0:00:03 > 0:00:08When Benny Goodman made his first radio broadcast in 1935,
0:00:08 > 0:00:14he couldn't possibly have known that his music would change America, and later the world, forever.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17And he could never have imagined, with his bank-manager looks,
0:00:17 > 0:00:21that he'd become one of the world's first global pop stars.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24And the music was called swing.
0:00:26 > 0:00:30Everything in life got a beat. And that's what swing was.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35The riff starts, you can see the audience - they're lighting up
0:00:35 > 0:00:40and by the end of it, they're standing up and dancing and it's the physical effect it has on people.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42That's why swing music is great.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48Decades before the '60s, it sparked the world's first youth cultural revolution.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52That was what the whole swing era was about was the dancing.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55Without dancing, there would have been no swing era.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00Swing was labelled as - dangerous music that made you have sex with people.
0:01:01 > 0:01:06Swing has thrown up some of the most iconic stars of the 20th century.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11Today, it's still topping the charts, with some of the biggest names in music.
0:01:11 > 0:01:16Robbie Williams' swing album went platinum seven times over.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18Nearly a hundred years on,
0:01:18 > 0:01:24swing remains the longest lived, most successful and coolest form of popular music.
0:01:24 > 0:01:28Of course, one never snaps one's fingers on the beat.
0:01:28 > 0:01:29It's considered aggressive.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33You don't push it - you just let it fall.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35Like this.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38And of course, if you're real cool,
0:01:38 > 0:01:44then you're gonna manage to affect a tilt of the left earlobe at the same time, like this, you know?
0:01:44 > 0:01:51And if you're cooler than that, then of course, you tilt the left earlobe on the beat
0:01:51 > 0:01:54and snap your finger on the after beat like this, you know?
0:01:54 > 0:01:57As a matter of fact, by routinely tilting of the earlobe
0:01:57 > 0:02:00and snapping the finger one can become as cool as one wishes to be.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06We took a poll on the campus and almost everybody voted for Artie Shaw's Band.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09Artie Shaw? Who's Artie Shaw?
0:02:09 > 0:02:10ALL: Yeah!
0:02:13 > 0:02:20At its most basic, swing is a mixture of orchestrated big band music and improvised jazz.
0:02:20 > 0:02:22In the 1930s,
0:02:22 > 0:02:29it turned band leaders like Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller and Artie Shaw into pop music's first superstars.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33They earned as much as 60,000 dollars a week -
0:02:33 > 0:02:37roughly half a million pounds in today's money.
0:02:42 > 0:02:45Much of the credit for this goes to band leader Benny Goodman,
0:02:45 > 0:02:52who, in 1935, almost single-handedly, turned swing into a global pop phenomenon.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58The real credit for its creation, however, belongs elsewhere.
0:02:58 > 0:03:00And in an earlier time.
0:03:06 > 0:03:12The story of swing is partly about poverty, crime and sex, but chiefly, it's about race.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15And it starts in New York in the 1920s...
0:03:18 > 0:03:22..where the music scene was as segregated as America.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32Slavery had been abolished
0:03:32 > 0:03:37but its legacy was a country divided along the lines of race.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40Which meant that in much of America,
0:03:40 > 0:03:45African Americans could not drink at the same water fountains, eat at the same restaurants,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48or sit next to white people on the same bus.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52Black and white had died together in the First World War
0:03:52 > 0:03:57but in post-war America, they lived separate lives and listened to different music.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01White music had developed from foxtrots and polkas,
0:04:01 > 0:04:05black music, from Africa and the jazz of New Orleans.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14But in the lean years following the First World War,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17what both audiences had in common was a thirst for fun.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20And that meant dancing.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22MUSIC PLAYS
0:04:25 > 0:04:29King of the white dance bands was Paul Whiteman.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33'Paul Whiteman became the band leader elect of the 1920s.'
0:04:38 > 0:04:42Everything else was smaller group, they were more like Dixieland groups,
0:04:42 > 0:04:44but they weren't as organised.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48Paul Whiteman started, in my way of thinking,
0:04:48 > 0:04:51the organised type of band.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54He had people like Bix Beiderbecke
0:04:54 > 0:04:56in the band that he featured.
0:04:56 > 0:04:57He had Bing Crosby.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00Paul Whiteman was at the beginning of it all.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03# I'm a sentimental sap, that's all
0:05:03 > 0:05:05# What's the use of trying not to fall?
0:05:05 > 0:05:07# I have no will Oh, you've made your kill
0:05:07 > 0:05:09# Cos you took advantage of me... #
0:05:09 > 0:05:17Paul Whiteman's smooth big band was perfect hotel music for a generation that wanted to dance the Charleston
0:05:17 > 0:05:20and forget the horrors of the First World War.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23It had elements of jazz but drew heavily on classical music.
0:05:23 > 0:05:29The classically trained George Gershwin was one of Whiteman's chief collaborators.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45In 1924, Whiteman commissioned Gershwin to write Rhapsody In Blue.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48One of the first pieces of symphonic jazz,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51it has become a staple in the repertoire of classical music.
0:06:00 > 0:06:07It was a style of music that would influence classical composers from Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13What this well-organised big band music did not have,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17was any of jazz's wild sounds or improvisation.
0:06:17 > 0:06:24For that, you had to turn to a black tradition of music - the jazz of New Orleans and Chicago.
0:06:24 > 0:06:31Its greatest exponent, one of the most influential musicians of all time, was Louis Armstrong.
0:06:31 > 0:06:36And it was he, more than anyone else, who provided the inspiration for swing.
0:06:36 > 0:06:37And we're gonna swing for ya.
0:06:49 > 0:06:54In 1923, Paul Whiteman was amongst the many New York musicians
0:06:54 > 0:06:58who flocked to hear him play in Joe "King" Oliver's Band.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01I'm looking around - Joe Oliver and myself was playing duets -
0:07:01 > 0:07:04all the musicians - Bix and 'em boys come by - Whiteman -
0:07:04 > 0:07:09sit down and listen to us play - they didn't know how we did it.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13You know, I...not so much him,
0:07:13 > 0:07:19I had notes, second trumpet notes during all them riffs and all them breaks they used to make.
0:07:19 > 0:07:22Those breaks you hear now? They were originated by Joe.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24And I had a note for every one of them.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28And they thought that was marvellous. Nobody trick us.
0:07:34 > 0:07:39Armstrong's familiar showbiz personality makes it easy to forget
0:07:39 > 0:07:43that he was one of the greatest trumpet players the world has ever seen.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27Jazz starts with the rhythm.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30The melody is very crucial, the harmony is crucial,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33but I'm a rhythm guy. I like that groove.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Tap your foot. If you can't, Duke Ellington say,
0:08:36 > 0:08:39"Don't mean a thing if it doesn't have swing." Armstrong was about swinging.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55Armstrong was known as Pops and he was the father of jazz.
0:08:55 > 0:09:00A master of one of the vital components that would come to define swing -
0:09:00 > 0:09:02improvisation.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04He's the greatest.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06I'm so happy to have been on the scene with him.
0:09:06 > 0:09:11Become a good friend of his.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14He and I and Dizzy used to live in the same neighbourhood
0:09:14 > 0:09:19and occasionally, Dizzy and I would call each other up and say, "Let's go bug Pops."
0:09:19 > 0:09:24So, we'd walk up to Pops' house and ring the bell and Louis would say, "Who is it?"
0:09:24 > 0:09:27She'd say, "It looks like Dizzy and Clark."
0:09:27 > 0:09:29AS ARMSTRONG: "Let them in. They're my men."
0:09:29 > 0:09:34So, we'd go in and he'd say, "Son, I'm gonna give you the history of jazz."
0:09:34 > 0:09:35HE LAUGHS
0:09:35 > 0:09:38And he was, of course, the history of jazz!
0:09:42 > 0:09:45Armstrong was the very definition of a virtuoso.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49He could spontaneously invent new melodies as he played.
0:10:01 > 0:10:08There was the idea of improvisation, where, as we, the kids, say, you do your own thing.
0:10:08 > 0:10:09Well, yes,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12there was this freedom to express yourself.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15And this was pure joy.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19Because, as we all know, we can do that whether speaking or singing or playing -
0:10:19 > 0:10:22we feel good about it when we can tell our story.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24If you can tell it musically, that's a good thing.
0:10:24 > 0:10:29And Louis Armstrong was the first great jazz improviser.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31He set the mould for everyone after him.
0:10:34 > 0:10:39Growing up in Jamaica, me hearing that feeling in the music -
0:10:39 > 0:10:40ended up being called swing.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45There was a pulse in the rhythm and it was...
0:10:45 > 0:10:50I knew from a very early age that it was all this New Orleans influence.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54And I think what New Orleans was, was a real melting pot - cauldron -
0:10:54 > 0:10:58of all these peoples coming from various places.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02When you say New Orleans - right away, it stood for the groove.
0:11:05 > 0:11:11Armstrong was raised in New Orleans where music was a fundamental part of the city's way of life.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15New Orleans produced some of the greatest improvisers of the age.
0:11:44 > 0:11:45People sing because they can't vote.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49People play because they don't have political power, social mobility.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54People sing or play instruments because they don't have economic opportunities.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57People sing or play music because they don't have a system of justice
0:11:57 > 0:12:02that is equal to what was going on in terms of citizenship or whatnot.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06So, music played a very practical and functional role -
0:12:06 > 0:12:10it was the primary method and means of expression and communication
0:12:10 > 0:12:13for people who felt ostracized and disenfranchised.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19Young Louis Armstrong grew up expecting local musicians
0:12:19 > 0:12:23to be playing at nearly all important events - birth, marriage and death.
