of the log. Sometimes they are leaning forward and their feet are on the front of the rolling log, sometimes their feet are on the back of the log and the are leaning backward. Still, they don't fall down ... until they do.

If you really dissect a piece of heavy swinging music, you will find a lot of the same relationships. You will have a bassist (hopefully a schooled up upright bassist) and a drummer (to start). Just within the drums the swing already starts to happen. Elvin Jones for example playing a mid tempo piece like equinox, if you take that piece apart you will hear, the 2s and 4s of his playing are dead on. The 'ands' and the 1s and 3s are slightly late. So, if you played a triplet pulse on a snare drum those ands and 1s and 3s will flam. That is part of a deep brother swing and it is a thing of beauty.

Likewise, the bass player will occupy his own spot in the time, in the relation to the beat which is not a fixed point in time but rather a round spot in time. Sometimes you will listen to a piece of great jazz and the ride cymbal will be swinging it's own way and consistently late or early through the whole piece.

3rdly. Jazz came from horns. This means that the phrases used in jazz can get about as long as you can hold your breath and/or manage two breathe phrases (Miles Davis) Did I spell breath right somewhere in this post ?

So you have:

Music that is not on a grid, not even a triplet grid in many cases. Still generally in time though.

You have musicians that are not playing consistently right on top of the beat together but rather seeing the beat as a circular piece of time to share the responsibilty of time.

(sidebar) Jazz musicians get pissed off when musicians can't keep their own time within the FORM of the piece. This separates these musicians from rockers who completely rely on the drummer and the bassist for the time and thus are ... wankers. If somebody can't swing everyone has to play more square because the whole band will drag or speed up and that is just @#@)(*#$)! !!!!

Ok back to the point of #3.

You have a tradition of playing that comes and borrows largely from horns which implies that the phrases are going to sound more duke ellington and less yngwie malmsteen because those players have to breathe.

That said, there are many great musicians that can swing. As far as jazz musicians go they come from colleges. Colleges/conservatorys are where most of your jazzers come from now, and the culture has changed abit. Less heroin/perhaps less weed ? More of a academic culture, less of a weary street vibe perhaps ? Those cats coming out now will all blaze to a click and swing like a mother to a click, that is part of the schooling nowadays at your berklees and your GITs and that type of thing.

One more point to chris garges. A tune in 6 is still not a tune in three, especially a polyrhythmic tune like footsteps which really feels like a big 2. I would not argue the point with you and neither will alot of players but there is a distinction. Footprints is not a waltz which is 99.99999% what a song in three is.

Peace.

[cgarges]

I am a jazz drummer.

So am I. I am also a rock drummer. And a folk drummer and a metal drummer, etc. I make my living playing all different kinds of music. My degree happens to be in jazz.

Elvin Jones for example playing a mid tempo piece like equinox, if you take that piece apart you will hear, the 2s and 4s of his playing are dead on. The 'ands' and the 1s and 3s are slightly late. So, if you played a triplet pulse on a snare drum those ands and 1s and 3s will flam. That is part of a deep brother swing and it is a thing of beauty.

That's a terrific analysis of Elvin's playing on "Equinox," but it's not the same way he swings on "Passion Dance." What you're describing is a well-heard and well-writtren analysis of what might partially define a person's own feel and playing style. To me, and as a generally-accepted term, that's not what defines swing. If you tell 100 competent jazz drummers to "swing it," they're not all going to start playing like Elvin on Coltrane Plays The Blues, they're going to play some kind of triplet-oriented time feel. Same goes for bass players (even if they're walking quarter notes, any pickups, etc. wil be in the same kind of basic vocabulary), piano players, horn players, etc.

Music that is not on a grid, not even a triplet grid in many cases. Still generally in time though.

You have musicians that are not playing consistently right on top of the beat together but rather seeing the beat as a circular piece of time to share the responsibilty of time.

Totally true, although if they are "swinging," they'll generally be playing in a triplet-based time feel, no? Again, I'm not talking about the semantics of how hard someone swings, I'm talking about the generally-accepted definition of swing. Tony Williams, for example, doesn't swing as hard as Max Roach, in my opinion, and at times, he chose to play straight across the swing feel, but "Nefertiti" is by no means a straight tune in its original form.

