My Mom was born in 1929, and by the time she was old enough to choose the type of music she wanted to listen to, Swing Jazz was the most popular style. Born in the cities of New Orleans, Kansas City and New York, it was not the sweet sound of violin music. It had a heavier beat, the bold and brassy sound of wind instruments and much of it was improvised. It was recorded onto 10 inch discs called 78's, made from shellac. They were thicker than the vinyl records that replaced them, and were subject to damage caused by heat and cold. An album usually consisted of 4 or 5 such discs stored in paper envelopes which were bound into a book form. Mom had a lot of those. Singles were just one record purchased in a fairly plain paper envelope, artwork was mostly for the more expensive albums. Come to think of it, she had a lot of those too.
You didn't play them on a Hi Fi or stereo system, they were played on phonographs. One record at a time. Mom's old 78's only had one song per side, but the later recordings sometimes had more than one. If you wanted to listen to hours of music, it was a pretty labor intensive process. You had to change the record at the end of every song, and of course, put it back into the sleeve to protect it.
We had a stereo in the living room, and we had begun to purchase the popular music of the day in the newer vinyl form which played at a speed of 33 and a third or 45 rpms. I always used to wonder about that "a third". You could stack 12 records on the spindle and the Hi Fi would do the work for you until it ran into a scratch. A little pressure on the needle and the record would play again, until the next scratch anyway. In my parents bedroom was her old Philco phonograph and her collection of 78's. Rainy days would find me in her room playing those old records. That was the music I was exposed to along with the pop vocals of the 1950's. Depending on how she had the room arranged I would be found seated on the floor or bed with a stack of those old 78's on either side of me.
The front of her Philco opened by flipping the wooden panel down. You slid the record into the space and onto the turntable making sure you had the hole lined up with the little spindle. Once you flipped the door up to close it, the record would play automatically. I was transported to the angry ocean where the ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman could be found haunting the waves. I could "boogie woogie" to tunes like "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar", or I could ponder the possibilities of "Flat Foot Floozy With a Floy, Floy." What is a floy, floy anyways? I never could figure that out. I did know what a floozy was. They were the women usually found "making eyes" at my Dad. The music was scratchy and tinny sounding, and you could actually hear the whoosh of the turntable. These days those sounds are unwelcome, back then they were part of the experience of music.
Mom's favorite bandleader was Benny Goodman, but she did enjoy the music of Glenn Miller, The Andrews Sisters, Count Basie, Harry James, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and many other "Swing" performers. Swing bands became too expensive to maintain in the post World War 2 Era, and the bands gave way to smaller Jive or BeBop bands of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk. Eventually by 1956 Rock and Roll was born. The voices of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, the music of Glenn Miller and his compatriots, they were the roots of the music we hear and enjoy today.
The Playlist
1....Artie Shaw...Begin the Beguine, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered and Dancing in the Dark.
2....Benny Goodman...One O'Clock Jump, Stompin at the Savoy and Tangerine
3....Billie Holiday...Lover Man, Lover Come Back To Me and Strange Fruit
4....Buddy Rich...Goodbye Yesterday, Love for Sale, and Perdido
5....Charlie Parker...52nd Street Theme and Embraceable You
6....Count Basie...It's Only a Paper Moon, Jumpin at the Woodside and Pennies From Heaven
7....Dizzy Gillespie...All The Things You Are, Carioca and I Found A Million Dollar Baby
8....Dizzy Gillespie & His Orchestra...Night In Tunisia
9....Dorsey Brothers and Their Orchestra... My Melancholy Baby
10...Duke Ellington...Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady and Take the 'A' Train
11...Ella Fitzgerald...'Deed I Do, Summertime and You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)
12...Gene Krupa...After You've Gone, St. Louis Blues and Tuxedo Junction
13...Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters...Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means that You're Grand)
14...Glenn Miller...Chatanooga Choo Choo, String of Pearls and Pennsylvania 6-5000
15...Harry James...I Don't Want to Walk Without You, It's Been a Long, Long Time and You Made Me Love You
16...Lionel Hampton...'S Wonderful, How High the Moon and Night And Day
17...The Andrews Sisters With The Glenn Miller Orchestra...The Little Red Fox (N'ya N'ya Ya Can't Catch Me)
and The Woodpecker Song
18...Tommy Dorsey...Blue Skies and I'll Be Seeing You
