Original subtitles

I think it's very important that jazz is,

primarily, a music for dancing.

You move while listening to jazz.

And he always moves in the direction

of elegance,

what is the most civilized

that the human being can.

The extension,

elaboration and refinement supreme of effort,

elegance.

Pleasure in itself.

Farther than We can go with life.

Equivalent to what Ernest Hemingway called

the sweat in the bottle of wine. "

If you do not appreciate it the image of sweat drops

when the white wine and tasting it,

of your partner, of the sunshine,

You lost something.

"First of January of 1936 ... The "swingos" think that

The swing is ticking forever. the evolution of jazz.

With them, the style is a creed, a code.

That's why the addicts in this music looks so glazed

and dazzled in his huge appreciation

by this business called "swing".

But what is the swing? Ask any adept, and he will say,

"Well, the swing like ... um ..."

No one can define exactly what ".

Abel Green. "Variety."

In the mid-1930s, while the Great Depression persisted,

jazz has come on the verge of becoming the American popular music.

It had a new name now, swing, and its impact was revolutionary.

Swing saved the phonographic industry. In 1932, only ten million

discs have been sold in the United States.

In 1939, this number would increase to fifty million.

The swing, which had matured at the Harlem ballroom,

would become the definitive a whole generation of Americans.

I think we all feel I miss the music

that we hear when we were 14, 15, 16 years old.

This never happens, and with me, were the swing bands.

That was my music.

She touched my heart I will not start

and, like everyone else, The things that you

met in the beginning of life

are those that you look for

When do you want some? comfort.

People needed of dancing music

more than ever In the USA,

because the country was a disdain.

I think people they needed the escape

to go to the Savoy and the others places to dance.

They needed of those bands.

As antidote for depression,

I think swing have done

same as the MGM musicals

to help the US.

The swing gave Hollywood its theme musical and offered entertainment,

elegance and escape for a discouraged people.

You could hear the swing playing in radios and vinyls on all streets

of the United States, and this monitoring

for a variety of exciting new dan as.

The Big Apple and Little Peach, Shag and Suzy Q,

and the dance that began all, to Lindy Hop,

now called "Jitterbugging".

Hundreds of bands hit the road, and the young people

the careers of physicians with commitment with which they accompanied

your players baseball favorites.

Thousands of white Americans, who had never heard jazz,

they started to fill dance halls and theaters all over the country.

The Aragon, in Chicago, the Alcazar in Baltimore

and Ali Baba in Oakland.

The Twilight in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Moonlight in Canton, Ohio.

The Arcadia Ballroom in Detroit, the Paramount Theater in New York,

and the Palomar Ballroom, In Los Angeles,

where Benny Goodman had enthused the public with their version of music

touched for the first time by Louis Armstrong,

Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb and Duke Ellington.

The swing was a electrifying development

in popular culture American.

Unleashed forces that people did not know.

There were dancing bands, soft bands

and romantic bands, but when Benny Goodman

played for those young people in Palomar, Calif.,

was like 20 years later, with rock.

He played a song. daniant

has been running for years communities.

Ellington was already composed the swing for 3 years,

and Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson were already playing it.

That swept the country. and triggered

an excitement and a physical explosion

for which no one was prepared.

It was the time of depression, difficult days,

and this music it was pure pleasure.

Pure physical pleasure.

FIFTH EPISODE SWING: PURE PLEASURE

SOPO

4 MILLION UNEMPLOYED SER O CONTRATADOS

WORKS EXCEED CHARITY

Let's distribute the fast money because

we want to transfer the unemployed

from charity to the payroll.

We are not alone building roads,

but also bridges and dams.

We will do public works and other projects.

The song is the bell of memory,

and these were our songs.

They were part of the day to day,

and that's what Benny did transpose the space,

leave the jazz and enter in the living room.

He arrived with "Blue Skies".

Everyone knew "Blue Skies" and Irving Berlin,

So it was easy. He was our chosen one.

Less than a month after success unexpected from Benny Goodman

at the Palomar, his albums jumped for the third, second and

first places in stores of California.

