Larry Elgart, Who Kept Swing Up to Date, Dies at 95

[JSngry]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/arts/music/larry-elgart-who-kept-swing-up-to-date-dies-at-95.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

After playing alto saxophone with Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey and other bands, Mr. Elgart teamed up with Les, his older brother, to record a series of successful albums for Columbia that brought swing music into the 1950s and beyond.

Taking advantage of advances in recording technology, he developed a distinctive “Elgart sound,” which emphasized tight choreography between the silky-smooth saxophone section and the rich, brilliant horns, to which he added two bass trombones. He lightened up the rhythm section, replacing piano with guitar, and cut back on improvised solos.

“The end result was a conversation,” Mr. Elgart wrote in a memoir, “The Music Business & the Monkey Business” (2014), written with his wife. “The saxes spoke and the brass answered, then they all talked together. Having no doubles with clarinets, flutes, etc., in the reed section, the band had even more clarity.”

 

[JSngry]

It was a fun band to listen to. Not a LOT of fun, but fun enough, in small doses. The voicings often enough we surprising enough to perk up the ears. "Modern" in their own way. And the phrasings often stretched and compressed in some unique ways.

I've had opportunity to play some of those charts in various dance bands over the years. Definitely not a book to sleepwalk through, things end up in places you might not expect them to land. And you got to watch out to not swing too much or too little. That style has its own pocket, and anything outside of it just doesn't work.

It's not a jazz book, it's a dance book informed by jazz.

 

 

[JSngry]

 

 

[clifford_thornton]

Any relation to the drummer Billy Elgart?

[JSngry]

No idea, but I hope somebody checks out those sides in my last post. Decidedly "Third-Stream"-ish in a way that comes from the time before the term had been coined and the style codified for consumer consumption.

[clifford_thornton]

I did. Interesting listen though probably not the kind of stuff I'd return to -- reminds me a bit of a mood-skewed Graettinger. 

[JSngry]

yeah, perfect YouTube music, go to it to find out what it's like, make a mental note, and then on to something else.

I do think it's interesting that the guy would do something like that, though, it explains his tone, if nothing else.