Old Swing Tunes

[deacon Mark]

Seems for whatever reason I am liking these old swing tunes that do not seem to get called much. I have been playing Rosetta as my original inspiration Joe Pass did on his For Django. I have really heard many jazz guitarist take it up or even played that often anymore. Maybe it is but great tune to play. Then also been playing Back Home Again in Indiana. Another tune that just not really called it seems. Finally, You Would be So Nice to Come Home to.

I know they are standards as such but not in the real jazz guitar bebop type environment and seem to not hear them much today. Right now I am just listening and playing them with some small but nothing complicated embellishments and the whole melody is the real deal seems to keep me interested. We have those great long choruses and quick temps full of notes but the older I get the better this sounds.

Any other tunes that strike you as totally swing tunes like these?

[sgosnell]

I play Rosetta fairly often, it's a great tune.

Others, as I think of them...

Sweet Lorraine
Stormy Weather
You Turned The Tables On Me
I Never Knew
Dinah - fun to improvise over
Rose Room, and its contrafact, In A Mellow Tone
The Sheik of Araby

[Skip Ellis]

I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me - Herb Ellis on the Texas Swings album
Song of The Wanderer
Avalon
The Preacher

A lot of this stuff is favored by the pedal steel players and us 'thumb pickers'

[garybaldy]

I've played all those old swing tunes since I was 14 in 1970. Teen rock guitarist suddenly chucked in the deep end!

[Stringswinger]

Lover, come back to me.

I want a little girl (use caution when calling this tune in public )

China Boy

Russian Lullaby

Honeysuckle Rose

Moon glow

Louisiana Fairytale

Tangerine

Three Little Words

Undecided

There are so many great tune out there.......

[RLetson]

The players who housebroke (I hesitate to say "trained" without putting "paper-" in front of it*) me did so nearly exclusively on the Great American Songbook repertory, which is also the largest part of their performing repertory. But then, most of them came from dance- and big-band backgrounds. In any case, that repertory includes not only compelling melodies but often tunes with surprising and deeply satisfying harmonic shapes--Jerome Kern often takes some unexpected turns, as does Richard Rodgers. And even kinda-formulaic 1-6-2-5 and Rhythm-changes-bridge shapes remain interesting, especially in songs with great lyrics. (That's what I'm hearing in my head when I play--the drummer and the singer.) Marc's list includes tunes that I have encountered repeatedly over the last 30 years, in workshops as well as on the bandstand. (Or, to be precise, at the restaurant, coffeehouse, or bar.) They never get old. (Maybe because some of them are not all that much older than I am.)

* Because I'm not really technically-trained the way most here are, and in any case never call myself a jazz player, despite the centrality of jazz in the way I hear music.

[pcjazz]

Played last week in duo with pianist:

I let a song go out of my heart

Home

Slow boat to China

Topsy

How deep is the ocean

Stella by starlight

Body and soul

A smooth one

All of me

All God’s children got rhythm

(among others)

[rpjazzguitar]

Indiana gets called in a way. Donna Lee is the contrafact.

Rosetta is similar to Yardbird Suite. (We don't hear enough Earl Hines any more -- he was a great player with a very distinctive style). I used to see him at the Hotel Miyako in SF in the 70s.

I've been including a couple of swing standards in each set in recent gigs, all with vocals.

Among others:

Ain't Misbehavin'
As Time Goes By
Everything Happens to Me
Embraceable You
If I Were a Bell
Just One of Those Things
Lulu's Back in Town
Makin' Whoopee
Sunny Side of the Street

EDIT: These are all vocal tunes. Most suggested and sung by the singer. But I do a few of them, selected for some humor in the lyric to disguise my singing.

[garybaldy]

Indiana gets called in a way. Donna Lee is the contrafact.

Rosetta is similar to Yardbird Suite. (We don't hear enough Earl Hines any more -- he was a great player with a very distinctive style). I used to see him at the Hotel Miyako in SF in the 70s.

I've been including a couple of swing standards in each set in recent gigs, all with vocals.

Among others:

Ain't Misbehavin'
As Time Goes By
Everything Happens to Me
Embraceable You
If I Were a Bell
Just One of Those Things
Lulu's Back in Town
Makin' Whoopee
Sunny Side of the Street

Shouldn't that be 'Yardbird Suite is similar to Rosetta'?!!

[deacon Mark]

found one today I forgot Too Marvelous for Words.

[JazzPadd]

Indiana gets called in a way. Donna Lee is the contrafact.

Rosetta is similar to Yardbird Suite. (We don't hear enough Earl Hines any more -- he was a great player with a very distinctive style). I used to see him at the Hotel Miyako in SF in the 70s.

I've been including a couple of swing standards in each set in recent gigs, all with vocals.

Among others:

Ain't Misbehavin'
As Time Goes By
Everything Happens to Me
Embraceable You
If I Were a Bell
Just One of Those Things
Lulu's Back in Town
Makin' Whoopee
Sunny Side of the Street

Love that playlist. Makin’ Whoopee is such a fun tune. Never played it with a vocalist, but started calling it at jam sessions and it always goes over well, with the seasoned players, session novices and listeners alike, the latter including my Gen Z students, who seem to be drawn to the old swing numbers.

[rpjazzguitar]

Love that playlist. Makin’ Whoopee is such a fun tune. Never played it with a vocalist, but started calling it at jam sessions and it always goes over well, with the seasoned players, session novices and listeners alike, the latter including my Gen Z students, who seem to be drawn to the old swing numbers.

My favorite version and by a wide margin.

[ragman1]

We had Makin' Whoopee on an old 78 played on an old wind-up gramophone. Maybe this one. Can't remember, I was very small :-)

[lorenkii]

What do you mean don’t get called much anymore? That’s my whole set list!!

[AllanAllen]

Does this count?

[DawgBone]

Indiana gets called in a way. Donna Lee is the contrafact.

Rosetta is similar to Yardbird Suite. (We don't hear enough Earl Hines any more -- he was a great player with a very distinctive style). I used to see him at the Hotel Miyako in SF in the 70s.

I've been including a couple of swing standards in each set in recent gigs, all with vocals.

Among others:

Ain't Misbehavin'
As Time Goes By
Everything Happens to Me
Embraceable You
If I Were a Bell
Just One of Those Things
Lulu's Back in Town
Makin' Whoopee
Sunny Side of the Street

EDIT: These are all vocal tunes. Most suggested and sung by the singer. But I do a few of them, selected for some humor in the lyric to disguise my singing.

If I went to your gig and you did a good Ain't Misbehavin' with vocals I'd definitely throw some ducats in your bucket but if you are doing a Embraceable You with a vocaist I'm going to vomit and then leave.

[Robermax]

First post- have something to contribute

Almost anything by Harold Arlen eg
Come Rain or Come Shine
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Let's Fall in Love
One For My Baby
Blues in the NIght
I've Got the World on a String
That Old Black Magic
Stormy Weather


Also:

Old Devil Moon
It Could Happen to You
Who's Got the Last Laugh Now
Darn that Dream
Serenade in Blue

There are many more good ones

[digger]

Old swing tunes are pretty much where I started, and stayed at, with my jazz playing. I don't think they're that much older than many bebop tunes, they just feel it.

Derek

[rpjazzguitar]

If I went to your gig and you did a good Ain't Misbehavin' with vocals I'd definitely throw some ducats in your bucket but if you are doing a Embraceable You with a vocaist I'm going to vomit and then leave.

Oddly enough, I recruited the singer I currently work with after hearing her sing Embraceable You and sounding like a torch singer in the 1940s.

[AllanAllen]

If anyone cares, I made a Spotify playlist

Unsupported browser