Jazz Notes III

I am sure everyone familiar with jazz music hears the term "Swing" from time to time. There are two separate meanings of this word in the jazz world somewhat related to each other.
One of them defines a musical style performed  mostly by big bands that has been extremely popular mainly in the USA and all over the world in the 30s and 40s. Notable musicians of this form are Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Gene Krupa, Tommy Dorsey and Cab Calloway.
The name of this musical form obviously derives from the "swing feel" which will be the topic of this post.


What is Swing?

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"

Duke Ellington

What is Swing?

Any answer to the question of "What is Swing?" can only be given with the understanding of "syncopation". Swing can be summarized as a playing technique with syncopated rhythm. But what is syncopation or syncopated rhythm?

A simple description of syncopation is the creation of rhythmic surprise. This can often be done by accenting certain notes or by unevenly timing the beats. Both jazz and ragtime make use of syncopation; the name of ragtime music itself comes from its uneven or "ragged timing." When music is played as it is written on the sheet, it is played "straight", or without swinging. In other words, if what is written on the page of music are 8th notes, and you play those notes as perfectly timed 8th notes -- each having the same duration of time -- then you are playing the music straight.




Straight Rhythm

And swing refers to the creation of the feel of a forward momentum, a forward momentum that seems to want to drive the listener to dance and sway to the music. Often this is done by dividing each beat into a pair of 8th notes, but playing the first slightly longer than an 8th and then playing the second slightly shorter than an 8th, or vice versa. This is sometimes described as the first note "stealing" some of the second note's time so that they are of unequal duration. This is often called "swing time."





Swinging Rhythm


Another way the music is "swung" is by playing the just a fraction of a beat ahead of the actual beat giving the music as a whole a feel of forward momentum. On the other hand, playing just behind or slightly after the beat can give the music a relaxed feel. Music that has swing is often exciting or at least makes you want to dance.

Straight vs. Swing

Swing is probably one of the most debated term in jazz music. When jazz performer Cootie Williams was asked to define it, he joked, "Define it? I'd rather tackle Einstein's theory!". When Louis Armstrong was asked on the radio show what swing was, he said, "Ah, swing, well, we used to call it syncopation—then they called it ragtime, then blues—then jazz. Now, it's swing. Ha! Ha! White folks, yo'all sho is a mess." Benny Goodman, the 1930s-era bandleader nicknamed the "King of Swing", called swing "free speech in music. His contemporary Tommy Dorsey gave a more ambiguous definition when he proposed that "Swing is sweet and hot at the same time and broad enough in its creative conception to meet every challenge tomorrow may present."

Like so many things about jazz, swing is hard to describe in words, but when you hear it, you know it and you feel it.

Straight vs. Swing

So briefly, swing means that while keeping the beat (foot tapping) steady, rather than each note being held for the exact same length of time, the notes falling on the downbeats are held twice as long as those falling on the upbeats, making a long-short, long-short, long-short, long-short pattern and giving the music a kind of a different feel or groove.

And for syncopation, a final summary can be made as: "doing the unexpected rhythmically", something that messes with the regular flow of the rhythm. Often, this means emphasizing or accenting a weak beat instead of a strong beat. In four-four time, strong beats are on beat one and to a slightly lesser degree on beat three. Syncopation can be as simple as accenting beats two and four instead of beats one and three. So instead of one, two, three, four; you have, one, two, three, four.

If you would like more information on syncopation please google the terms "downbeat" and "upbeat"...

A good example of swing rhythm: One o'clock jump by Count Basie



A good example of straight rhythm: Chameleon by Herbie Hancock
(Pay attention to Australian bassist Tal Wilkenfeld 24 years old at that time)

Let's finish with a provocative question. Can we say that, generally speaking, American jazz musicians swing better than their counterparts elsewhere in the world (especially European jazz players)?

Please comment what you think on this question...