Link Between Big-Bands-Are-Coming Back Hype & Great American Songbook Resurgence?

[Teasing the Korean]

Is there a link between the early/mid 1970s big-bands-are-coming-back hype and the resurgence in popularity of the Great American Songbook in the late-70s/early 80s?  Could the latter be viewed in any way as a continuation or evolutionary offshoot of the former?

[HutchFan]

My gut response (and nothing more than that): No.

The "big bands are coming back" thing has always struck me as something that appealed to folks who were there for it the first time around.

OTOH, what we might call the "New Conservatism" of the late-70s and (especially) the 80s seems more like a cultural re-assessment of something that was new to many listeners (and many of the musicians, as well). 

In other words, entirely different audiences.

However, I have nothing empirical to back that up. 😋

[JSngry]

Big bands did 'come back", but with repertoires that only occasionally had GAS material. First and foremost it was about the ensemble format.

Thinking back to ",The , Swing Era", look at any typical "Best Of The Big Bands" compilations and my hunch will be that the instrumental hits were mainly originals and the vocals were pop song type stuff.

Not always, but mostly? 

[Teasing the Korean]

9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Big bands did 'come back", but with repertoires that only occasionally had GAS material. First and foremost it was about the ensemble format.

Thinking back to ",The , Swing Era", look at any typical "Best Of The Big Bands" compilations and my hunch will be that the instrumental hits were mainly originals and the vocals were pop song type stuff.

Not always, but mostly? 

I agree with your vocals/instrumentals assessment, but there was some crossover, inasmuch as some big band instrumentals had lyrics written later (e.g., Ellington) and many (certainly not all) of the swing era tunes followed pop song AABA or ABAC formats, so I think the two reinforced each other in this regard.

I do think there is a distinction that came later between the big band ensemble format and big band style, such as swing music.  This must have been one of the reasons that many band leaders preferred the phrase "jazz orchestra," correct?  A connotation developed between the descriptor "big bands" and swing era music. 

[Teasing the Korean]

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

My gut response (and nothing more than that): No.

The "big bands are coming back" thing has always struck me as something that appealed to folks who were there for it the first time around.

OTOH, what we might call the "New Conservatism" of the late-70s and (especially) the 80s seems more like a cultural re-assessment of something that was new to many listeners (and many of the musicians, as well). 

In other words, entirely different audiences.

However, I have nothing empirical to back that up. 😋

I think the GAS resurgence spanned generations.  On the one hand, GAS albums by artists like Nilsson, Willie Nelson, and Linda Ronstadt were probably geared toward a younger audience.  On the other hand, the birth of the AM "Music of Your Life" format and records by Mel Torme and Rosemary Clooney to the Concord Label were probably geared toward an older audience. (I think the Concord label in general was designed to reach a certain audience of older adults who liked jazz and standards.)  Then you had the Broadway revival of 42nd Street and musicals based on the songs of Fats (Ain't Misbehavin') and Duke (Sophisticated Ladies), which collectively must have reached older and younger audiences.  Ditto for Woody Allen's soundtracks to Manhattan and Stardust Memories, the films of which must have also reached wide audiences.   

So I get the impression that the GAS resurgence was happening on a number of levels.

[HutchFan]

5 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

So I get the impression that the GAS resurgence was happening on a number of levels.

That makes sense to me.

 

[Rabshakeh]

But were the big bands of the late 1960s and 1970s connected to these other backwards-directed moves from the mid-70s onwards? I don't really see the music of Don Ellis or Maynard Ferguson as having much in common with the great American songbook turn or with the revival of bop or In The Tradition type avantguard jazz.

The one connection that there might be is with the growth in jazz education, which produced players for the big bands at the same time as pointing towards the the past and helping spur interest.

[JSngry]

13 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

But were the big bands of the late 1960s and 1970s connected to these other backwards-directed moves from the mid-70s onwards? I don't really see the music of Don Ellis or Maynard Ferguson as having much in common with the great American songbook turn or with the revival of bop or In The Tradition type avantguard jazz.

But they were still big bands.

Plus, Woody Herman and Basie went strong up until their respective ends. Stan Kenton too.

Evolution is not disqualifying! 

Off the public radars were the ghost bands, who had plenty of work, enough to provide steady gigs. And then after that, the corporations (by then the names of the leaders had become corporate entities) could still book periodic tours and hire local players to play the book if needed. That went on at least until the end of the century, and hasn't really stopped yet.

