The Swing

good golf swing are simply mind-boggling. After setting aside the fact the body is required to coil and recoil in ways the body wasn't intended to do, a golfer goes through the motion of a golf swing in the hopes they can consistently make contact with a golf ball within a 1/2 inch margin of error on a golf club face that measures 4 inches long. That's asking a lot from science. The good news is that a novice golfer can learn to use body and muscle memory training to create a golf swing that…

However, swing bands only lasted so long after years of touring around the country. This was mainly due to the discrimination that many black players faced as well as the bands they worked for. With white bands and players able to secure a steady gig at clubs around the country, black bands, even famous ones such as Cab Calloway’s, were forced to roam looking for work while facing discrimination. This way of near-nomadic life exhausted several musicians as they gradually left swing bands to form…

varied reactions to Nazism. The filmmakers portrayed both the point of view of the young Germans supporting the war and of the Swing kids. For instance, Arvid states that Nazism can get away with whatever they want simply because they are in control. Everyone gets out of the Hitler Youth’s way because they get anything they want and go anywhere they please. Furthermore, other Swing kids repeatedly…

For the upcoming 2016 general election between Secretary Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there are a few states that will prove to be key role players as they shape the outcome of the election. After a candidate secures the election bid for their party, their work is not over. While securing the nomination is a big deal, in actuality, their work is just beginning as they typically have only spent time talking to the members of their own party. Now, these candidates must go out and try to…

By the 1940s, most of the jazz music scene was Swing Jazz, it was classically structured harmonies, commercialized big bands and it had limited room for improvisation; most of the bands at the time were limited in uniqueness. Such a borderline bland music scene proved fertile ground for Bebop, but what started as a musical form unknown, or at least not meant to be known, by the public, played in afterhours of nightclubs, was revolutionized by the alto-sax player, Charlie Parker. Despite his…

Historians have established that the ‘Swing Riots’ comprised 1500 disturbances between 1 June 1830 and 3 September 1831, and were characterised by incendiarism and the smashing of threshing machines by agricultural labourers. Macdonald asserted that the threshing machine was a scapegoat for rural resentment of their economic position. The potential threat to their livelihoods was characterised by the threshing machine, a semiotic representation of the declining fortunes of the labour force.…

The song “Flamenco Sketches” by the Miles Davis Sextet has the cool jazz sound with the modal jazz style. The song has a light and soft sound with simple melodic improvisations. A traditional rhythm section maintains a steady rhythm throughout the song, but this rhythm section uses countermelodies to add colorations during the improvisations. The pianist is constantly playing a soft melody underneath the improvisations and sometimes mirroring the melody played by the improviser. The bassist…

Jazz began in the late 18th century in African-American communities in New Orleans. Soon these vocal tunes made by African-Americans turned into piano songs, and soon enough evolved into the Jazz we know and love today. In modern Jazz, there are pieces that are considered “Jazz Standards”, one major contributor to these standards is the trombone player and Big Band Jazz composer, Glenn Miller. Glenn Miller lived a short yet interesting life, he differed from his competitors and left a dazzling…

The masterful, classic composition “Potato Head Blues” by legendary musician Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven band is widely regarded today as one of Armstrong’s finest recordings. This song is a quick-paced jazz melody with the trumpet along with the piano providing what I believe is to be a 4 beat per measure rhythm. “Potato Head Blues” also sounds different from that of Joplin Rags since I counted 2 beats per measure. The song also does not seem to have much variation with a constant…

Numerous stories of swing musicians are dominated by ethnic, racial, and gendered situations; stories that played an important role in the development of swing. Examples include Artie Shaw’s childhood years on the Lower East Side of New York City where he spent time with migrant children from Eastern Europe and Trummy Young’s youth in the Yamacraw section in Savannah, Georgia where the community that he grew up in was dominated by blacks, Italians, and Chinese. As a decisive player in the…