Swing, jazz and blues - Dance to the music: 1937

Showing posts with label 1937. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Today it's the 70th anniversary of Benny Goodman's concert at Carnegie Hall, a concert that really helped swing to become mainstream music. The climax of the concert was the performance of the song Sing, Sing, Sing.

Here is a video clip of Sing, sing, sing with Benny Goodman's orchestra from the movie Hollywood Hotel from 1937.

You'll notice Gene Krupa on drums and Harry James on trumpet.

This version is very short compared to the Carnegie hall version which is 12 minutes long.

What do you think of the video clip with Benny Goodman playing Sing, Sing, Sing? Tell me.

Often at swing dances you hear "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, but I think it's good to sometimes trace the song back to its orgin.

"Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" was written for the movie Shall We Dance from 1937 with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin. In the video clip above you see Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dance to the song on roller skates.

When you see the film, the song's introduction makes much more sense than it does when played "stand alone", that's why I most times cut the intro and start playing at "You say either, I say either".

By the way, don't confuse this movie with Shall We Dance from 2004 starring Jennifer Lopez, Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon or the original Japanese version of Shall We Dance (1997) which people say is the better one (I haven't seen the latter).

What do think of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dancing to "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off"? Tell me.

Are you curious how records was made in the 1930s? Here is a kind of documentary footage how the record making process worked in 1937. Really interesting and educating! The orchestra featured in the video clip is Duke Ellington with singer Ivy Anderson.

What do you think of this documentary video clip about record making? Tell me.