0:12:26 > 0:12:33Jazz is still the order of the day at funerals in New Orleans - happy on the way back from the funeral...
0:12:33 > 0:12:35and sad on the way there.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40# Steal away home to Jesus
0:12:40 > 0:12:43# Steal away
0:12:43 > 0:12:46# Steal away
0:12:46 > 0:12:49# Steal away home
0:12:49 > 0:12:52# To my Lord. #
0:12:52 > 0:12:55Some of the greatest names in jazz, such as Jelly Roll Morton,
0:12:55 > 0:13:00started their careers as jobbing musicians at the home of the recently deceased.
0:13:34 > 0:13:41But the magnet for many of the city's greatest musicians was the prospect of work in Storyville.
0:13:43 > 0:13:47This was New Orleans' officially licensed red light district.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51And there was plenty of jobs for musicians to play in the lobbies of brothels and drinking dens.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58It was where a very young Louis Armstrong found work,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01delivering coal in an area that was usually off limits.
0:14:01 > 0:14:04Well, I used to hear all that good music too
0:14:04 > 0:14:09and they didn't run me out of the district because I was working for a white man.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13And that ain't no problem at all. I could hear the best music there was down there.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16All your best musicians.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19Like many of the greatest jazz musicians,
0:14:19 > 0:14:25Armstrong had extraordinarily wide-ranging tastes in music throughout his life.
0:14:25 > 0:14:31Growing up in New Orleans, he was soaked in church music, ragtime and the blues, as well as pop tunes.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48His technical brilliance allowed him to absorb all of it,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51add his own feel and turn it into a brand new music.
0:15:25 > 0:15:30When Armstrong decided and got capable of improvising, then everything changed.
0:15:30 > 0:15:35He was so relaxed and so flexible and so elastic and so swinging, you know,
0:15:35 > 0:15:40but that also made it very attractive to outsiders,
0:15:40 > 0:15:43who listened to it and who watched it.
0:15:43 > 0:15:48Because they were attracted to this freedom of improvisation -
0:15:48 > 0:15:50joy being expressed by these people.
0:16:05 > 0:16:06# As I said before
0:16:06 > 0:16:08# I'll be glad when you're dead
0:16:08 > 0:16:10# You rascal, you
0:16:11 > 0:16:13# I'll be glad when you're dead
0:16:13 > 0:16:14# You rascal, you
0:16:14 > 0:16:17# When you're laying six feet deep
0:16:17 > 0:16:19# No more fried chicken will you eat
0:16:19 > 0:16:21# Ha-ha-ha, I know that'll break your heart
0:16:21 > 0:16:22# You love chicken, you... #
0:16:24 > 0:16:31In 1924, Armstrong's New Orleans sound was about to change the course of 20th-century popular music.
0:16:31 > 0:16:36This was the year he teamed up with an African American big band leader from New York,
0:16:36 > 0:16:40who, like so many, was mesmerised by Armstrong's talent.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43His name was Fletcher Henderson.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48In New York, you either think about Paul Whiteman or Fletcher Henderson.
0:17:01 > 0:17:03Like the other New York musicians,
0:17:03 > 0:17:08Henderson was blown away by what Armstrong had done with the jazz of New Orleans
0:17:08 > 0:17:12and the fusion of the two would create what we now know as swing.
0:17:12 > 0:17:19When Fletchy Henderson first heard Armstrong, he told everybody he had heard this guy...
0:17:19 > 0:17:21who could really swing.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23As far as we know, that's the first time
0:17:23 > 0:17:25that phrase or that term was used
0:17:25 > 0:17:30to describe a certain way of playing the rhythm.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33And so it really originates with Armstrong.
0:17:33 > 0:17:36Fletcher Henderson had seen the future.
0:17:36 > 0:17:41And in 1924, he persuaded Armstrong to come to New York and join his band.
0:17:41 > 0:17:47So, when he comes to play in Fletcher Henderson's Band - this is like the hottest band in New York -
0:17:47 > 0:17:52so this country boy walks in, you know, they don't think much of him,
0:17:52 > 0:17:56but once he start playing though, then they knew what the deal was.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58They knew he could do something they couldn't do.
0:18:13 > 0:18:14You can actually say,
0:18:14 > 0:18:18I think with no exaggeration, that...
0:18:18 > 0:18:24the swing era starts when Louis Armstrong plays with Fletcher Henderson.
0:18:26 > 0:18:28Now...
0:18:28 > 0:18:33jazz was a music that was not written. They played it
0:18:33 > 0:18:35but they didn't write it.
0:18:35 > 0:18:41Fletcher Henderson began putting those notes down on paper and out of that came the great swing band.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45Henderson had been taking a Masters degree in Chemistry,
0:18:45 > 0:18:49when he realised America had no place for a black scientist.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53He switched to band-leading and relied heavily on Don Redman,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56his saxophone player - the son of a music teacher -
0:18:56 > 0:19:00to write arrangements incorporating Armstrong's virtuosity and improvisation
0:19:00 > 0:19:02into the big band sound.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05BAND MUSIC PLAYS
0:19:18 > 0:19:21Fletcher Henderson started out accompanying blues singers
0:19:21 > 0:19:24and had his own band,
0:19:24 > 0:19:29but it wasn't until the arrival of Louis Armstrong that actually gave a kick to Fletcher's band.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34It really gave Henderson a vehicle to base arrangements around.
0:19:34 > 0:19:39And this is what we, you know, begin to talk about the development of the swing formula.
0:19:39 > 0:19:43The way of arranging the big band to keep this sound moving that makes people wanna dance.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47You can have one section playing a melody and the rest backing them up
0:19:47 > 0:19:51with these little riffs or these little shouts, if you will.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53And then, who plays the melody changes.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55Who plays the shouts, changes.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58So you have this unique dynamic that is new.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02When you hear the earlier jazz recordings,
0:20:02 > 0:20:05it's a lot more improvisational.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07Once they started writing the things out, of course,
0:20:07 > 0:20:14you're getting two halves of stuff - you're getting part of people playing the written part
0:20:14 > 0:20:16and then, somebody improvising over the top.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19Music is one of the few art forms
0:20:19 > 0:20:23where the fact that you're focusing on two or three things happening at once
0:20:23 > 0:20:26is what gives you the vibration that is really great.
0:20:26 > 0:20:31And, with the big band, it's the most perfect vehicle for that.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34So, if somebody has written out, sort of, a big riff going -
0:20:34 > 0:20:37I can't play it on the piano - I haven't got enough hands -
0:20:37 > 0:20:42but if somebody's got the rhythm section keeping the...
0:20:42 > 0:20:46and then the, sort of, saxophones...
0:20:46 > 0:20:49or whatever it is they're playing...
0:20:49 > 0:20:54and then, somebody on the top on a clarinet or whatever is going...
0:20:54 > 0:20:58and so you're getting...but when you hear all the three things at once,
0:20:58 > 0:21:00then, that's when the whole thing works.
0:21:00 > 0:21:05When Fletcher Henderson unleashed swing in New York in 1924,
0:21:05 > 0:21:09it was at just the right time and in just the right place.
0:21:09 > 0:21:14It became the soundtrack for one of the greatest explosions of African-American culture
0:21:14 > 0:21:16the world had ever seen.
0:21:16 > 0:21:24George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern may have been the kings of popular music of the time,
0:21:24 > 0:21:28but in the New York district of Harlem, everyone was listening to swing
0:21:28 > 0:21:33and it was helping turn the area into the black cultural capital of the world.
0:21:33 > 0:21:35Since the beginning of the century
0:21:35 > 0:21:41an emerging black middle class had colonised Harlem and turned it into a haven
0:21:41 > 0:21:45for the many escaping rural depression and racism.
0:21:45 > 0:21:50Harlem was the one place black people could come to and be free.
0:21:50 > 0:21:52No place else.
0:21:52 > 0:21:56That's why people came. They came from the South, the West,
0:21:56 > 0:22:02they could walk, they could ride. Whatever way, they got to Harlem because it was there.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06Whatever they wanted to do, the best place they could do it was in Harlem.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11There was nothing to stop them doing it, so that became a magnet.
0:22:13 > 0:22:18With the arrival of intellectuals and writers like Langston Hughes and Marcus Garvey,
0:22:18 > 0:22:23'20s Harlem experienced what was known as the Harlem Renaissance.
0:22:24 > 0:22:29For the first time, the world became aware of African-American culture.
0:22:30 > 0:22:35Josephine Baker rocked Paris, and a Harlem Revue called Blackbirds
0:22:35 > 0:22:37was a huge hit in '20s London.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41Everybody came to Harlem. Everybody.
0:22:41 > 0:22:48Poets, singers, writers - they were all condensed in this one small area.
0:22:48 > 0:22:56So here you had the most talented, most brilliant-minded people who had no freedom.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00Here was a place you could write your books.
0:23:00 > 0:23:06You can produce your great Cab Calloways and Bill Robinson.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09Every place was a rehearsal hall.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13That's all I used to do on Saturday was go from one rehearsal hall to the other,
0:23:13 > 0:23:17cos I just wanted to be one of them.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23Into this artistic melting pot,
0:23:23 > 0:23:28stepped arguably the greatest American composer of the 20th century.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32He took swing to a whole new level.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53Edward Kennedy Ellington's natural grace
0:23:53 > 0:23:57had earned him the nickname, Duke, at the age of seven.