By the way, "Suzie Q" is a great example of that in-between thing. Jim Keltner is a monster at that stuff. So is Steve Jordan. And I love those early rock records where the drummer isn't quite used to playing fast tempos that don't swing, but the rest of the band is trying to play it straight, so it comes out in that bizarrely unique sort of feel that I've never heard described in a singular term.

Jazz musicians get pissed off when musicians can't keep their own time within the FORM of the piece.

Not the jazz musicians I know. Yeah, it's a player's responsibility to play competently and a good musician (in ANY style) is a real team player who helps everyone ELSE out. But that comment is just plain NOT TRUE as a blanket statement. Yeah, some guys truly do get pissed off at other guys about how they play, but in this day and age, most of those guys are considered assholes. I haven't seen anyone throw any cymbals at horn players lately.

This separates these musicians from rockers who completely rely on the drummer and the bassist for the time and thus are ... wankers.

Bullshit.

This kind of attitude is what gives jazz musicians a bad rap amongst some rock musicians.

And by the way, guys like Angus Young and Dean DeLeo are NOT relying on the rhythm section for timekeeping.

That said, there are many great musicians that can swing. As far as jazz musicians go they come from colleges.

Again, as an absolute, that's bullshit. There are plenty of great self-taught players out there. There are also plenty of college graduates who can't play their way out of a paper bag. As a graduate of a rather well-known school of music, I can TOTALLY say that studying with the people there helped my playing immensely, but I did not learn to swing in college.

One more point to chris garges. A tune in 6 is still not a tune in three, especially a polyrhythmic tune like footsteps which really feels like a big 2. I would not argue the point with you and neither will alot of players but there is a distinction. Footprints is not a waltz which is 99.99999% what a song in three is.

I am well-aware that "Footprints" is not a waltz, but in the middle of a gig, when a competent (there's that word again) band might want to "break it up a bit," playing two songs in some kind of three feel (and let's face it, 3/4, 6/8, 12/8, 9/8, WHATEVER sort of semantic counting you're gonna put on it are ALL in some kind of "three"), might not be as good an idea as throwing something else in between there. I GUARANTEE you this dude did not know the difference in a practical manner. If Ron Carter said the same thing to me, I'd be totally on board with what you're saying because I know he "gets it." Hell, if the bass player I usually play with said it, I'd be more on-board, too, but it's also more likely that he would say it, then stare at me with a straight face, then completely crack up.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[DrummerMan]

Maybe there is a little hump I would just need to get over.

I think this is hitting your own nail on the head. Yes, there is no reason why learning something new should make what you already do suffer. Reality is, though, that we all process information and learning differently. Some people can take in new input while going on with everything else as usual without even a hiccup. Some people have to totally delve into a new subject, retreating into the deep woods (or the woodshed) and shunning society just to learn how to slightly vary something they've been doing for years. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. I think that if you're recognizing that learning new skills, theory, or technique seems to have a hampering effect on what otherwise comes naturally to you, then you probably have to push through the new information and work it and work it until it becomes second nature to you. Then, try and incorporate it into what you already know how to do. This step will probably make you feel like you're going backwards again but it can be really important for this process. So, work this over and over again. Eventually, bringing the old and new together should feel natural again. If you follow through with this and really put the time in and have patience, not only will you learn something new, but you'll probably solidify the good thing you were doing before and make it more consistently good from training yourself how to do it "against" (with, really) something else. For me, at least, productive learning almost always involves the following: one step backwards, two steps forward, repeat.