He was 26 years old. and was already called "The King of Swing".

Suddenly, your music was everywhere,

and Goodman, the shy son of Jewish immigrants from the favelas

of Chicago, turned dolo of adolescents.

I was in love by Benny Goodman.

I thought he was handsome and he loved his posture,

the way you do not call care for yourself.

He was a "cool" guy,

and this when I had my 16 or 17 years.

The King of Swing, Benny Goodman ...

I turned the radio on at maximum

and put his ear to listen to Gene Krupa.

My mother was crazy. "What are you doing?"

And I would say, "Quiet! I need to hear this! "

On March 3, 1937, Benny Goodman Orchestra

in Times Square. At the same time, they had played in hotels

and ballrooms, where they were served alcoholic beverages

and the public was, for the most part, an adult.

But at Paramount, everyone were welcome.

For the first time, high school students,

who had been buying the discs by Benny Goodman,

would have the opportunity to see your her i personally.

The time had come, and they leave the subway

around Times Square like a mob.

The police understood nothing.

Where did they come from? What did they want?

Music had an incredible pace.

I made you leave yourself,

and you danced with who was there.

It was fun to swing to the sound of that rhythm.

The young people began to dance everywhere,

and some went up on stage.

This generated a lot of publicity,

and Benny Goodman, which was already a success,

became a icon, a great her i of popular culture.

Benny was a good role model.

It comes in appearing a gentleman

And suddenly, in the middle of a soil,

lifted the p , jumped

sat on a chair and fall back.

He let himself take over music,

and that fascinated the public

because it was not pretense. It was Goodman.

Benny came up like an explosion.

He appeared as a mere stranger.

We met Ellington and the other great names,

but he was a Unknown boy.

From night to day,

he entered the room being of Americans

bringing jazz by the collar,

And suddenly, the jazz,

which was almost a cult music,

it became popular American music.

This is what Goodman did.

The jazz

it is not a racial song.

Everyone plays jazz.

They always played.

In teaching history of jazz,

there are white bands and black.

But the musicians they do not learn that way.

A big lie that has been taught to us.

Goodman was going to learn the clarinet

with whom he could.

Music is like this.

Do you hear something you like? and wants to play the same.

Not that he was "the great white hope",

but most buyers was white.

Critics, the owners of the record companies.

This is how music reached the country.

So it was logical that the king was white.

But Benny Goodman himself I did not think so.

I'm in love

Where did you get it? your ideas?

My ideas?

I have millions of dreams.

Just dream All the time.

I thought he played the piano.

This is not piano, dream.

This is dreaming.

Ellington once defined jazz as

"black feelings",

the feelings of the black Americans,

"set to rhythm and melody."

Ellington's Music

represented the musical equivalent

to the American spirit of statement

in the face of adversity.

She was constantly creative,

it generated resistance

and made possible an experimental attitude.

Developed a experimental propensity.

Duke Ellington never complained publicly from the crown

by Benny Goodman as the King of Swing, or the huge

popularity of new bands - most white -

who came in his wake.

"Jazz music," he said. "The swing of business."

At that time, there was still the desire

to underestimate black at all costs.

Duke Ellington was a proud man

and I did not like things which he witnessed.

Although not the kind of man

verbalize your opinion,

in your music, he makes it clear

that is very proud from who

and than ,

and feels that his music, the music of his race,

made a huge contribution to the world of music.

Once, an interviewer asked to Ellington what he thought

the fact that you can not stay in many of the hotels it touched.

Ellington replied: "I got the energy I needed ...

to frown, "he said, "and made up a blues."

The music of big bands was popular

because it came from bowels of the country.

Popular music american flag

and they had too much material

to sing and play.

There was the radio, that was growing

and projected the bands.

There was also a It's incredible in the country.

A matin at the Roseland Ballroom, at the Cotton Club.

People listened it's on the radio

and they thought, "That's too much!"

The show took place in NY,

and who was not there? I thought, "Gee, NY!"

