Swing

"The blackest white band that I have ever heard," said Metronome critic George Simon several months ago when reviewing Charlie Barnet's band.

What he meant of course was that Barnet's outfit manages to play more colored style jazz than anybody else in the country. I'm not too sure that I agree with this. Barnet's band has many faults; but it is perfectly true that he has an unusual idea in band style.

What he is trying to do basically is to imitate Duke Ellington. Several years ago, before Barnet bad formed his present band, I heard him play, and even then he was trying to imitate the Duke's ideas. He told me then that he felt that Ellington was the greatest of the living jazz leaders, and that his music was extraordinary by anybody's standards.

A year ago Barnet reformed his band and went into the Famous Door in New York. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, Count Basic had just been in the Door and had been breaking records right and left. Barnet decided then that in addition to his imitations of the Ellington slow style, he would copy the Basie fast style.

Notice, that he is trying to copy the band with the greatest rhythm section in the business, and the one that is generally conceded to have the greatest bunch of soloists around.

The results aren't too amazing, for the simple reason that Barnet doesn't have the soloists to play Duke's stuff, and his fast Basic tunes fall apart because his rhythm section just isn't equal to the task.

While occasionally on numbers like "Echoes of Harlem," the band begins to sound something like Ellington, the only outstanding thing about the band is Barnet himself. His tenor sax playing on the Lester Young (Count Basie) idea is usually good, although it occasionally sounds a little like a taxi-horn on a foggy night. His alto sax work is much better, and is probably the best imitation around of Ellingtonite Johnny Hodges. All in all, it would seem to me that the slogan. "Swing and sweat with Charlie Barnet" still holds.

Notes between the notes: Word has slipped through that Benny Pollack, famous old Dixieland band leader, has sued Benny Goodman, Bob Crosby and various other people for swiping some of his arrangements, "Bugle Call Rag" being mentioned specifically. This may or may not be true. But, if this sort of suit is going to be the fashion, most of the country's better band leaders are going to end up behind the bars. It's been the custom for sometime to swipe ideas from everyone on standard tunes such as "Bugle Call Rag"...Artie Shaw has been sued for another $30,000, this time by former Victor record manager, Eli Oberstein. Oberstein claims that he had a contract for Shaw's services with his new U. S. Record Company, and that Shaw broke it. Shaw replies that "duress, fraud, and false intent" were employed in getting him to sign the contract.

RCA Victor announces that "in addition to his ability to play three-four tempos that American dance fans thoroughly enjoy, Wayne King's band is capable of real swing.