1920's Style "Smoke on the Water"

[citizenk74]

Thoughts?

[AllanAllen]

Since you asked, it’s not for me. I think doing classic rock as swing is corny. Reno corny, not even Vegas.

[Christian Miller]

Well they done well out of it.

doesn’t sound remotely 20s though haha, I think there’s not so much you can do with it.

I think it would be fun to play in a band like this provided I didn’t have to MD it

[AllanAllen]

I agree it is probably fun to play and I’m sure there is an audience. It’s just not something I’m going to watch/listen to twice.

[BWV]

The retro swing has its charms, not the least of which is sound quality, for the same reason I am big fan of the game Cuphead, even though I totally suck at platformers

[Christian Miller]

I followed the Jukebox for a while. They're fun but I'm not really a fan of actual 30s dance-band music so it's not my thing.

I don’t see how not being a fan of actual 30s music would have any bearing on whether or not you like PJ.

I would expect if anything a negative correlation- they are quite actively hated by many who are actually into that music.

The people who like this stuff or not your jazz bores, they are people with lives who like to leave the house from time to time.

For musicians; it’s a gig type. For me, quite an annoying gig type.

I played a lot vintagey jazz over the years which for all its faults was an attempt at playing that repertoire with more or less period accurate style etc (to varying degrees lol) however the PJ type gigs started to come up as clients started to ask for pop and rock tunes in, you know, swing style.

Total troll of course because it’s one thing to learn a bunch of pop tunes by ear and quote another to also render them in a swing style. Tbh probably just playing them on period instruments with a vintage suit on is enough, but it’s a lot of extra work if you don’t play rock/pop gigs.

(I’m not at all against learning rock/pop tunes, it’s just a shock when you have to learn two sets of them for like one gig.)

But with charts? Sure why not, and then it might actually be good. Or at least, not terrible.

(there’s never bloody charts.)

[sgosnell]

The banjo player is better looking than the average banjo player. I know that's sexist, but they do seem to be actively trying to be sexy. It's okay, not my favorite but okay, better than most pop and rock stuff I'm unwillingly exposed to every day.

[grahambop]

What happened to the banjo solo?

[blille]

What happened to the banjo solo?

Exactly.

[wolflen]

Christian Miller

How 'bout..

Dan Hicks his Hot Licks & the Lickettes

very well done and vintage eclectic

[Laro]

Here is my favorite version :

[sgosnell]

I didn't see a single smile. That takes discipline.

[grahambop]

Doing a jazz version of Smoke on the Water is not so strange, given that Deep Purple took their name from a tune written in 1933.

[kris]

Deep Purple- Smoke on the Water-You can dance it.

[EllenGtrGrl]

Retrofied modern songs - they're a horse a piece. Some I like, some sound kind of corny to me. For instance the Orkestra Obsolete version of the New Order song "Blue Monday", preformed with 1930s instrumentation. It's like Rudy Valllee on qualuudes! - kind of cool in a weird and twisted way.

[Litterick]

Imagine doing that for a living.

[hohoho]

[Christian Miller]

Retrofied modern songs - they're a horse a piece. Some I like, some sound kind of corny to me. For instance the Orkestra Obsolete version of the New Order song "Blue Monday", preformed with 1930s instrumentation. It's like Rudy Valllee on qualuudes! - kind of cool in a weird and twisted way.

I remember liking this.

Also the Punch Brothers playing electronic Radiohead on Bluegrass instruments because they can

[Peter C]

This is all very well, but the real challenge is to come up with something new.

[RobbieAG]

I happened to run across that on youtube. I thought they did a convincing job of doing it in that style.

[Sam Sherry]

Coming up with something new is massively overrated.

"Risk is what moves all of us forward. If you're playing in your comfort zone, that ain't jazz."
-- Herbie Hancock

[Christian Miller]

"Risk is what moves all of us forward. If you're playing in your comfort zone, that ain't jazz."
-- Herbie Hancock

A better come back would have been - 'well, how the hell would you know?' haha

Repetition bores me. I want to go out on a limb, disrupt, even antagonise.

Process, risk, adventure, all that good stuff... I am naturally disposed towards that.

But, weirdly I often argue the opposite, I think there's a strong case to be made against the dominance of the progressive narrative in music. We assume that this is the natural state of things, but this is not the case. Music does not have to break new ground to have value.

[mr. beaumont]

Music does not have to break new ground to have value.

I completely agree. In fact, how much of our lives is spent looking for MORE music that sounds a certain way?

Really, I suppose the biggest value in music is that it is done well...and that can mean a lot of different things, not necessarily musicianship.

For example, this (swing on the water) is done very well. I mean, I also hate it, but it's done very well.

[EllenGtrGrl]

I remember liking this.

Also the Punch Brothers playing electronic Radiohead on Bluegrass instruments because they can

Cool! There's a band has a cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man" done bluegrass style that also sounds way cool.

There is nothing wrong with putting a new spin on a song to make it sound markedly different from the original version - it oftentimes makes it sound new and fresh IMO.

[citizenk74]

This is all very well, but the real challenge is to come up with something new.

Creativity is hard. An even bigger challenge, once the creative throes are gone and forgotten, is getting anyone to actually listen to the fruit of your labors.