0:24:06 > 0:24:11He was born into a middle class household in Washington DC,
0:24:11 > 0:24:14and moved to New York in 1923.
0:24:14 > 0:24:19When he heard Fletcher Henderson's Band, with its complex interplay between instruments,
0:24:19 > 0:24:24he knew that swing was the perfect framework for his own refined style of music.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05The thing that made Duke Ellington unique
0:25:05 > 0:25:11was that he really discovered how to blend the refined and the raw perfectly.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16It was a devastating combination.
0:25:16 > 0:25:21By the late '20s, swing was by far the dominant form of jazz.
0:25:22 > 0:25:27Ellington and the rest of them were really taking over.
0:25:27 > 0:25:31A jazz band that was a swing band, a dance band - it wasn't pure jazz,
0:25:31 > 0:25:36and a lot of the early jazz fans were well aware of this, and said,
0:25:36 > 0:25:39"This stuff being played by Ellington or Henderson
0:25:39 > 0:25:42"is not the true jazz. The true jazz is New Orleans jazz."
0:25:42 > 0:25:45It didn't matter. The New Orleans jazz was dead
0:25:45 > 0:25:51and whatever jazz you had was gonna be played in the context of a big dance band.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26You know, sometimes a tune just comes into you and knocks you down.
0:26:26 > 0:26:29You can't resist it and you just have to put it down
0:26:29 > 0:26:35and usually it associates itself with a specific performer in the band.
0:26:55 > 0:27:00You could take any 15-18 piece orchestra
0:27:00 > 0:27:05and line 'em up to play one of Ellington's charts,
0:27:05 > 0:27:09and then have Ellington's Band play it and it wouldn't swing as much,
0:27:09 > 0:27:14because Duke knew how to use the people that he had in his band.
0:27:36 > 0:27:41Some members of Ellington's Band stayed with him for 45 years.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45What is the secret of keeping a band together for as long as you do?
0:27:45 > 0:27:47You've got to have a gimmick, Humphrey.
0:27:47 > 0:27:53The one I use, I use a gimmick, is to give them money...
0:27:53 > 0:27:55LAUGHTER
0:27:57 > 0:27:59Yes, I can see that's very popular!
0:28:19 > 0:28:23Because he had the same people in the group for a long time,
0:28:23 > 0:28:28that meant you got not only a consistency of sound,
0:28:28 > 0:28:31but in the end a thing that I'm starting to achieve with my band,
0:28:31 > 0:28:38although my big band has been going for, I suppose, 10-15 years,
0:28:38 > 0:28:41is they start thinking as one. You no longer have to explain things.
0:28:41 > 0:28:47Some things you would write an arrangement, other things you just start playing and people find parts
0:28:47 > 0:28:51that are better than the ones you'd write out, because the band thinks as one.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58Not only could his band, if they wanted to, play the blues and swing,
0:28:58 > 0:29:03but they could go off in all sorts of other tangents.
0:29:03 > 0:29:06But it always had what the Ellingtonian thing was -
0:29:06 > 0:29:08you could always tell it was him.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14Many of the techniques Ellington expected of his band,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17had previously been the preserve of classical musicians.
0:29:17 > 0:29:22Circular breathing, for example - a fiendishly difficult technique
0:29:22 > 0:29:27that allowed brass players in his band to sustain a note indefinitely.
0:29:27 > 0:29:32You take an intake of air, through your nostrils,
0:29:32 > 0:29:37and while you're breathing that air through the nostrils into your lungs,
0:29:37 > 0:29:40your jaws are filled with air.
0:29:40 > 0:29:44Pfffft! You push the jaws like that, so it's like -
0:29:44 > 0:29:47HE BREATHES AND BLOWS
0:29:48 > 0:29:52And at the same time, you have to realise -
0:29:52 > 0:29:56I haven't played in a couple of days, so I don't have any...but...
0:29:56 > 0:29:57you have to buzz.
0:29:57 > 0:30:01HE BUZZES
0:30:10 > 0:30:13HE BUZZES A TUNE
0:30:21 > 0:30:24HE RETURNS TO SINGLE KEY
0:30:30 > 0:30:33So long as you can keep a buzz, and keep your chops buzzing like that,
0:30:33 > 0:30:35you can go on forever!
0:30:39 > 0:30:43# It don't mean a thing If you ain't got that swing... #
0:30:43 > 0:30:45It was Duke Ellington who first noticed
0:30:45 > 0:30:48that swing was a bit more than just a form of music.
0:30:48 > 0:30:54# It don't mean a thing All you gotta do is swing... #
0:30:58 > 0:31:02Swing was the music of black self-expression.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05But most importantly of all, it was dance music.
0:31:05 > 0:31:07And on the dance floor,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10anyone was free to get up and let themselves go.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14# It don't mean a thing If you ain't got that swing... #
0:31:16 > 0:31:20Dancing to the beat. That's what it was. It was the beat.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24And, uh, everything in life... got a beat.
0:31:24 > 0:31:26And that's what swing was.
0:31:28 > 0:31:32I mean, you couldn't listen to the music and not dance to it!
0:31:32 > 0:31:35MUSIC PLAYS
0:31:41 > 0:31:43Throughout the 1920s,
0:31:43 > 0:31:46dance had remained one of the key forms of entertainment
0:31:46 > 0:31:49for black and white audiences in America.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51Crazes had come and gone,
0:31:51 > 0:31:54but the most popular dance of the decade
0:31:54 > 0:31:55had been the Charleston.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59Young, white college students had scandalised their elders
0:31:59 > 0:32:02by wildly jigging about, or flapping.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05This dance was taken by African American audiences,
0:32:05 > 0:32:08and adapted to suit their music, swing.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11The resulting dance, the Lindy Hop,
0:32:11 > 0:32:14was a careful combination of the organised and the improvised.
0:32:23 > 0:32:28The most famous dance troupe of the day was Whitey's Lindy Hoppers
0:32:28 > 0:32:32and Norma Miller, born in 1919, was one of its key members.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53They were the resident dancers at the temple of swing dancing,
0:32:53 > 0:32:55the Savoy Ballroom, in Harlem.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59NEWSREADER: 'Dark Harlem's hot and noisy Savoy!'
0:33:06 > 0:33:11I was 12. I wasn't supposed to be there but I got in there.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15That was Easter Sunday, and they had a matinee,
0:33:15 > 0:33:19and you left church and you went up to Harlem
0:33:19 > 0:33:22because you wanted to see the Easter Parade.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25That was the time, coming out with the winter coats, and things...
0:33:25 > 0:33:28You saw clothes that you couldn't believe!
0:33:28 > 0:33:31And this was Easter Sunday and I was standing outside the Savoy
0:33:31 > 0:33:34cos I wanted to see the people going in.
0:33:34 > 0:33:36They were dressed up, and this man called me,
0:33:36 > 0:33:39and wanted me...you know... When the music started playing
0:33:39 > 0:33:42I was out there dancing in the street like all kids,
0:33:42 > 0:33:45and he asked me to come and dance with him at the Savoy Ballroom.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57This is what we did seven days a week.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01We had to learn a routine. We were trained like athletes.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04I mean, this was every day, rehearsing, rehearsing
0:34:04 > 0:34:07till we became the best in the world.
0:34:07 > 0:34:08We were just the best.
0:34:10 > 0:34:12Your life began with swing.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17For large swathes of America however,
0:34:17 > 0:34:22the open exuberance of swing dancing confirmed their opinion
0:34:22 > 0:34:27that this latest form of jazz was a threat to the nation's morals.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31Worse still, it thrived in the illegal drinking clubs,
0:34:31 > 0:34:34or speakeasies, that flourished in the prohibition era.
0:34:34 > 0:34:36'Speakeasies did a land office business.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40'Texas Guinan with her gals kept customers roaring.'
0:34:40 > 0:34:46Duke Ellington was the star turn at Harlem's legendary Cotton Club,
0:34:46 > 0:34:49a few hundred yards from the Savoy Ballroom.
0:34:49 > 0:34:53The Cotton Club was owned by British-born gangster Owney Madden,
0:34:53 > 0:34:56one of New York's most influential and violent citizens.
0:34:56 > 0:34:58Jazz has always originated
0:34:58 > 0:35:01in places that allowed it to nurture.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05It was always in either, uh,
0:35:05 > 0:35:08in whorehouses, nightclubs,
0:35:08 > 0:35:11that had a lot of drinking, had a lot of dancing,
0:35:11 > 0:35:15but most of all, places that were run by the rackets.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18Gangsters, basically. And they loved jazz musicians
0:35:18 > 0:35:22because it was happy music that made people feel good.
0:35:22 > 0:35:23And for some reason,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26I never knew any jazz musicians that worked in those places
0:35:26 > 0:35:29that had any trouble with the gangsters at all.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48We were in the Cotton Club for five years.
0:35:48 > 0:35:49Really wonderful spot,
0:35:49 > 0:35:54it was owned by people who were very influential
0:35:54 > 0:35:59and prestigious, with having things accomplished,
0:35:59 > 0:36:02and the great thing was about that, with the show on -
0:36:02 > 0:36:05and they did have a wonderful show -
0:36:05 > 0:36:08no-one was allowed to talk.
0:36:08 > 0:36:10Some guy would start talking, "Yap, yap, yap, yap!"
0:36:10 > 0:36:14And the waiter would come along, "Sir, would you please..."
0:36:14 > 0:36:16and next the Captain would come over and say...
0:36:16 > 0:36:19And the next thing you know the head waiter would come...
