Moten Swing

[A Lark Ascending]

Every now a tune sticks in my brain and won't move.

I've had versions of this for years without really noticing it - but recently the main riff has been going round and round in my head. There's obviously the Basie version (probably several) and I have a version on an old disc by James Carter.

The Bennie Moten version, which I have on a Classics disc, is interesting because the famous riff doesn't appear in full until towards the end.

Today I was listening to the Bob Brookmeyer version on 'Kansas City Revisited' - I was struck by how that insistent rhythm is actually very hard to hum along to, some of the notes falling in unexpected places.

A great example of how a theme can be made memorable yet quite unsettling, keeping a constant sense of unpredictability.

Good versions of 'Moten Swing'? Or observations from those who know it far better than me?

Edited March 11, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[AllenLowe]

written and arranged, let us note, by the great Eddie Durham - one of my all time favorite people and major if too-little-known historical figure - though I think he's in episode 27 of the Ken Burns Jazz documentary -

[Shawn]

Great tune! A couple really nice versions on here (master & alternate take).

[AllenLowe]

should mention - based on the tune "You're Driving Me Crazy" -

[JohnS]

I've always liked Barney Kessel's version on 'To Swing Or Not To Swing' (Contemporary)

[A Lark Ascending]

Great tune! A couple really nice versions on here (master & alternate take).

Had me thinking that I have a Burrell version somewhere - turns up here:

[A Lark Ascending]

should mention - based on the tune "You're Driving Me Crazy" -

I'd never noticed that! Obvious, once you're told!

Edited March 11, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[JSngry]

There's a good version by Harry James (believe it or not) on Capitol somewhere. From the 1950s, it is. I have it on some old grocery store/budget LP, don't know if it's ever been on CD.

[Spontooneous]

A wonderful version by "Eddie Durham and his Orchestra," with Buster Smith blowing his ass off, was recorded for the 1940s American Decca "Kansas City Jazz" set. Wish I knew of a CD reissue.

I confess I've never liked the later Ernie Wilkins arrangement for Basie.

The 1932 Moten is still tops in my book.

[Harold_Z]

A wonderful version by "Eddie Durham and his Orchestra," with Buster Smith blowing his ass off, was recorded for the 1940s American Decca "Kansas City Jazz" set. Wish I knew of a CD reissue.

I confess I've never liked the later Ernie Wilkins arrangement for Basie.

The 1932 Moten is still tops in my book.

Don't think there is one. We had a good thread on the old Blue Note Board about those three Decca lps. Kansas City Jazz, Chicago Jazz and New Orleans Jazz. Picture a small Mosaic set with alternate takes. Ahhhh.

[AllenLowe]

Buster was one of the few verifiable and direct influences on Bird, and those recordings are the best evidence -

[Spontooneous]

Buster was one of the few verifiable and direct influences on Bird, and those recordings are the best evidence -

Indeedy. (Though I'm still partial to my well-worn Joe Turner "Cherry Red"/"Baby Look at You" shellac.)

[medjuck]

Maybe because it's the first version I ever heard I've always been partial to the one by The Pee Wee Russell Quartet.

I also like the cut titled Moten Swing on the RTE cd of a Gerry Mulligan Concert jazz Band performance. Unfortunately the song they're playng is actually "Broadway".

[Kalo]

The original Moten version is my favorite.

written and arranged, let us note, by the great Eddie Durham - one of my all time favorite people and major if too-little-known historical figure - though I think he's in episode 27 of the Ken Burns Jazz documentary -

Eddie Durham is a favorite of mine, too. Wonderful arranger, fine trombonist, pioneering electric guitarist. I've been a big fan of his guitar playing since first hearing the Lester Young "Kansas City Sessions" back in the early 1980s.

Allen, when you say that he's one of your "all time favorite people," does that mean you actually hung with him at some point? If so, I'd love to hear more about that!

[John L]

Wasn't Eddie Durham also the first to record with electric guitar?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I like the Johnny Otis version, from the Arhoolie album "Spirit of the black territory bands", which I think uses all the old stock arrangements that used to circulate. But he does the tune as a "medley" with "You're driving me crazy"; I don't know if THAT was the way the territory bands played it

MG

[Harold_Z]

Wasn't Eddie Durham also the first to record with electric guitar?

He's often mentioned as the first or (more to my way of thinking) one of the first. Knowing the vagaries of the recording industry to a certain extent my belief is more like - Nobody really knows who is the first. Records are produced and one producer (or company, or arranger) doesn't know what an another is doing. Then most records sink like rocks. There really is no way of determining who is first.

[Fer Urbina]

Wasn't Eddie Durham also the first to record with electric guitar?