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

From Manhattan to Golden Gate,

another estréia in the National Broadcasting Company.

One of the great attractions was the Paramount Theater.

We teenagers of 12, 13, 14, 15 years,

we kept money and We could go to the theater.

and listen to our bands favorite

I could hear from afar the beginning of sound

of the orchestra theme.

It was a soft sound and came from the bottom.

Then the band appeared on a stage

and it would appear playing its classic theme.

It was shivering.

You got goosebumps two p s head.

In the wake of the incredible success of Benny Goodman,

the sound of dozens of big bands filled the air, helping to attract

millions of people to theaters and ballrooms.

Some played very little jazz, giving emphasis to pop

and highlight the attractive singers, which guaranteed a good box office.

But all bands encouraged Americans to get up and dance.

There was Woody's blues band Hermann and the Casa Loma Orchestra.

Bob Crosby and the Bob Cats.

Kay Kyser and his "Colgio Music Knowledge ".

International Girls Sweethearts of Rhythm.

And Ivory Hutton and his Melodears.

Earl Hines had an orchestra, as well as Benny Carter.

Charlie Barnet. And Jimmy Lunceford.

Jubilee is in the air and brings the first cam

from the battle of barrelhouse, boogie woogie and blues.

For the laity on the subject,

the double key Jumbled

by downbeat father, Jimmy Lunceford!

Jimmy Lunceford once said that "a band with good looks,

that makes clear presentations and seems to be liking

of your work, will always be invited to return. "

The Lunceford Orchestra demonstrated This night after night.

He had some great soloists, but it was incredible precision of the set

took the Danarians to the want them to play.

Jimmy Lunceford had the best "show band".

The boys of the band they were very beautiful.

They had the suits more elegant

and everyone had a Great appearance.

They were doing signals with your hands

and the vocals were unique.

They played their trumpets in the air

and they got them simultaneously.

Jimmy had great respect for what he did

and infused the same their colleagues.

There were many cousins in the band,

but when they came together,

submerged their personalities in the set.

It was quite a band.

It was always at its peak.

Despite being announced as "the sentimental gentleman of the swing",

there was nothing sentimental in Tommy Dorsey.

He was quarrelsome and drunk, a hard-nosed, authoritarian man

who formed his own band because I can not touch

next to the brother, Jimmy. But his band was hugely popular,

and by her passed stars of the caliber of Bunny Barrigan,

Dave Tough, Buddy Rich, and a skinny singer from Hoboken,

New J rsei, called Frank Sinatra.

Dorsey was a superb musician.

It was great to trombone.

Turned the trombone in a singing instrument.

It was the 1st. To catch a basic instrument,

transform it into a singing instrument

and play melodies on it. His control was superb.

He was a great musician, but greatly underestimated.

More than anyone, he was able

to create an orchestra who had two souls.

It could be a great orchestra. of jazz or of pop,

a soft band that played sentimental melodies,

or a vigorous jazz band

and there were always bad ones soloists as a whole.

One of the most popular bands swing story was led

by another trombonist, Glenn Miller, who preferred arrangements

controlled, many vocals and a of the representation.

Glenn Miller was important because it popularized the swing

between the people who they could not

Connect with Goodman and Ellington.

His music was romantic.

He created the sound of that time,

a sound that will always be associated with that age,

What is not a contribution.

In the following years, Glenn Miller and his orchestra would produce

a series of successes, among which "String of Pearls",

"Little Brown Jug" and "In the Mood", which

one of the most popular swing.

My big dream was to play in a jazz club.

But my dad wanted to that I was a cowboy.

When I drove the cattle,

My dream was that the bus from the band of B. Goodman

wanted to go through cattle,

but I would not let him do not be

they let me climb and play with them.

I imagined that, one day it would be heard

by some band that passed through here.

HOW TO TAKE A DRUG

When we talk about swing and their bands,

It's hard to tell if we should call it jazz or no

because most of the were commercial.

Young people were like all of your age;

had an interest in pop music because it was the fashion.