0:36:19 > 0:36:23and then the next thing, the guy would just disappear.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29That of course, was...would have been the prohibition era, wouldn't it?
0:36:29 > 0:36:31Yes.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34By that time. Did you have any trouble with federal agents,
0:36:34 > 0:36:37- or anything like that? - Federal agents? No.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40No, I didn't. I, uh...
0:36:40 > 0:36:45There was never anything left for them to confiscate.
0:36:56 > 0:36:57Unlike the Savoy,
0:36:57 > 0:37:03Owney Madden's Cotton Club was exclusively for rich, white New Yorkers.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07That was right up the street
0:37:07 > 0:37:11but you can work the Cotton Club, you couldn't GO in the Cotton Club.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13But I never went in the Cotton Club anyway,
0:37:13 > 0:37:15I couldn't even afford to go.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18They had black shows, but white audiences.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22As a matter of fact, white people took over Harlem at night time
0:37:22 > 0:37:24when I was coming up.
0:37:41 > 0:37:47When I was about 13 years old, I became aware of jazz
0:37:47 > 0:37:49on a Duke Ellington record,
0:37:49 > 0:37:52I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56Of course, it was the first time I really heard jazz.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02Course in my house my mother was an opera lover,
0:38:02 > 0:38:06concert goer, chamber music person,
0:38:06 > 0:38:08and the nearest I ever got to jazz
0:38:08 > 0:38:12was George Gershwin on our pianola music roll.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15I guess that's what started it,
0:38:15 > 0:38:18and from thereon in, man, I couldn't get enough of it!
0:38:22 > 0:38:26Duke Ellington may have been playing in a segregated club
0:38:26 > 0:38:31but he wrote a series of pieces that captured the mood of black America
0:38:31 > 0:38:34as the high hopes of the Harlem renaissance floundered
0:38:34 > 0:38:39on the realities of prejudice and economic hardship.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42Duke had first hand experience
0:38:42 > 0:38:46of how America could treat some of its greatest musicians.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49In 1931 he was on the radio in Chicago
0:38:49 > 0:38:52but the show wasn't broadcast nationally.
0:38:52 > 0:38:56Advertisers didn't want to be linked to a black performer.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03He was at a dinner and it was segregated
0:39:03 > 0:39:07and he got invited to the white table,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10and Duke said, "I'm not going unless the entire orchestra goes."
0:39:10 > 0:39:16And so they asked the people hosting the party if that would be OK,
0:39:16 > 0:39:19and they said, "No, but come over anyway."
0:39:19 > 0:39:23My grandfather took exception and left with the entire orchestra.
0:39:29 > 0:39:34Racism wasn't the only problem Ellington and the other bands faced.
0:39:34 > 0:39:36The stock market crash of 1929
0:39:36 > 0:39:41started the Great American Depression of the '30s.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45# He took her down to Chinatown... #
0:39:45 > 0:39:48Only the biggest crowd-pleasing bands could survive,
0:39:48 > 0:39:51providing a jolly antidote to the economic reality.
0:39:51 > 0:39:53# Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-hi
0:39:53 > 0:39:55# Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
0:39:55 > 0:39:58# Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
0:39:58 > 0:40:00# Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee
0:40:00 > 0:40:02# Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee
0:40:02 > 0:40:05# Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
0:40:05 > 0:40:07# Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
0:40:07 > 0:40:12# She had a dream about the King of Sweden
0:40:12 > 0:40:16# He gave her things that she was needin'
0:40:16 > 0:40:20# He gave her a home built of gold and steel
0:40:20 > 0:40:23# A diamond car... #
0:40:23 > 0:40:26And then there was an error on the part of showbusiness managers.
0:40:26 > 0:40:28They thought jazz was dead.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31That was something that happened in the '20s,
0:40:31 > 0:40:34it was finished, it was over, it was a fad, forget about it.
0:40:34 > 0:40:38What people want is nice, dreamy, slow dancing, this kind of thing.
0:40:38 > 0:40:41And they were wrong.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45Easy-listening big bands seemed to be taking over.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49By the early '30s, Fletcher Henderson was on his uppers.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53Desperate for money, he started selling his precious arrangements.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59He sold some to a brilliant young clarinettist
0:40:59 > 0:41:01whose name was Benny Goodman.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22He swung on his clarinet.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26Whether he had a band or a small group behind him,
0:41:26 > 0:41:27he was just a swinger.
0:41:27 > 0:41:33I think he was a natural virtuoso, he wasn't an original,
0:41:33 > 0:41:35he didn't have an original style
0:41:35 > 0:41:43except one he created from the hybridness he took from several other clarinet players
0:41:43 > 0:41:47but he was clever enough to do that and make it individual.
0:41:47 > 0:41:49And he could do anything.
0:41:49 > 0:41:51I still get astounded, half a century or more later,
0:41:51 > 0:41:55some tracks that I've never heard of Benny Goodman
0:41:55 > 0:41:58where he hits on a new idea I've never heard before,
0:41:58 > 0:42:01and he probably never used again after that record session,
0:42:01 > 0:42:04but he could just do anything he wanted.
0:42:04 > 0:42:08By the time Benny Goodman arrived, swing was ten years old
0:42:08 > 0:42:11and had already spawned some of America's greatest musicians.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14But it was yet to be embraced by mainstream America.
0:42:17 > 0:42:19Benny Goodman changed all that.
0:42:19 > 0:42:24In terms of success, he was about to become the Elvis Presley of swing.
0:42:42 > 0:42:47Goodman was heavily indebted to Fletcher Henderson's arrangements.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54Benny Goodman could have never had the sound he had,
0:42:54 > 0:42:56without Fletcher Henderson.
0:42:56 > 0:43:03So we're talking about a man of colour who wrote for Benny Goodman.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07When he did the King Porter Stomp
0:43:07 > 0:43:10it was Fletcher Henderson who wrote that arrangement.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13So it might have been played by white musicians, honey,
0:43:13 > 0:43:18but they were getting their soul and their spirit from Fletcher Henderson,
0:43:18 > 0:43:21cos he was something else. A real swinger!
0:43:21 > 0:43:25In Goodman's hands, swing would go mainstream,
0:43:25 > 0:43:30and become the soundtrack for the first sighting of the American teenager.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33A full 20 years before the arrival of rock and roll.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37Adults were baffled.
0:43:37 > 0:43:41NEWSREADER: 'Swing. What does the dictionary say about rhythm?
0:43:41 > 0:43:43'As we feared, "a measured beat."
0:43:43 > 0:43:46'Let's measure it with our special camera.
0:43:46 > 0:43:47'The exposure is made with a spark.'
0:43:52 > 0:43:56Benny Goodman was one of 12 children
0:43:56 > 0:43:59born into a poverty-stricken Chicago family.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02Like many Jewish musicians,
0:44:02 > 0:44:06he saw jazz as a way in to mainstream American culture,
0:44:06 > 0:44:09and a way of making a living.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14By the age of 16, he was working professionally in white big bands.
0:44:14 > 0:44:18Later, when he moved to New York, he spent a lot of time in Harlem
0:44:18 > 0:44:21and became one of the first white band leaders
0:44:21 > 0:44:25to play alongside African-American musicians.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27MUSIC PLAYS
0:44:30 > 0:44:33If Benny wished for anything he wished to be coloured.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35Cos he used to spend all his time in Harlem
0:44:35 > 0:44:38and when he heard Teddy Wilson he flipped out,
0:44:38 > 0:44:41when he heard Lionel Hampton he hired him immediately.
0:44:50 > 0:44:52Jazz brought the races together.
0:44:52 > 0:44:57And that's how Benny Goodman had the first black musicians in his band.
0:44:57 > 0:45:01And that's how... it just went on from there.
0:45:01 > 0:45:04Other black musicians, that's how they broke out of that mould.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07Black musicians couldn't go in the hotels.
0:45:07 > 0:45:12White musicians couldn't play jazz without black man sitting beside him.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14It was simple as that.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17When you listen to them,
0:45:17 > 0:45:20you actually get the impression -
0:45:20 > 0:45:24or I got the impression when I first heard them -
0:45:24 > 0:45:27that this is a black guy on the clarinet
0:45:27 > 0:45:31playing with some white guys on these other instruments.
0:45:33 > 0:45:36Goodman might have been colour blind, but America was not.
0:45:38 > 0:45:44Racial prejudice had stopped Duke Ellington's radio show being transmitted across the country.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47For a white band leader like Goodman however,
0:45:47 > 0:45:49there was no such restrictions,
0:45:49 > 0:45:53and in 1934 his breakthrough came on a radio show.
0:45:53 > 0:45:54By this time,
0:45:54 > 0:45:58many dance halls had been brought to their knees by the Depression,
0:45:58 > 0:46:03and radio had begun to fill the gap for dance music.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07Goodman landed a spot on NBC's nationally broadcast music show,
0:46:07 > 0:46:09Let's Dance.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12A programme called Let's Dance,
0:46:12 > 0:46:15where he was the orchestra selected for the jazz part.
0:46:15 > 0:46:17The producers of that show
0:46:17 > 0:46:19realised that the collapse of the ballroom business
0:46:19 > 0:46:22and the death of the bands of the '20s
0:46:22 > 0:46:24was largely an economic thing. That people still wanted
0:46:24 > 0:46:30to dance on Saturday night, they just didn't have a place to go or money to pay for entry,
0:46:30 > 0:46:33and places had folded because nobody was going.
0:46:33 > 0:46:35So they gave them a Saturday night dance on the radio.
0:46:35 > 0:46:39Somebody could put a radio out and they could have their own dance.