He's often mentioned as the first or (more to my way of thinking) one of the first. Knowing the vagaries of the recording industry to a certain extent my belief is more like - Nobody really knows who is the first. Records are produced and one producer (or company, or arranger) doesn't know what an another is doing. Then most records sink like rocks. There really is no way of determining who is first.

Although I think it's a pointless question, who was first, bearing in mind what Charlie Christian *recorded* from 1939 onwards (he was surely playing his stuff earlier), there's some consensus around George Barnes, early 1938, IIRC.

Durham uses some sort of amplification in the Lunceford recordings, but I don't think it's an electric guitar in the conventional sense.

F

[AllenLowe]

yes, I got to know Eddie a little bit when I lived in NYC in the middle 1970s and frequented the West End Cafe, where he played (trombone) frequently; nice man, though at that point he was alternately coherent and than somewhat confused. I had a very long talk with him one afternoon at a party at Loren Schoenberg's apartment; I think it helped that my very pretty wife was there, as Eddie always liked the girls; I remember he told me about getting a nice royalty check because there had been a disco version of one of his old swing tune/arrangements. Loren knew him a lot better than I did and is always talking about how inventive he was - like, for a simple example, if his car broke down, he would pop the hood and rig something up in about a minute to get it going; he also told us that day he had first amplified his guitar in the 1930s by constructing a resonator for it -

He was just a real personable, perceptive guy, easy to talk to - Loren once told me a great story I had forgotten until recently - there was an older bass player who used to work at the West End, a black musican named Jimmy Lewis - he could really play, but he was losing his hearing and kept playing louder and louder. Loren was in a group with Durham and some other (very young and white) musicians; things were getting tense on the gig because Lewis kept turning up his amp and all anybody could hear was BOOM BOOM BOOM from the bass. Loren was getting all upset so Eddie said to him "don''t worry, I'll handle it." Durham goes over to Lewis and says, "hey Jimmy, I think you're playing too strong. These young white boys can't keep up with you." So Lewis turned it down and the rest of the gig went fine -

Edited March 12, 2008 by AllenLowe

[randyhersom]

Philadelphia jazz scholar Harrison Ridley Jr. said that Floyd Smith was the first to record jazz on electric guitar. Can't remember the band it was done with.

[Big Beat Steve]

That must have been Andy Kirk's 12 Clouds of Joy.

"Moten Swing" is one of those tunes that are "catchy" with me too. So I can second not only the votes for the original version but also for Bob Brookmeyer's K.C. Revisited version. And there are many more interesting ones ...

[thomastreichler]

Here are some versions I especially like (besides the several ones by Basie with his Old and New Testament Bands):

- Buck Clayton Jam Session 1953

- Oscar Peterson on "Night Train"

- Sonny Stitt with the Oscar Peterson Trio 1959

- Frankie Capp / Nat Pierce Juggernaut 1976

- Barney Kessel on "To Swing Or Not To Swing" (already mentioned)

- Session At Midnight 1955 (All Star Session featuring Harry Edison, Shorty Sherock, Murray McEachern, Gus Bivona, Benny Carter, Willie Smith, Plas Johnson, Babe Russin, Jimmy Rowles)

[Big Beat Steve]

Here are some versions I especially like (besides the several ones by Basie with his Old and New Testament Bands):

- Buck Clayton Jam Session 1953

- Barney Kessel on "To Swing Or Not To Swing" (already mentioned)

- Session At Midnight 1955 (All Star Session featuring Harry Edison, Shorty Sherock, Murray McEachern, Gus Bivona, Benny Carter, Willie Smith, Plas Johnson, Babe Russin, Jimmy Rowles)

Yes indeed! I forgot about these (especially the two Jam Session versions).

And the Jay McShann All Stars version of 1972 (feat. Buddy Tate and Julian Dash) isn't bad either.

[Hot Ptah]

A couple of versions I like, which have not been mentioned yet:

City Lights Orchestra, from their "Raised Spirits" LP (mid-1980s)

Benny Goodman, on the "On The Air 1937-38" 2 CD set

[Fer Urbina]

Philadelphia jazz scholar Harrison Ridley Jr. said that Floyd Smith was the first to record jazz on electric guitar. Can't remember the band it was done with.

Smith was with Andy Kirk, but he played pedal steel (or something sounding like that). As for the dates, his big hit was "Floyd's Guitar Blues" from March 1939. On May 1939 Allan Reuss played electric on Jack Teagarden's "Pickin' For Patsy". Around that time, 1939-1940, Bus Etri (Charlie Barnet) and Hy White (Woody Herman) also recorded solos on the electric guitar.

First recording of a regular electric guitar appears to be by George Barnes accompanying Big Bill Broonzy on March 1, 1938 ("Sweetheart Land" and "It's A Low-Down Dirty Shame"). First session with Eddie Durham playing *electric* (as opposed to resonator or closely miked acoustic) took place later that month, with the Kansas City Five.

F