This is what I call swing!

The adults loved the swing, but it was the teenagers

which turned it into a national craze.

Sales of trumpets have doubled,

and sales of clarinets, the instrument of Artie Shaw

and Benny Goodman, tripled.

There was even a non-official uniform; the boys wore blazers and slippers

equal to their heroes, and the ma as preferred socket socks,

heeled shoes and round skirts, that stood when they

they won the dance floor.

Every band leader had a club.

The girls covered the musicians most beautiful with letters

and phone numbers.

Artie Shaw once called the "jitterbuggers" of "idiots"

and even Benny Goodman, whose presentation at Paramount had

raised the platja, confessed that their enthusiasm

Sometimes it frightened him.

To be leader of a band in those days

it was like being a musician of rock these days.

They were revered by the average.

They were the new celebrities, something new in music

and in American popular culture which lasted almost 10 years.

But the swing had its critics. Blue Barron, leader of a

romantic band, denounced him as "nothing more than orchestrated sex ...

a phallic symbol to the sound of music. "

And Dr. A. A. Brill,

a well-known psychiatrist, was even more worried.

The swing represents a return

to the primitive tom-tom-tom,

a rhythmic sound that pleases

both to the wild about the children.

Acts like a narctic

and makes people forget reality.

They forget the Depression

and the loss of their jobs. how to take a drug.

There was a sense that We were rebels,

that we did something about that Our parents did not know

and they should not like it very much.

The jitterbugging, of course, was part of the dance.

He was agitated, and the girls wore short skirts

and socks; when they rolled,

the skirts rose a little.

It was nothing like what we have today,

but it was cool when You were a boy.

MEN WORKING TOGETHER

It was my first year at Gonzaga University.

I was in the gym one day,

sitting at the piano, playing.

A young man entered and He listened.

He leaned against the piano, he listened,

looking at me and smiling.

I stopped and asked: "So? What do you think?"

And he says: "I like your touch.

It's good, but it's not playing the right style.

Is not playing the right way. "

He took me to a downstairs living room

and played a record of T. Wilson and B. Goodman.

I had never heard that music before.

I've never heard jazz. Not even Louis Armstrong.

I knew nothing, s popular music discs.

And suddenly, upon hearing that piano,

I said, "God damn it! Hang on! Who is this? "

And he says: " Teddy Wilson,

and as soon as you should play the piano."

One of the most popular Benny Goodman was "Body and Soul",

song played by a trio who it was only used on recordings.

The whole country knew the record, but he had never thought to take

the trio on stage because the pianist, Teddy Wilson, was black.

Wilson was a reserved boy and sophisticated son of a librarian

with an English teacher of the Tuskegee Institute.

Your soft touch is your innate technique

they married perfectly the sound of Benny Goodman.

There was never a pianist. like Teddy Wilson.

One of the things that highlight

among its precursors,

Waller and Duke Ellington,

was that they had a percussive touch.

Teddy Wilson had a light and lyrical touch.

It was an exquisite sound.

Each note sounded like a bell.

It was very fast.

No one had ever done The piano sounds like that.

In 2 bars, you recognize Teddy Wilson.

Goodman played with Wilson for the first time time in a jam session in 1934.

"Teddy and I started playing," he would say, "as if we were

thinking with the same brain. "

A few weeks later, Goodman led his drummer, Gene Krupa,

and Wilson to the studio to record together.

But when a show was marked in Chicago, and the promoter, Helen Oakley,

suggested that Wilson be included in in the program, Goodman was reluctant.

I said, "Let's take Teddy. It will be a great attraction. "

Benny said: "I'm not that silly.

I'm getting along well This is going to be my career.

I do not want to ruin everything. featuring a black talent

in the middle of it all. I do not like the idea. "

It was the time of the Depression

and the last thing that he wanted to do

was to risk it and throw it all out the window,

to run what it seemed be a big risk.

Helen Oakley, who knew what profoundly goodman had been

influenced by black musicians and who I was anxious to show

that integration would work on the stage,

finally convinced him when betting on Wilson.