Worth noting that there are "jazz fans"  and there are "big band fans", which creates a Venn Diagram that doesn't have as much intersection as you might think! 

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

But were the big bands of the late 1960s and 1970s connected to these other backwards-directed moves from the mid-70s onwards? I don't really see the music of Don Ellis or Maynard Ferguson as having much in common with the great American songbook turn or with the revival of bop or In The Tradition type avantguard jazz.

The one connection that there might be is with the growth in jazz education, which produced players for the big bands at the same time as pointing towards the the past and helping spur interest.

It was all happening concurrently.  Don Ellis was playing original compositions in 7/4, while Time/Life was selling The Swing Era, a box set of hi-fi recreations of swing-era material, transcribed and arranged by Billy May.  This set must have been huge, based on the sheer numbers of copies that I have encountered in thrift stores over the decades.  Both extremes fed into the hype while profiting from the hype, regardless of intention.

[JSngry]

30 minutes ago, JSngry said:

 Off the public radars were the ghost bands, who had plenty of work, enough to provide steady gigs. And then after that, the corporations (by then the names of the leaders had become corporate entities) could still book periodic tours and hire local players to play the book if needed. That went on at least until the end of the century, and hasn't really stopped yet. 

Two examples of "leaders with books" were Ray Anthony and whichever of the Elgart Brothers retired to Dallas.

I actually saw one of those Anthony gigs ca 1997. It was at a big country club at Christmas time. I was in a side ballroom playing one gig, and "Ray Anthony" was in the big main ballroom.

And yes, Ray Anthony was actually fronting the band. But also yes, the entire band was local guys, former 1:00 players who got called for any and all such gigs. I knew them all.

The room was packed and so was the dance floor. The book was what you would expect from Ray Anthony, dance band charts, but nothing really retro except for the covers of the "Swing Classics". But everything was written in a modern-ish way so that if they were played well, they would sound good. And these type players played everything well, that's how they were trained, and that's why they got all the gigs like this.

Point just being, between the fad of jazz-rock horn bands, the ongoing activity of the surviving OG band leaders who kept it fresh to one degree or another, and the new-oriented big bands, I would certain say that "big bands" did come back, if not to live forever, to at least get an extended lease in life.

But the flip side of that is that as these bands, almost all of them, became populated by players who had all been trained to play the same way, personality was eventually lost. I doubt that there's a traditional big band anywhere in the world today that can be as purely visceral as their antecedents. I heard a fair number of them at least once, so I think I have a big enough sample size to day that! 

Not that this devolution into human AU is unique to big bands... 

7 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

It was all happening concurrently.  Don Ellis was playing original compositions in 7/4, while Time/Life was selling The Swing Era, a box set of hi-fi recreations of swing-era material, transcribed and arranged by Billy May.  This set must have been huge, based on the sheer numbers of copies that I have encountered in thrift stores over the decades.  Both extremes fed into the hype while profiting from the hype, regardless of intention.

Some of those recordings were originally released by Glen Gray, who died in 1963!

[Teasing the Korean]

15 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Some of those recordings were originally released by Glen Gray, who died in 1963!

Did not know that!

[JSngry]

Yeah, Time-Life was not really forthcoming about that, but whoever reviewed it/them in Down Beat called it out in the opening paragraph of the review.

Don't ask me how I can remember trivia like this and not any number of actually important details... 

Apparently Glen Gray was active at Capitol in the early 1960s and this was a thing he started.

And then he died.

But at some point, Billy May got called in to resume it. So the project came back from the dead even though Gray did not...at least not yet! 

Not too dissimilar to those Crown things led by Maxwell Davis made by "members of" whatever band it was that the record was about. Some of those actually clicked good enough. But they also let the players play their own solos, which AFAIK neither the Gray nor May projects allowed. The wanted EXACT reproductions.

Me, I would always want to hear live players playing live music with life in play, regardless of the project. 

 

[JSngry]

At some point, if the chart it right in the first place, you gotta just give it up, get the old lady in the white dress to get her ass to wiggling, and hey, that's what it's all about.

If then asses ain't wigglin', then it ain't bein' done right. 

[Rabshakeh]

6 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Time/Life was selling The Swing Era, a box set of hi-fi recreations of swing-era material, transcribed and arranged by Billy May.  This set must have been huge, based on the sheer numbers of copies that I have encountered in thrift stores over the decades.

I don't know this set, but I love this stuff. Mass market subscription box sets of recreations of swing standards is what actual jazz history is made of.