0:46:39 > 0:46:41The show clicked. It was very popular.
0:46:45 > 0:46:47When Goodman's radio show led to a national tour,
0:46:47 > 0:46:53Middle America, it was felt, wasn't ready for a mixed-race big band.
0:46:53 > 0:46:58So the big band he took on the road was all white.
0:46:58 > 0:47:02He loved playing with black musicians but he was very conservative.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04He came from a very poor family
0:47:04 > 0:47:08and they worried about getting anything to eat,
0:47:08 > 0:47:10let alone getting enough to eat.
0:47:10 > 0:47:16And Benny was the first one to be able to make any money
0:47:16 > 0:47:18and he wasn't about to jeopardise that
0:47:18 > 0:47:21because he was supporting the whole family.
0:47:23 > 0:47:25I mean, he loved playing with the black musicians
0:47:25 > 0:47:29but he was afraid that he just wouldn't be accepted.
0:47:29 > 0:47:31And as it was, he couldn't play in the South with them.
0:47:34 > 0:47:38In the spring of 1935, Benny Goodman's all-white big band
0:47:38 > 0:47:40set out on the tour
0:47:40 > 0:47:43that would change the history of popular music forever.
0:47:43 > 0:47:46But it all started very badly.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52It wasn't genteel enough for some of these people,
0:47:52 > 0:47:55and they couldn't stand it because he was too loud.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58And they got to Denver,
0:47:58 > 0:48:02and the only people in the audience were friends of the musicians,
0:48:02 > 0:48:06and Benny was ready to turn back and give up the band-leading business.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09But his musicians talked him into continuing the tour,
0:48:09 > 0:48:11and they made it to Los Angeles.
0:48:21 > 0:48:27I think August 21st, 1935 is widely held to be the inauguration of the swing era.
0:48:27 > 0:48:32That was the day Benny Goodman turned up at the Palomar Ballroom.
0:48:34 > 0:48:35The Palomar Ballroom
0:48:35 > 0:48:39called itself the largest and most famous dance hall on the west coast.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44It's dance floor could accommodate 4,000 couples.
0:48:44 > 0:48:49After his dismal tour, Goodman was sure most of it would be empty.
0:48:49 > 0:48:54An estimated 10,000 people showed up to hear the Goodman Band.
0:48:54 > 0:48:59Apparently his nationwide radio show had been airing in California
0:48:59 > 0:49:00and people had been listening.
0:49:03 > 0:49:05The place went nuts.
0:49:05 > 0:49:08Then the word got out and all the other kids,
0:49:08 > 0:49:12it had to be a thing, you had to go hear the Benny Goodman Band,
0:49:12 > 0:49:14and so it was a great success.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18Swing was a phenomenon.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22Just the way the Beatles turned out to be a phenomenon,
0:49:22 > 0:49:2440 years later, 30 years later.
0:49:27 > 0:49:28It was 1935.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31America was still in the depths of depression
0:49:31 > 0:49:34and the world was waking up to the possibility of war.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36Against this unlikely backdrop,
0:49:36 > 0:49:40America's teenagers had found something to celebrate,
0:49:40 > 0:49:44an exciting new music they could call their own and dance to.
0:49:47 > 0:49:51NEWSREADER: 'A new sound in the night. A new kind of jazz,
0:49:51 > 0:49:53'something called swing.
0:49:53 > 0:49:55'And Benny Goodman is the king of it.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58'It starts in the dance joints, jams the theatres,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01'even raises the roof at classical Carnegie Hall.'
0:50:01 > 0:50:04Now you have young teenagers,
0:50:04 > 0:50:08who are able to embrace, not only buying Benny Goodman records,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11but now they come out in droves to see him!
0:50:17 > 0:50:19It became a social thing to do,
0:50:19 > 0:50:24as a part of your social life as a teenager, to go to dances,
0:50:24 > 0:50:28and that was part of the romantic scene, and so forth,
0:50:28 > 0:50:32and it was part of the youth culture.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38NEWSREADER: 'First, the basis of every swing band is the rhythm section.'
0:50:38 > 0:50:41Massed youth culture and American popular music
0:50:41 > 0:50:45exploded in the middle of the American Depression.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48Everyone wanted to know about swing.
0:50:48 > 0:50:53NEWSREADER: 'In Arty Shaw's rhythm section we have drums, piano, guitar and bass fiddle.
0:50:53 > 0:50:56'You can hear the rhythm section through every swing tune.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59'Now on top of this, an intricate melody...
0:51:05 > 0:51:07'Artie Shaw and his famous clarinet.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10'Then a saxophone section...
0:51:14 > 0:51:17'..playing melody and harmony,
0:51:17 > 0:51:21'and finally a brass section of trombones and trumpets...
0:51:24 > 0:51:27'..for full colouring and a full band effect.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30'And we've got swing that's really in the groove.'
0:51:40 > 0:51:44White teenagers were driving the swing phenomenon
0:51:44 > 0:51:47and bands such as Artie Shaw's and Jimmy Dorsey's
0:51:47 > 0:51:52joined Benny Goodman on the radio, on record and on film.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56The dance always associated with swing,
0:51:56 > 0:52:02the Lindy Hop, crossed over to a white audience to become something else - the Jitterbug.
0:52:02 > 0:52:07Young white women hadn't been seen dancing like this before.
0:52:07 > 0:52:14Adult America, already suspicious of the music's African-American origins, was horrified.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19Swing was labelled as dangerous music that made you have sex.
0:52:19 > 0:52:27I think people are interested in sex and danger to a certain extent as long as no-one gets hurt
0:52:27 > 0:52:31and music's not really going to hurt you. You're just going to have a good time.
0:52:31 > 0:52:36Swing was more than music. For the teenagers embracing it, it offered a way of life.
0:52:36 > 0:52:42Music, a code of dress, even a language - it was the world's first youth culture.
0:52:42 > 0:52:47Swing music acts as a narcotic and makes them forget reality.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49It is like taking a drug.
0:52:51 > 0:52:57Swing music represents a regression to a primitive "Tam, tam, tam."
0:52:59 > 0:53:06Dr Brill's film went on to outline the dangers swing presented to an average American diner...
0:53:08 > 0:53:10..any public gathering...
0:53:14 > 0:53:18..having a wash and worst of all, housework.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21SWING MUSIC PLAYS
0:53:34 > 0:53:37Enjoying dance was something really needed,
0:53:37 > 0:53:41especially in America, that was in the depths of the Great Depression,
0:53:41 > 0:53:44when people were homeless, had no jobs,
0:53:44 > 0:53:50and it was there that the youth took on this new music that was coming out,
0:53:50 > 0:53:52and embraced it wholeheartedly.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56The band leaders were definitely the pop stars of their time.
0:53:56 > 0:54:01There were magazines devoted to what they're doing, what they're wearing - that sort of thing.
0:54:17 > 0:54:24The mass audience that Benny Goodman brought to swing also benefited African-American bands.
0:54:24 > 0:54:28One of these turned out to be arguably the greatest swing band of all time -
0:54:28 > 0:54:30the Count Basie Orchestra.
0:55:13 > 0:55:18Basie was one of the best human beings I think I've ever met.
0:55:18 > 0:55:20He was like an angel.
0:55:20 > 0:55:26Everybody loved Count Basie. You could never find anybody who ever said a bad word about him.
0:55:32 > 0:55:36Count Basie was a tough New Yorker stranded in Kansas City,
0:55:36 > 0:55:40when the Vaudeville show he was the pianist in ran out of money.
0:55:49 > 0:55:54The next really good kind of swing came from the South West.
0:55:54 > 0:55:58Kansas City, Oklahoma, Omaha, even.
0:55:58 > 0:56:05It was a place... The only place that didn't suffer from the Depression was Kansas City.
0:56:05 > 0:56:10Kansas City was run by Pendergast
0:56:10 > 0:56:15and it didn't matter - in the teeth of the Depression
0:56:15 > 0:56:18the town was wide open. It was run by the rackets.
0:56:22 > 0:56:27He played in a little club in Kansas City and he knew everybody who came in the joint.
0:56:27 > 0:56:32Everybody who came in the club would order a drink for Basie.
0:56:33 > 0:56:38So, while they're playing,
0:56:38 > 0:56:41Basie takes a little vacation from the "Beep-ba-loom"
0:56:41 > 0:56:44and gets up from the piano going, "Hey Joe, how are you doing?"
0:56:44 > 0:56:50He goes over to Joe's table and said, "There's a little drink." So he had a drink with Joe,
0:56:50 > 0:56:55he goes back to the band which is still going, "Blip-blip-blitto-blip-do-da-lom-da"
0:56:55 > 0:56:58and then he'd say, "Hey, Bill, what are you saying?"
0:56:58 > 0:57:01And go to Bill's table and has a little sesh with Bill
0:57:01 > 0:57:05and says, "I've gotta get back." He'd go back - "ba-room-ba-loom-ba-loom."
0:57:05 > 0:57:08John comes in. "Hey, John."
0:57:08 > 0:57:10And that's the ticket in his manager's face.
0:57:35 > 0:57:42At the heart of Count Basie's music, lay what was considered the best rhythm section in the business -
0:57:42 > 0:57:48guitarist Freddie Green, drummer Jo Jones and bass player Walter Page.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53Walter Page was a band leader of his own all through the '20s
0:57:53 > 0:57:54and he was a bass player.
0:57:54 > 0:57:59He's the man who taught the whole Count Basie rhythm section how to play -
0:57:59 > 0:58:02to where you had a nice floating thing.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08But Basie was just playing chords here and there.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18Everybody's played down to the level of the bass
0:58:18 > 0:58:24and that's what started the whole floating thing that was so wonderful about the Count Basie thing.
