Only in retrospect is one able to
tell the time before a revolution takes place. Here are two boxed sets from Acrobat Music that give a rich history of what took place before the changing of the guard from the Swing Era to Modern Jazz and Bebop, as well as the last year before the British Invasion of 1963.
1946 was arguably not only the last year of the Swing Era, but the high water mark of pop vocalists with big bands. This 4 disc, 98 song collection is chock full of vocalists and vocal groups, all riding the wave of swing, with nary a hint of the drum beats of bebop just around the corner. Vocalists like the standard bearer Bing Crosby as well as “newcomers” like Frank Sinatra and Perry Como dominate the male singing market, while Dinah Shore, Jo Stafford and Helen Forrest were the female stars of the microphone. There is still a presentation by actual Big Bands like Benny Goodman (“Symphony”), Jimmy Dorsey (“Doin’ What Comes Naturally”), Stan Kenton (“Shoo Fly Pie”) and Woody Herman, but each tune also includes a canary to make it palpable for the masses. Lots of sweet bands dominated the airwaves such as Sammy Kaye, Charlie Spivak and Guy Lombardo, but the good news was that this was also the apotheosis of The Great American Songbook, so you get some timeless tunes like “Ole Buttermilk Sky”, “They Say It’s Wonderful” and “Day By Day” by various artists. There are still a few instances of black artists making the charts, with the Ink Spots (“To Each His Own”), Nat Cole (“I Love Your For Sentimental Reasons”), Louis Jordan (“Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”), Ella Fitzgerald with Louis Armstrong (“You Won’t Be Satisfied”) and Lionel Hampton doing some great boogie woogie, as well as some ringers like Spike Jones yucking it up. Some artists here survived the change, as did many of the songs, as the crème always rises to the top.
December 22, 1962 was exactly one year before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a year before The Beatles launched The British Invasion, and the actual date that the song celebrating the Space Race, “Telestar” topped the charts. No hints of a major cultural, societal and musical change here, as “rock and roll” was simply a style of music and not a life style, just about every male singer was either a pretty boy version of Elvis and dashes of R&B topped the airwaves along with moments of innocent doo wop. Lots of innocent teenage heartthrob with “Bobby’s Girl”, “Little Town Flirt” and “Go Away Little Girl” as well as street corner symphonies by The Four Seasons (“Big Girls Don’t Cry”) and The Drifters (“Up On The Roof”). This was also a time of novelties, with pieces by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and Dave Seville and the Chipmunks hitting the charts. What’s intriguing is that there were still instrumental groups that caught peoples’ ears, such as Herb Alpert (“The Lonely Bull”), Booker T & The MGs (“Jelly Bread”, Stan Getz (“Desifinado”) and Vince Guaraldi (“Cast Your Fate To The Wind”). Duet to the time of the year, there’s a healthy amount of Christmas songs to fill things up. Who knew that the Barbarians were at the gates?