[Teasing the Korean]

4 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

I don't know this set, but I love this stuff. Mass market subscription box sets of recreations of swing standards is what actual jazz history is made of.

This wasn't marketed to jazz fans per se.  It was marketed to big band/swing fans who wanted to hear hi-fi versions of low-fi swing hits.  There was clearly a market for this stuff, based on the numbers I've seen in thrift stores.

[Teasing the Korean]

23 hours ago, JSngry said:

Not too dissimilar to those Crown things led by Maxwell Davis made by "members of" whatever band it was that the record was about.

Do you know if these were ever released on CD?  Also, do you know if these were the same recordings that were later overdubbed with percussion by Frank Capp to cash in the percussion fad?

[JSngry]

I do not know the answers to either of those, sorry. 

[sgcim]

On 8/27/2023 at 3:45 PM, Teasing the Korean said:

I think the GAS resurgence spanned generations.  On the one hand, GAS albums by artists like Nilsson, Willie Nelson, and Linda Ronstadt were probably geared toward a younger audience.  On the other hand, the birth of the AM "Music of Your Life" format and records by Mel Torme and Rosemary Clooney to the Concord Label were probably geared toward an older audience. (I think the Concord label in general was designed to reach a certain audience of older adults who liked jazz and standards.)  Then you had the Broadway revival of 42nd Street and musicals based on the songs of Fats (Ain't Misbehavin') and Duke (Sophisticated Ladies), which collectively must have reached older and younger audiences.  Ditto for Woody Allen's soundtracks to Manhattan and Stardust Memories, the films of which must have also reached wide audiences.   

So I get the impression that the GAS resurgence was happening on a number of levels.

Nilsson's GAS album was not like the Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, etc... atrocities, which were by artists whose original material was not selling like they used to, so they figured they might as well try a different genre and see how it sells.

Nilsson had practically blown his voice out on a session with John Lennon, and he realized he had to make the album of his dreams before he completely lost his voice. He was a serious singer/songwriter that had his mind blown by The Beatles, but he loved the GAS, and showed his seriousness about that album by hiring Gordon Jenkins to conduct and arrange. Commercially, it flopped, but he didn't care. I was a huge fan of his early stuff, which featured great arrangements by George Tipton, but it didn't appeal to a larger audience, so he fired Tipton,(by telegram!), a man that spent his life savings on HN's demo tape, and started doing crap that appealed to a larger audience.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by sgcim

[Teasing the Korean]

2 minutes ago, sgcim said:

My big band stuff is almost anti-big band in a way. I'm drawing from Rock- Traffic, Love, Nilsson, Circus Maximus, The Youngbloods, Carole King, Steely Dan, The Free Design, The Association, Manhattan Transfer, Nick Drake, King Crimson, If (jazz-rock), Boz Scaggs;

Excellent!  The NOW SOUND!!!

This is where you get into the difference between the big band as an ensemble configuration vs. a style.  To a lot of people, "big band" simply means 1940s swing music.

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Excellent!  The NOW SOUND!!!

This is where you get into the difference between the big band as an ensemble configuration vs. a style.  To a lot of people, "big band" simply means 1940s swing music.

Yeah, either that or the same old Thad Jones, Maynard, Basie, Woody Herman, Bob Mintzer, etc... that is fine music, but when you play two straight hours of it , like we did the other night, you wanna cut your throat!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's just the same progressions, the same licks, the same tempos, the same everything over and over. Even when they try and play funk, it sounds like college, white funk that uses the same cliches over and over. Rhythm changes and blues, over and over.

They just don't want to play any good songs. Duke Ellington at least could write good songs, and more interesting music.Same thing with Gil Evans, and Gary McFarland

[Rabshakeh]

I listened to the Natalie Cole GAS record for the first time today, after noting it's presence on historic jazz charts, and also seeing a reference to it elsewherel.

How does that record fit the chronology? It is quite interesting how different it sounds to the Linda Ronstadt type records. Disney theme vocals with Vegas arrangements.

[JSngry]

I liked Natalie Cole. Liked her most of her career. She came by it honestly and survived at least as honestly. 

[Teasing the Korean]

36 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I liked Natalie Cole. Liked her most of her career. She came by it honestly and survived at least as honestly. 

And her microphones matched her dresses, as you may remember if you saw her network TV special circa 1977.

[JSngry]

I do not, but that is a nice touch for color TV.