0:58:36 > 0:58:40With a rhythm section like that you couldn't go wrong.
0:58:40 > 0:58:44It automatically says to you, "This is the way to do it.
0:58:44 > 0:58:47"Take advantage of this. You've gotta listen to the chords.
0:58:47 > 0:58:49"And listen to the way the band swings."
0:58:52 > 0:58:55They really figured it out. When they came to New York,
0:58:55 > 0:58:59that's when they really turned everybody on, you know.
0:59:17 > 0:59:23Count Basie may have languished in Kansas City if he hadn't travelled to New York
0:59:23 > 0:59:28to appear in one of the first ever major concerts to celebrate African-American music.
0:59:28 > 0:59:34In the renowned Carnegie Hall, the series of concerts were called Spirituals To Swing.
0:59:49 > 0:59:53These landmark concerts were a real eye-opener to New Yorkers
0:59:53 > 0:59:57who had never appreciated the full range of African-American music.
0:59:57 > 1:00:03They heard gospel, blues and boogie-woogie as well as Benny Goodman and Count Basie.
1:00:03 > 1:00:11You took part, played piano, in one of the first jazz concerts of all time in Carnegie Hall, didn't you?
1:00:11 > 1:00:13That was the Benny Goodman concert.
1:00:13 > 1:00:19Benny invited about six of our group along,
1:00:19 > 1:00:23- for the jam session part of it. And it was truly a great thrill. - Mm-hm.
1:00:23 > 1:00:27That was a milestone in jazz history, wasn't it?
1:00:27 > 1:00:31Well, I think it's one of them, I would say.
1:00:31 > 1:00:34The arrival of Count Basie in New York
1:00:34 > 1:00:37marked a creative high point of the swing era
1:00:37 > 1:00:41and turned the city into the jazz and swing capital of the world.
1:00:46 > 1:00:51At this point the music had matured. It had the improvisation of Louis Armstrong,
1:00:51 > 1:00:53the sophistication of Ellington,
1:00:53 > 1:00:55and the rhythm of Count Basie.
1:00:55 > 1:00:58Plus, a new generation of extraordinary vocalists
1:00:58 > 1:01:00was beginning to make their mark on the music.
1:01:02 > 1:01:05Singers had featured in big bands from the earliest years,
1:01:05 > 1:01:09but most band leaders had dismissed them as an interruption of their music.
1:01:10 > 1:01:12# I have lips to sigh with... #
1:01:12 > 1:01:14By the '30s, this had all changed
1:01:14 > 1:01:19with the arrival of some of the greatest singers of the 20th century -
1:01:19 > 1:01:21people such as Billie Holiday,
1:01:21 > 1:01:23Peggy Lee
1:01:23 > 1:01:24and Ella Fitzgerald.
1:01:24 > 1:01:28# Somewhere there's heaven
1:01:28 > 1:01:32# It's where you are
1:01:32 > 1:01:36# Somewhere there's music
1:01:36 > 1:01:40# How near, how far
1:01:40 > 1:01:44# The darkest night would shine
1:01:44 > 1:01:48# If you'd come to me soon
1:01:48 > 1:01:52# Until you will, how still my heart
1:01:52 > 1:01:57# How high the moon... #
1:01:57 > 1:02:00First of all, singers were considered a necessary evil.
1:02:00 > 1:02:05Publishers demanded that the song have words and somebody sing them.
1:02:05 > 1:02:09So they always stuck them down in the second chorus of an arrangement -
1:02:09 > 1:02:13the singer would sing after the band played a chorus.
1:02:13 > 1:02:16Then the band would play out after that.
1:02:16 > 1:02:22So the singers didn't usually even end the old records, if you remember.
1:02:22 > 1:02:29All the Benny Goodman records with Helen Ward - they sang in the middle of the song,
1:02:29 > 1:02:33not at the beginning and the end.
1:02:33 > 1:02:37The leaders didn't like singers, a lot of them.
1:02:37 > 1:02:40They only had singers because they had to have them.
1:02:41 > 1:02:46Now the singers were starting to generate as much publicity as the bands.
1:02:46 > 1:02:53# I've got no lost-my-man blues
1:02:53 > 1:02:59# He didn't treat me fair It's more than I can bear
1:02:59 > 1:03:02# I've got no lost-my-man blues... #
1:03:02 > 1:03:06Billie Holiday had started as a jobbing singer
1:03:06 > 1:03:10with big band leaders, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw,
1:03:10 > 1:03:16but by 1939 she was packing black and white alike into a club called Cafe Society,
1:03:16 > 1:03:19in New York's Greenwich Village.
1:03:19 > 1:03:21APPLAUSE
1:03:21 > 1:03:23Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
1:03:23 > 1:03:27Now I'd like to sing a tune that was written especially for me.
1:03:27 > 1:03:30It's titled Strange Fruit. I don't know if you'll like it...
1:03:30 > 1:03:33One of the high points of Billie Holiday's performance,
1:03:33 > 1:03:36was when the lights dimmed, waiters stopped serving
1:03:36 > 1:03:39and she slowed the swing down to sing Strange Fruit -
1:03:39 > 1:03:41a song about the horrors of lynching in the South.
1:03:41 > 1:03:47# Southern trees
1:03:47 > 1:03:52# Bear a strange fruit
1:03:52 > 1:03:57# Blood on the leaves
1:03:57 > 1:04:03# And blood at the root... #
1:04:03 > 1:04:07My aunt was a singer and she played me a record
1:04:07 > 1:04:10and I didn't know what it was,
1:04:10 > 1:04:14but I said to my aunt, "I want to sing like her."
1:04:14 > 1:04:18# Strange fruit hanging... #
1:04:18 > 1:04:21There was a record by Billie Holiday of Strange Fruit.
1:04:23 > 1:04:28When I heard that record, that changed my life.
1:04:28 > 1:04:33# Here is a fruit
1:04:33 > 1:04:37# For the crows to pluck
1:04:39 > 1:04:43# For the rain to gather
1:04:43 > 1:04:48# For the wind to suck... #
1:04:48 > 1:04:53Initially, the record company she worked with refused to release such a sensitive song.
1:04:53 > 1:04:57# For the trees... #
1:04:57 > 1:05:01When it was eventually released, Strange Fruit was banned by many radio stations in America
1:05:01 > 1:05:04and by the BBC in London.
1:05:04 > 1:05:07# Here is a strange... #
1:05:07 > 1:05:11Billie Holiday was painfully aware of racial prejudice.
1:05:11 > 1:05:16She had felt it first hand on joining Artie Shaw's Band in 1938.
1:05:18 > 1:05:21She had just quit the Basie Band and that was a horror for her,
1:05:21 > 1:05:25cos they dressed her up as Aunt Jemima and the band wore old field-hand stuff.
1:05:25 > 1:05:26She didn't like that.
1:05:26 > 1:05:29I offered her a job. She said, "Go away."
1:05:29 > 1:05:32I said, "I'm telling you." She said, "What's the pay?"
1:05:32 > 1:05:36I said, "60 bucks. That's what I get. That's what everybody gets. A week"
1:05:36 > 1:05:39So she said, "All right, I've got nothing better to do."
1:05:45 > 1:05:50With Billie Holiday on board, Artie Shaw soon had a hit on his hands.
1:05:50 > 1:05:55I wrote the song, the words and the arrangement, cos it felt like what Billie should sing.
1:05:55 > 1:05:59# All through the years we'll stand together
1:05:59 > 1:06:03# Sharing the tears and stormy weather
1:06:03 > 1:06:06# And the sunshine...#
1:06:06 > 1:06:09Any Old Time was a big hit,
1:06:09 > 1:06:13but in America at this time, that wasn't enough to make her immune from prejudice -
1:06:13 > 1:06:16even in metropolitan, sophisticated New York City.
1:06:16 > 1:06:19#..To chase away the blues... #
1:06:19 > 1:06:25'NBC presents the distinguished swing of Artie Shaw, king of the clarinet
1:06:25 > 1:06:31'and his orchestra creating dance history in the Blue Room of the Hotel Lincoln in new York City.'
1:06:34 > 1:06:39In the middle of all this, the woman who ran and managed the Hotel Lincoln
1:06:39 > 1:06:40came to me and said,
1:06:40 > 1:06:45"When the singers come in at night to change from their street clothes to their evening clothes,
1:06:45 > 1:06:50"they go up in the elevator and Billie goes up and we have guests,
1:06:50 > 1:06:55"and they take the same elevator and see a black - a coloured lady in the elevator."
1:06:55 > 1:07:00She said, "It raises the Dickens with us because a lot of people are from the South
1:07:00 > 1:07:04"and they come to the desk and say, 'Do you take coloured people here?'
1:07:04 > 1:07:08"And the man has to explain she's a singer with the band.
1:07:08 > 1:07:10"It causes tremendous problems for me.
1:07:10 > 1:07:15"Would you ask Billie if she would mind going to her dressing room by the freight elevator?"
1:07:15 > 1:07:17I said, "Billie, I feel awful.
1:07:17 > 1:07:22"I don't like to ask you this. Do you want to do it or don't you?" She said, "I don't want to."
1:07:22 > 1:07:26I said, "OK." She said, "What I want to do is get away from this world."
1:07:26 > 1:07:33Forced into using a service lift, Billie Holiday never went on the road with a swing band again.
1:07:41 > 1:07:43'War song or no war song?