At that time, black and white musicians

had already fraternized there were times.

They made jam sessions together until 3:00 in the morning.

But what Goodman did was put

Teddy Wilson no showbiz.

Goodman never forgot to first appearance of the trio.

"The three of us worked together as if we were born

to play that way, " he said.

"The trio with Goodman was so solid like a family, "Wilson would say.

"We were all there, as if we were brothers. "

Benny Goodman failed to see motives, outside the habit and the prejudice,

not to improve your band with the hiring of other

great musicians only they are black.

At a small bar in Los Angeles, he heard Lionel Hampton,

a master of a new instrument, the vibraphone.

Goodman hired him on the spot and turned the trio into a quartet.

"They play every night and they do an unbelievable music.

Not a misspelling. A finishing his solo

and returning to the accompaniment. Then the other.

All adding inspiration to the rhythm be too intense to stop.

That's instant composition.

And collective. The most beautiful example of men working together

to be seen in public. " Otis Ferguson. "The New Republic."

Despite the success of the quartet, few other leaders

bands that have dared to follow Goodman's example.

Music could ignore color, but the country does not.

In 1935, Duke Ellington invited a unknown 19-year-old singer

to appear in a short film called "Symphony in Black".

Her name was Billie Holiday, and she had already been living a difficult life

which he portrayed in the film.

Born as Eleonora Fagan in 1915, she was raised in Baltimore.

Her parents never married, and she spent most of it

of your childhood yearning by his absent father, Clarence Holiday,

a guitarist who came to play with Fletcher Henderson.

The father's example attracted her to the world. of music, but its rude way

and womanizer to be would mirror in many of the men by whom

she would fall in love during Whole life.

She was molested and beaten. as a child,

and at the age of twelve, worked as a prostitute

in a brothel by the river.

I earned some extra money accompanying the phonograph in the living room

- the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith.

At age thirteen, she lived in New York, where he presented

in exchange for tips at parties clubs in Harlem,

and sang for fun in jam sessions.

Finally, she changed her name to Billie Holiday, in honor of the absent father.

One night, in 1933, she was singing in a club called Monette's when

the critic of jazz and business John Hammond appeared on l .

He was delighted with its appearance ...

and with his way of singing.

Despite his small vocal range, just over an octave,

Holiday gave to each song your personal touch,

partly for singing just behind the rhythm.

She phrased the melodies of the same way that the jazz instrumentalists,

and considered herself a musician before being a singer.

Hammond soon organized a series of recording sessions,

led by Teddy Wilson.

Benny Goodman attended sometimes.

Billie had a voice strangely scratchy.

He had that incredible sense of time;

before and after the notes.

When you hear the first discs,

the feeling of the blues,

which always suggests a certain melancholy,

say, or suggests what life reserves

a hard blow on the way,

perfectly balanced for this type of indifference.

She's very witty.

s listen to "A Fine Romance" and others similar.

She sings with so much enthusiasm

that seems to be having fun as never before!

Holiday was very independent.

A woman who knew her since childhood he said that

she did not give the minimum for nothing.

Billie Holiday would be like this the whole life - cursing,

drinking, fighting, seeking partners of both sexes

and living so close to the edge that his friends were surprised

that she could survive.

But in the midst of all this, made an unforgettable art,

and would become the most important singer of jazz history.

When you listen Billie Holiday sing,

listen to the spirit by Bessie Smith

and Louis Armstrong together in one person.

There is the fire of the singer of blues

and the smart choice of notes

of the great jazz musician.

But with it, you have a deep sensitivity

for the human condition.

It conveys the pain of the blues.

Of life.

But within this pain, there is courage,

and that's what attracts people.

Do you remember?

"Do you remember what it was like? Maybe yes. Maybe you were there.

Maybe you were in New York in the mid 30's,

when there were so many big bands playing.

You could go to the Manhattam salon, of Hotel Pennsylvania,

where Benny Goodman played with his great band including Gene Krupa ...

Maybe you'd rather go to another room. of hotel, like the Palm, of the Commodore,

to hear the soft swing of Red Norvo and Mildred Bailey ...

or the Salão Grill, from Lexington, to enjoy Bob Crosby

and the Dixieland Bob Cats ... There were also dance halls ...

the Roseland, with Woody Herman, and Savoy, with Chick Webb. "

George T. Simon. "Metronome".

The Savoy Ballroom, on 140th Street with Lenox Avenue,

it was still the most Hot Harlem,

and Chick Webb, who had been one of the first band leaders

to touch the swing, still commanded the show.

Chick Webb is a phenomenon.

There has never been another like it.

It was a hunching year that had suffered a deformation

in the spine in infancy. A brilliant drummer.

There was this man wee

sitting behind a full battery

that had to be nailed to the stage

to prevent that he wore

pedal overturned the bass drum.

Chick Webb was my first her i.

My father took me. to see it.

I should have about 12 years.

I was looking for the drummer,

but only via a huge bass drum,

with a head appearing on top

and two arms in motion,

touching incredible things.

On May 11, 1937, Benny Goodman ventured

in Harlem to challenge Webb in what was announced as

"The Musical Battle of the Century".

"Guys, this is my moment," Webb told his colleagues,

"Whoever misses a note does not need back to work."

Four thousand fans filled the hall dance, and mounted police

and the firefighters had to be called to control others

five thousand who could not get in and who refused to go home.

Among those who entered were standard Miller and Frankie Manning,

professional dancers who came defying and defeating whoever

who would face them in contests around the world.

They had returned to the Savoy to see your her i measure for as

against his most famous challenger.

The night that B. Goodman faced C. Webb

It was 1938. "It was an electrifying night.

The whole Harlem was there.

The atmosphere in the Savoy it was indescribable.

There were Benny Goodman, the king of swing ...

Chick Webb, the king of swing.

The king of the swing for us.

C. Webb was facing B. Goodman.

Goodman was a giant.

They called him king of swing at poca.

Any band that played swing bought his records.

We met Goodman.

A lot of people do not notice

of which many of the arrangements by Benny Goodman

were the same those of Chick Webb.

Only when they went on stage

What could you know of bands was the best.

Only when they played the same arrangements.

For me, Chick excelled Benny that night.

Yes, I say the same.

I do not say this - No prejudice!

For being Chick Webb, or out of prejudice,

but I think Chick overcame Benny that night.

I saw the guys from the band by Benny Goodman ...

While Chick Webb was playing,

they would be shaking the head.

The Benny Goodman Band was defeated.

Gene Krupa bowed in reverence to the man who had beaten him.

"Chick Webb," he said, "You gave me a spanking."

"No one," one of the Goodman's musicians,

"could have defeated Chick at that night."

CODA

Despite his incredible popularity, the swing did not captivate the heart

of all the musicians ... or of all the fans of jazz.

Some found the rigid big bands too many behaved.

John Hammond, who had helped to ride the band of Benny Goodman,

now thought that the swing had if it became too commercial,

and which stifled freedom and artistic expression,

leading jazz in the wrong direction.

There was pressure on the leaders of jazz bands.

Not everyone succumbed pressure,

but Goodman, on a topic recording session,

made 2 last instrumental of jazz and 2 pop vocals.

There was always this pressure to be commercial,

to reach the popular platform,

to break the barrier by Glenn Miller.

One night in 1936, John Hammond got tired of listening to Benny Goodman

play his greatest hits in the Congress Hotel in Chicago.

Hammond got out, got in the car, and turned on the radio, hoping to hear

something new, something different, something less predictable.

He tuned in a it's experimental

who was broadcasting live of Kansas City.

"It was one o'clock in the morning ... the live broadcast of the show

by Count Basie Band in the Reno Club was starting ...

I could not believe in what I was hearing. "

John Hammond had now a new mission: Lead Count Basie

and the sound of Kansas City for the rest of the country.

TO BE CONTINUED...