On to the actual subject at hand. "swing".
Yes, In it's most basically digestible form for our western ears (most of us probably, anyway) and the way we write read and learn to filter in music (as music students), the rhythmic feel we call Swing is about triplets, tied in certain ways to make a kind of Bah, Baaah-da Bah, Baaah-da Bah sound. Really though, making a swing swing has very little to do with that. Obviously, if you quantize a beat or series of notes to follow a path of alternating quarter notes and eighth notes in a 12/8 kind of grid, exactly and precisely, it will, while following under the basic definition of the term, almost definitely NOT swing. This is how I understand it as it was explained to me by the greatest drum teacher I ever had and the guy that actually got me swinging, a guy named Michael Carvin (I'm paraphrasing since it was a long time ago, and I don't know where he got his information, except that he was an extremely knowledgeable and meticulous keeper of information, and his shit, whether real or BS, always worked). Here it is: The feel comes from an African tradition, morphed by slavery into what's known as the shuffle. Think about the term "shuffle", now try to imagine walking with one leg free and another leg chained to another person. It's uneven, and there's your shuffle. Now, the WAY it's uneven (this is mostly my own theory now) is determined a lot by each person's size and physicality as well as by how fast you're walking. This is all a simplification of the whole thing, but you get the idea.

Skip to the eras of jazz and swing music, and not only are you dealing with the same basic feel, but similar variants in terms of your own physicality mixed with the tempo of the tune (and, to some degree, with the fashion of the time). Some people hit the swing with a very straight feel, almost like straight 8th notes. Some people exaggerate the swing making it almost like a dotted 8th note and a 16th. And again, most are somewhere in the middle. The people I personally know who swing the best and hardest, swing in the way that feels the most natural to them in whatever particular situation and with whatever particular players they happen to be with/in.

What, to me, makes a band or tune really swing hard is when everybody's swinging. They don't have to all be swinging the same way, either (that's a concept I heard a lot in school and that I think is utter BS, like "ok, the drummer has to be behind the beat, the bass player has to be on top of the beat, and the horn player blah, blah, blah, and that's what makes something swing... BS). Having nothing to do with whether or not old music is better, I would agree with superact-, er, I mean werd clock, who I think said that we are just living farther and farther away from the era where that was the PREDOMINANT popular music groove style. Therefor, attention is put on it less and less in our studying of it. Is it possible that you can swing really well if you didn't study and focus on jazz in-depth for years and years? Of course it is. Is it likely that as less and less people study jazz and swing-style music as a basis for their playing that, overall, less people are going to "get it right"? I think it's very possible, but I could be wrong. There seems to be a recent interest in, say, the Indie Rock world, in doing some pretty nice, heavy swinging beats. I couldn't tell you what they are, but I feel like I hear that kind of stuff on those types of radio stations and at the homes of people I know who are deeper into that music scene than I am.



OK, it looks like some new shit has come up in this thread since I started writing this post. Basically, +1 to everything chris just said.

Any band member, in any genre, that depends solely on one or two people to keep things grooving is not carrying their weight in that band, has unreasonable expectations, and should do everything in their power to make sure that the people who ARE carrying the groove get paid more . Likewise, anybody who thinks that drummers aren't responsible for understanding and supporting dynamics and melody, or that bass players don't need to know about inner-chordal harmony is falling into the same issues. That doesn't mean the bass player has to PLAY every note in every chord change (I'd actually prefer they didn't), but being really aware of what the people you're working with are doing makes EVERYBODY's job easier, and when everybody's JOB is easier, you can focus less on the technical side of what you HAVE to do, and just make some friggin' good music with that "natural" feel you have...

You put a band of people together who are all taking responsibility for all aspects of the music being played, and you're a shit-ton more likely to find that's a band that's making some real magic.

[Jay Reynolds]

I would agree with superact-, er, I mean werd clock, who I think said that we are just living farther and farther away from the era where that was the PREDOMINANT popular music groove style.

1. I believe that point was actually espoused by Mudcloth.

2. Next week, I'm changing my handle to Big Baby Jesus.

[DrummerMan]

1. I believe that point was actually espoused by Mudcloth.

ooops. sorry.

[firby]

Listen Chris. I did not write this to upset you. It appears that I did. That is certainly not my intent or the way that I go about living.

Please forgive me. I am a lowly jazz drummer from a state school. Everything I wrote down I meant and really I still mean. I won't get in a pissing match on the internet. Honestly, if we were drinking tea or whatever I think it would have been a lovely exchange.

Peace.