1:07:43 > 1:07:45'From one end of the USA to another,
1:07:45 > 1:07:52'soldiers on leave and war workers find that America's musical home front is jumping.'
1:07:54 > 1:07:57By the time the Second World War broke out,
1:07:57 > 1:08:04swing was so popular that the American establishment was forced to perform a spectacular U-turn
1:08:04 > 1:08:08and embrace the music it had previously viewed as decadent and immoral.
1:08:08 > 1:08:12'Recognising the historic fact that music helps to win wars,
1:08:12 > 1:08:16'the Army and Navy are working with the nation's song publishers
1:08:16 > 1:08:19'who are helping to meet the need for more and more music -
1:08:19 > 1:08:21'both popular and classic.'
1:08:25 > 1:08:27The war was good for the bands,
1:08:27 > 1:08:32because you couldn't buy automobiles, refrigerators, clothes - anything,
1:08:32 > 1:08:34because all the stuff was going for war purposes.
1:08:34 > 1:08:37So there was a lot of money around and you spent it,
1:08:37 > 1:08:41buying records and going out to dances and the bands were being used
1:08:41 > 1:08:43to play for the troops.
1:08:43 > 1:08:46'Famous jazz composers like the great Duke Ellington
1:08:46 > 1:08:50'are turning out new works to fit the accelerated mood of a nation at war,
1:08:50 > 1:08:53'but nevertheless determined to have its fun.'
1:09:00 > 1:09:05Benny Goodman was deposed as the nation's favourite pop star
1:09:05 > 1:09:09by probably the most famous swing musician of all time.
1:09:09 > 1:09:13His sound would forever be associated with the Second World War.
1:09:13 > 1:09:15His name was Glenn Miller.
1:09:18 > 1:09:20Ask a young person,
1:09:20 > 1:09:22"Do you know who Ray Anthony is?"
1:09:22 > 1:09:23They don't have a clue.
1:09:23 > 1:09:25"Do you know who Glenn Miller is?"
1:09:25 > 1:09:28"Yeah, I've heard that name before." It's a strange phenomenon.
1:09:33 > 1:09:37Before the war, Glenn Miller had been a trombonist and arranger,
1:09:37 > 1:09:40whose big band hadn't been going all that well.
1:09:40 > 1:09:44He decided he needed a new and distinctive sound
1:09:44 > 1:09:47and adopted a sweeter, more romantic tone.
1:09:47 > 1:09:49It achieved almost instant success.
1:09:58 > 1:10:04It got bigger and bigger and then it went back down to a smaller size.
1:10:06 > 1:10:09Benny Goodman had five brass,
1:10:09 > 1:10:12Glenn Miller was the first one to open it up to eight brass,
1:10:12 > 1:10:18so with eight brass you had to have more harmony within the arrangement.
1:10:20 > 1:10:24Glenn Miller's sound was more organized, with fewer solos.
1:10:24 > 1:10:30It was more soothing music - perfect for a country apprehensive about the onset of war.
1:10:31 > 1:10:37In 1939, Time magazine noted that roughly a quarter of all discs
1:10:37 > 1:10:41in the nation's jukeboxes were Glenn Miller's.
1:10:44 > 1:10:47Miller's main pre-war hit, Tuxedo Junction,
1:10:47 > 1:10:51sold 115,000 copies in the first week alone.
1:10:53 > 1:10:57It was popular music, but it was very good popular music.
1:10:59 > 1:11:05Those arrangements are very interesting. They are put together in a very clever way,
1:11:05 > 1:11:09with the movement among the various instruments, the various sections going back and forth.
1:11:09 > 1:11:15Then, at the height of his popularity, in 1942,
1:11:15 > 1:11:17Miller did an extraordinary thing.
1:11:17 > 1:11:25He disbanded his civilian band and decided to use his music to boost wartime morale.
1:11:25 > 1:11:27At 38 he was too old to enlist,
1:11:27 > 1:11:33but managed to persuade the Army to take him on to lead a joint Forces band.
1:11:34 > 1:11:38..Saxophone section is presided over by that rather portly gentleman
1:11:38 > 1:11:44near the centre, there. He used to occupy that same position with Artie Shaw,
1:11:44 > 1:11:47before Artie went in the Navy. His name is Sergeant Hank Freeman.
1:11:47 > 1:11:49He's in charge of the boys. Gentlemen.
1:11:49 > 1:11:50APPLAUSE
1:11:50 > 1:11:56He transferred his 30-strong Army and Air Force orchestra to London in 1944,
1:11:56 > 1:11:59to be as close as possible to the fighting troops.
1:11:59 > 1:12:04They gave over 800 performances to an estimated one million Allied servicemen
1:12:04 > 1:12:08and provided a powerful link to home and peace.
1:12:16 > 1:12:21By December 1944, he was a major, and left for Paris,
1:12:21 > 1:12:26intending to play for the soldiers who had recently liberated the city.
1:12:26 > 1:12:28He never got there.
1:12:28 > 1:12:33His plane disappeared over the Channel. What happened remains a mystery,
1:12:33 > 1:12:37but it made him a national icon.
1:12:37 > 1:12:41I was on Midway Island when we heard of his failure.
1:12:41 > 1:12:47It was like a President of the United States dying. It was that strong.
1:12:50 > 1:12:54It was not just American troops who were inspired by swing.
1:12:54 > 1:13:00Much to the annoyance of the Nazi leadership, German troops were tuning their radios into it too.
1:13:14 > 1:13:20This led to one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of the music - Nazi swing.
1:13:23 > 1:13:28The Nazis had originally tried to outlaw swing as degenerate music
1:13:28 > 1:13:34and their propaganda films emphasised that it was played by black people and spread by Jews.
1:13:34 > 1:13:38COMMENTATOR SPEAKS GERMAN
1:13:42 > 1:13:46Despite this, they found it impossible to ban
1:13:46 > 1:13:50and like the Americans decided to harness it for their own war efforts.
1:13:53 > 1:13:56Joseph Goebbels launched a swing counter-attack.
1:13:56 > 1:14:01He put together a Nazi swing band called Charlie And His Orchestra,
1:14:01 > 1:14:05which made over 90 recordings between 1941 and 1943 -
1:14:05 > 1:14:09mainly Nazi versions of American swing hits.
1:14:09 > 1:14:14You're Driving Me Crazy was a popular American swing tune of the '30s,
1:14:14 > 1:14:17here performed with its Nazi re-written lyrics...
1:14:17 > 1:14:21# Winston Churchill's latest tearjerker
1:14:21 > 1:14:24# Yes, the Germans are driving me crazy
1:14:24 > 1:14:28# I thought I had brains
1:14:28 > 1:14:31# But they've shattered my planes
1:14:31 > 1:14:33# They've built up a front against me
1:14:33 > 1:14:35# It's quite amazing
1:14:36 > 1:14:40# Clouding the skies with their planes... #
1:14:42 > 1:14:45The results were broadcast to Britain and the States.
1:14:45 > 1:14:49Rumour has it that Winston Churchill enjoyed them no end.
1:14:53 > 1:14:59It was fitting then, that the Allies would celebrate winning the war at Hitler's old stomping ground,
1:14:59 > 1:15:03the Nuremburg Stadium, by playing host to Glenn Miller's Band.
1:15:05 > 1:15:10Back in Britain, swing had had a huge impact
1:15:10 > 1:15:12and left an enduring legacy.
1:15:13 > 1:15:18The exotic American troops who had brought the music with them might have gone,
1:15:18 > 1:15:22but Britain's home-grown music scene had been electrified by swing.
1:15:50 > 1:15:55We had Ted Heath's Band which was a great band.
1:15:57 > 1:16:00I played with him from 1945.
1:16:00 > 1:16:02The ensemble playing was excellent.
1:16:02 > 1:16:08It was learned from the Americans that we listened to in the war -
1:16:08 > 1:16:13Glenn Miller's Band and the Artie Shaw Navy Band.
1:16:13 > 1:16:16They were hugely influential.
1:16:29 > 1:16:34We started in 1953 and did all the circuit in Britain.
1:16:34 > 1:16:39By 1959 we were invited to the Newport Jazz Festival
1:16:39 > 1:16:43where we were playing with everybody. It looked like a who's who of jazz.
1:16:43 > 1:16:49We went on and played how we knew and when the New York Times came out they said,
1:16:49 > 1:16:52"This English band is still using something
1:16:52 > 1:16:56"which has virtually disappeared from many American bands -
1:16:56 > 1:16:59"and that is the ability to swing."
1:16:59 > 1:17:01That was the surprising truth,
1:17:01 > 1:17:06because while the Second World War was followed by a golden age for swing in the UK,
1:17:06 > 1:17:10in America, its home, swing was sinking into decline.
1:17:14 > 1:17:19British swing had a big advantage because there was little home-grown competition.
1:17:26 > 1:17:28In America, by contrast, there was lots of new music.
1:17:31 > 1:17:34Smaller bands were forging the way towards rock'n'roll.
1:17:34 > 1:17:38Big bands faced so much competition
1:17:38 > 1:17:40that they were finding it hard to survive.
1:17:42 > 1:17:48Even Duke Ellington had to subsidise his big band after the war with his recording royalties.
1:17:48 > 1:17:50I had so many expensive people
1:17:50 > 1:17:54in the band - it's the highest-paid band in the world.
1:17:54 > 1:17:57I mean the individuals are the highest paid.
1:17:57 > 1:18:03The men in the band get the money. I get the kicks.
1:18:03 > 1:18:05I wish I could afford this payroll.
