Friday Performance Pick - 74 : Professor Carol

Prima, Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)

The King of Swing, Louis Prima (1910-1978), was a singer, trumpet player, and band leader. He first recorded Sing, Sing, Sing in 1936. It was the Benny Goodman Band, however, that made it a hit.

Many people refuse to accept the end of the Big Band era, but shortly after World War II ended, this virtuosic and energetic style of music was supplanted by bebop and also by more focus on celebrity vocalists with names like Frank Sinatra leading the way. Big bands featured vocalists, but it was the band leaders and the distinctive sound of the bands’ arrangements that drove the public’s interest. During the war, the musicians union imposed a recording ban in their attempt to force the record companies to pay the musicians each time a recording was played on the radio. This put a damper on the distribution of recordings. After the war, the public mood had changed and was in search of new expression. Still, the appeal of big band music endures, as one would expect of any good art.

I am reposting below a podcast that Professor Carol did a few years back concerning the Dallas Wind Symphony’s Big Band Swing concert. Carol interviews Dean Bouras, the arranger for the Dallas Wind Symphony, who talks about what it means to be an arranger and also how his own students perceive this music. In the second half of the podcast, John Trapani talks about the history of the era and his experiences as founder of the John Trapani Big Band. Those of you who know our Early Sacred Music course may recognize John from his commentaries on philosophy. (Yes, band leaders should all be well-versed in Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas.) But this is just one of those interesting juxtapositions where you find a philosophy professor having a parallel existence in music. What could be more natural? I have know John since 1969 when we both played in the Army band in Massachusetts and then were both reassigned at the same time to a band in Nuremberg. John’s cogent commentary in this podcast may also be particularly interesting for those of you involved in classical education.

Horia Brenciu is a popular singer and television host in Romania. Also a philanthropist, he created HB Media and the HB Orchestra in 2002 to support Romanian performing artists.