So. I am going to bow out of this discussion and any others involving this subject.

I really do hope that you are having a fulfilling day.

I am a jazz drummer.

So am I. I am also a rock drummer. And a folk drummer and a metal drummer, etc. I make my living playing all different kinds of music. My degree happens to be in jazz.

Elvin Jones for example playing a mid tempo piece like equinox, if you take that piece apart you will hear, the 2s and 4s of his playing are dead on. The 'ands' and the 1s and 3s are slightly late. So, if you played a triplet pulse on a snare drum those ands and 1s and 3s will flam. That is part of a deep brother swing and it is a thing of beauty.

That's a terrific analysis of Elvin's playing on "Equinox," but it's not the same way he swings on "Passion Dance." What you're describing is a well-heard and well-writtren analysis of what might partially define a person's own feel and playing style. To me, and as a generally-accepted term, that's not what defines swing. If you tell 100 competent jazz drummers to "swing it," they're not all going to start playing like Elvin on Coltrane Plays The Blues, they're going to play some kind of triplet-oriented time feel. Same goes for bass players (even if they're walking quarter notes, any pickups, etc. wil be in the same kind of basic vocabulary), piano players, horn players, etc.

Music that is not on a grid, not even a triplet grid in many cases. Still generally in time though.

You have musicians that are not playing consistently right on top of the beat together but rather seeing the beat as a circular piece of time to share the responsibilty of time.

Totally true, although if they are "swinging," they'll generally be playing in a triplet-based time feel, no? Again, I'm not talking about the semantics of how hard someone swings, I'm talking about the generally-accepted definition of swing. Tony Williams, for example, doesn't swing as hard as Max Roach, in my opinion, and at times, he chose to play straight across the swing feel, but "Nefertiti" is by no means a straight tune in its original form.

By the way, "Suzie Q" is a great example of that in-between thing. Jim Keltner is a monster at that stuff. So is Steve Jordan. And I love those early rock records where the drummer isn't quite used to playing fast tempos that don't swing, but the rest of the band is trying to play it straight, so it comes out in that bizarrely unique sort of feel that I've never heard described in a singular term.

Jazz musicians get pissed off when musicians can't keep their own time within the FORM of the piece.

Not the jazz musicians I know. Yeah, it's a player's responsibility to play competently and a good musician (in ANY style) is a real team player who helps everyone ELSE out. But that comment is just plain NOT TRUE as a blanket statement. Yeah, some guys truly do get pissed off at other guys about how they play, but in this day and age, most of those guys are considered assholes. I haven't seen anyone throw any cymbals at horn players lately.

This separates these musicians from rockers who completely rely on the drummer and the bassist for the time and thus are ... wankers.

Bullshit.

This kind of attitude is what gives jazz musicians a bad rap amongst some rock musicians.

And by the way, guys like Angus Young and Dean DeLeo are NOT relying on the rhythm section for timekeeping.

That said, there are many great musicians that can swing. As far as jazz musicians go they come from colleges.

Again, as an absolute, that's bullshit. There are plenty of great self-taught players out there. There are also plenty of college graduates who can't play their way out of a paper bag. As a graduate of a rather well-known school of music, I can TOTALLY say that studying with the people there helped my playing immensely, but I did not learn to swing in college.

One more point to chris garges. A tune in 6 is still not a tune in three, especially a polyrhythmic tune like footsteps which really feels like a big 2. I would not argue the point with you and neither will alot of players but there is a distinction. Footprints is not a waltz which is 99.99999% what a song in three is.

I am well-aware that "Footprints" is not a waltz, but in the middle of a gig, when a competent (there's that word again) band might want to "break it up a bit," playing two songs in some kind of three feel (and let's face it, 3/4, 6/8, 12/8, 9/8, WHATEVER sort of semantic counting you're gonna put on it are ALL in some kind of "three"), might not be as good an idea as throwing something else in between there. I GUARANTEE you this dude did not know the difference in a practical manner. If Ron Carter said the same thing to me, I'd be totally on board with what you're saying because I know he "gets it." Hell, if the bass player I usually play with said it, I'd be more on-board, too, but it's also more likely that he would say it, then stare at me with a straight face, then completely crack up.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Jay Reynolds]

Please forgive me. I am a lowly jazz drummer from a state school.

Doesn't John Von Ohlen teach jazz drums at one of the state universities in your town?

[Mudcloth]

I'm going to move this thread along from the Beatles to Herb Ellis.
I read an interview with Mr. Ellis where he is asked about playing with musicians who couldn't swing. He said that everybody thinks they can swing, even if they can't. They just can't hear and feel how they're not swinging. It's akin to 99% of all automobile drivers think they're really good drivers, but clearly that's not the case if you've been on any of America's highways.
He talked about wanting the drums to push a little, while the bass played a hair behind. He referred to wanting the drummer to "put an edge on it".
Later that year, about 12 years ago, he was playing a show in Austin with what turned out to be a pick up band. The girl playing bass was so short she had to sit on a stool to play. He LOVED her. He smiled at her the whole night because she got it. He kept turning around to the drummer and telling him "Put an edge on it!" and that drummer had a look on his face that said "I don't know what the hell this old man means by that!". Sweating bullets the entire gig.
I thought it hilarious that I actually knew exactly what he meant from reading that interview.

I think to older cats like Herb Ellis that swinging isn't about intellectualizing it. It's almost intangible.

Anyway, I'm writing this in hopes of everyone realizing that writing about swinging is even farther removed from actual swinging than not swinging in the first place.

Reading posts by drummers arguing about it makes me want to stop reading posts by drummers arguing about it.

Let's all chill out a little.

[lyman]

Yes, there is no reason why learning something new should make what you already do suffer.

Right. If you learn something new but it's a disruption when you try to put it to use, then maybe you haven't really learned it yet.

[Jay Reynolds]

This song swings (eventually). And I like it:
http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569470939650300

[DrummerMan]

I think to older cats like Herb Ellis that swinging isn't about intellectualizing it. It's almost intangible.

Anyway, I'm writing this in hopes of everyone realizing that writing about swinging is even farther removed from actual swinging than not swinging in the first place.

Reading posts by drummers arguing about it makes me want to stop reading posts by drummers arguing about it.

Let's all chill out a little.

So, let me see if I've got this right, now...

Drummers talking about swing = BAD
Guitarists talking about guitarists talking about swing = GOOD

That right? Cool. I got it now...

[Mudcloth]

I think to older cats like Herb Ellis that swinging isn't about intellectualizing it. It's almost intangible.

Anyway, I'm writing this in hopes of everyone realizing that writing about swinging is even farther removed from actual swinging than not swinging in the first place.

Reading posts by drummers arguing about it makes me want to stop reading posts by drummers arguing about it.

Let's all chill out a little.

So, let me see if I've got this right, now...

Drummers talking about swing = BAD
Guitarists talking about guitarists talking about swing = GOOD

That right? Cool. I got it now...

Oh, snap!

[cgarges]

Listen Chris. I did not write this to upset you. It appears that I did. That is certainly not my intent or the way that I go about living.

You didn't at all, except for the rock-musician bashing stuff.

I said it before in this thread: people have really been tending to read the worst into stuff lately. I don't know why everybody is so personally defensive and paranoid right now.

Doesn't John Von Ohlen teach jazz drums at one of the state universities in your town?

I saw him playing his regular weekly gig in Cinci a few years back. Bad mo-fo that guy is. Tasty to the "T."

Reading posts by drummers arguing about it makes me want to stop reading posts by drummers arguing about it.

Feel free.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[alex matson]

Personally, I'm really gratified to find out how much people here know. This talk of intangibility reminds me of something I read about Professor Longhair's playing.

[Jay Reynolds]

Professor Longhair's playing.

Worms, meet can.

Then there's the whole 16th note swing feel. We haven't even gotten to that yet. While I love me some Zig Modaliste, I think the entire New Jack movement was one of the worst things to happen in music from a rhythmic point of view. While there's all this debate about Seattle's affect on Hiar Metal, I think we're missing a chance to look at how Dr. Dre killed Bel Biv Devoe.