1:18:12 > 1:18:14The rest of the big bands had to change their ways.
1:18:14 > 1:18:19It's a great sound, but that was an expensive sound
1:18:19 > 1:18:21and the world couldn't afford it
1:18:21 > 1:18:27in later years, after the '40s. The bands had to downsize. Even Lionel Hampton had to downsize.
1:18:28 > 1:18:34Peggy Lee had first recorded Why Don't You Do Right? in 1942
1:18:34 > 1:18:37with the full might of the Benny Goodman Band behind her.
1:18:37 > 1:18:42# You let other women make a fool of you
1:18:42 > 1:18:44# Why don't you do right?
1:18:45 > 1:18:50# Like some other men do
1:18:51 > 1:18:57# Get out of here And get me some money too... #
1:18:57 > 1:19:01When she recorded it again, ten years later, it was a very different story.
1:19:01 > 1:19:04She was backed by just four musicians.
1:19:04 > 1:19:09# You had plenty money, 1922,
1:19:09 > 1:19:14# You let other women make a fool of you
1:19:14 > 1:19:15# Why don't you do right?
1:19:16 > 1:19:19# Like some other men do.
1:19:23 > 1:19:28# Get out of here And get me some money too... #
1:19:28 > 1:19:32Big bands were giving way to more cost-effective small bands.
1:19:32 > 1:19:39These small combos were creating their own version of what a swinging big band was.
1:19:39 > 1:19:43It didn't have to be three trumpets and five tenors, or saxophones.
1:19:43 > 1:19:50Great pianists like Oscar Peterson,
1:19:50 > 1:19:52they were like mini big bands.
1:19:57 > 1:20:02It was all in those fingers and the understanding between the bass player and the drummer
1:20:02 > 1:20:05and whatever feeling the individual had.
1:20:07 > 1:20:11Whole new styles were beginning to undermine swing.
1:20:11 > 1:20:16'A small, but intense minority of the industry's customers are rare record fans.
1:20:16 > 1:20:21'Many of them addicts of jazz in its more erudite forms,
1:20:21 > 1:20:23'such as today's be-bop.'
1:20:51 > 1:20:57Be-bop came in, which was Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.
1:20:57 > 1:21:01They didn't want you to dance to their music.
1:21:01 > 1:21:05They wanted you to listen to their music.
1:21:05 > 1:21:10That was where you had to sit and listen and they cut the dances out.
1:21:10 > 1:21:14They had signs up, "No Dancing."
1:21:14 > 1:21:16That damaged us.
1:21:17 > 1:21:21Tastes had changed. Older people,
1:21:21 > 1:21:24who had been the basic audience for the dance bands fell away.
1:21:24 > 1:21:27They couldn't go out dancing. They had families.
1:21:27 > 1:21:34The younger people coming along were interested in the pop singers.
1:21:34 > 1:21:38- Yeah.- Good morning. My name is Frank Sinatra.
1:21:40 > 1:21:43What? Ahhh!
1:21:44 > 1:21:45APPLAUSE
1:21:47 > 1:21:50Like most other singers at the time,
1:21:50 > 1:21:55Frank Sinatra had started out as a less significant element in big bands.
1:21:55 > 1:22:00But after the war he was extraordinarily successful as a soloist.
1:22:00 > 1:22:03Now it was the swing singers people wanted to hear.
1:22:04 > 1:22:06I accompanied him on a couple of occasions.
1:22:06 > 1:22:12I saw something about this man of small build, that was powerful.
1:22:12 > 1:22:16He had this very magnetic personality
1:22:16 > 1:22:19and people were just smitten with his whole outlook.
1:22:19 > 1:22:22# And he broke it in little pieces
1:22:22 > 1:22:24# Now how do you do?
1:22:24 > 1:22:27# Hey, I lie awake just singing the blues all night... #
1:22:27 > 1:22:32Frank Sinatra was one of the first singers to start employing the bands
1:22:32 > 1:22:34that had started off employing him.
1:22:34 > 1:22:36# You had it coming to you... #
1:22:36 > 1:22:42There's nothing better that happened to me, than spending the years on the bus
1:22:42 > 1:22:47with the bands, because you worked 365 days a year
1:22:47 > 1:22:50and if you're gonna be good in any job at all,
1:22:50 > 1:22:53I think if you eat, sleep, walk, talk and dream it,
1:22:53 > 1:22:57you're gonna be good at it and in the end you'll be a big man in it.
1:23:00 > 1:23:03The singers were not that important part of a band.
1:23:03 > 1:23:07They would sit there - when I was with the Glenn Miller Band
1:23:07 > 1:23:13the Modernaires were with the band, and Marian Hutton and Ray Eberly.
1:23:13 > 1:23:19The turning point came when Frank Sinatra got so popular.
1:23:21 > 1:23:26# Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week
1:23:27 > 1:23:30# Cos that's the night that my sweetie and I
1:23:30 > 1:23:34# Used to dance cheek to cheek
1:23:34 > 1:23:39# I don't mind Sunday night at all
1:23:39 > 1:23:43# Cos that's the night friends come to call
1:23:43 > 1:23:47# And Monday to Friday go fast
1:23:47 > 1:23:50# And another week is past
1:23:50 > 1:23:54# Saturday night is the loneliest night... #
1:23:54 > 1:24:00In the '50s the centre of the swing universe moved from New York to California.
1:24:00 > 1:24:07Capitol Records in Los Angels signed not only vocalists such as Sinatra,
1:24:07 > 1:24:09but brilliant arrangers such as Nelson Riddle,
1:24:09 > 1:24:14capable of reworking swing to suit solo singers.
1:24:14 > 1:24:17# Look down, look down
1:24:19 > 1:24:21# The lonesome road
1:24:22 > 1:24:25# Before you travel on... #
1:24:25 > 1:24:30They took the vocalist like a jewel and put it in a proper setting.
1:24:30 > 1:24:36It would be as if I brought you a raw stone and said, "Please, set this properly."
1:24:36 > 1:24:39That's what the arrangers do.
1:24:41 > 1:24:44And they were all products of the big band era.
1:24:44 > 1:24:49As was my father, of course, but I think that I always have referred
1:24:49 > 1:24:53to their time in the big bands, the singers and musicians
1:24:53 > 1:24:54in the big band era,
1:24:54 > 1:25:00as that was their answer to no university training, or anything.
1:25:00 > 1:25:05This was better because I don't think the curriculum at university was up to it -
1:25:05 > 1:25:10what they needed to learn as it were. Most of them didn't have any money anyway.
1:25:18 > 1:25:21As well as backing this new generation of pop singers,
1:25:21 > 1:25:26big band music found a new home in Hollywood.
1:25:26 > 1:25:30Henry Mancini went from the Glenn Miller Band to The Pink Panther.
1:25:30 > 1:25:35Johnny Mandel went from the Basie Band to Hollywood movies,
1:25:35 > 1:25:38writing hits like Suicide Is Painless
1:25:38 > 1:25:40and The Shadow Of Your Smile.
1:25:40 > 1:25:43# Visions of the things to be
1:25:43 > 1:25:48# The pains that are withheld for me... #
1:25:48 > 1:25:53For the next 30 years, probably the best and most original swing music
1:25:53 > 1:25:56was composed for film.
1:25:56 > 1:25:58So it was no coincidence
1:25:58 > 1:26:01that the next big bang in the history of swing
1:26:01 > 1:26:05came from Hollywood in the shape of the 1989 rom-com,
1:26:05 > 1:26:07When Harry Met Sally.
1:26:07 > 1:26:11The huge success of the film's swing soundtrack
1:26:11 > 1:26:15sung by Harry Connick Jr, relaunched the music
1:26:15 > 1:26:20for a whole new generation which had never heard of Benny Goodman.
1:26:20 > 1:26:27# Some others I've seen Might never be mean
1:26:27 > 1:26:32# Might never be cross Try to be boss
1:26:32 > 1:26:34# But they wouldn't do... #
1:26:34 > 1:26:39In the 20 years since, swing continues to exert
1:26:39 > 1:26:42an endless fascination for modern performers
1:26:42 > 1:26:45such as Michael Buble and Jamie Cullen.
1:26:45 > 1:26:49And for Robbie Williams - whose 2001 swing concert at the Albert Hall
1:26:49 > 1:26:53became one of Britain's 50 best-selling albums of all time,
1:26:53 > 1:26:56selling 7.5 million copies worldwide.
1:26:56 > 1:27:02# And he shows them pearly white
1:27:02 > 1:27:08# Just a jack-knife has old MacHeath, babe
1:27:08 > 1:27:09# And he keeps it... #
1:27:09 > 1:27:15Amazingly, swing has endured for nearly 100 years.
1:27:15 > 1:27:21# Oh, that shark bites With his teeth, dear
1:27:21 > 1:27:25# Scarlet billows start... #
1:27:27 > 1:27:32No other form of popular music has lasted anything like as long...
1:27:33 > 1:27:39..or can boast such a roll call of 20th-century music greats.
1:27:44 > 1:27:49# It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing... #
1:27:54 > 1:27:56That's what it was - it was the beat.
1:27:56 > 1:28:01And everything in life got a beat
1:28:01 > 1:28:04and that's what swing is.
1:28:04 > 1:28:08# Makes no difference if it's sweet or hot
1:28:08 > 1:28:12# Just give that rhythm every little thing you've got
1:28:13 > 1:28:18# It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing
1:28:33 > 1:28:37# Doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah
1:28:37 > 1:28:42# Doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah... #
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1:29:21 > 1:29:24E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk