AnySwing Fellas,

Ever since the day I started to jump and jive with Swing music, I've noticed that people use both terms Neo and Retro Swing to denominate the Swing Revival.

Could exist a difference between them?


My point is: there are bands that "swing" OH so differently than old big bands that iniciated this style in the 30's and 40's. otherwise, there are bands that record standards without essencial modifications, so we can easily recognize the swing beat.

Bands such as Squirrel Nut Zippers, Brian Setzer Orch (also incorporating rockabilly) and Royal Crown Revue are revolutionating Swing in a special manner, aways keeping the "swing soul" in their tunes. This could be classified as Neo Swing.

And, at the same time, there are bands that maintain the good old swing sound, such as The Puppinis (and other Sisters), or Ray Gelatto. Even some new compositions from these bands sound like Retro Swing.


I'm risking my skin here, 'cause I didn't talk about this with the All Mighty Swing Oak, and some words could be equivocal - they're only based in my impressions. So be free to think about and discuss.

Read this interesting article, "Swing, Then and Now", by Down Beat :

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/am483 ... ement.html

"Talking about the music, however, will only take us so far: the differences between old and new and the overal evolution of Swing should become clearer after listening to sound clips and bands. After all, that's what the music was intended for."

JouJoux,

I find that people tend to use neo-swing and retro-swing interchangeably. If you take the meaning of each term literally, then I suppose you can distinguish between the two. But generally, I do not think people use such discretion when using these terms. Any current band practicing a retro style will have different degrees of staying true to the original genre.

Even for bands with a purist attitude, I think there will be arguments about how true to the original style they are. I think that's unavoidable because if you were not part of the original era, then you are some sort of reproduction, and how good the reproduction is will always be arguable. Modern nuances always seem to make it into the music because you are dealing with modern musicians and modern technology.

Hepcat Daddy-O wrote:If you take the meaning of each term literally, then I suppose you can distinguish between the two.

that's it!

in fact, I started this thread because I've never seen people talking about it or creating a folder for Retro Swing and another for Neo Swing on their iTunes . now I think my point could be: does anyone really think about this difference?

Actually I try to tag my music as either Neo-Swing (for stuff that has strong Rockabilly/Ska/... influences) and Retro-Swing for new stuff that tries hard to copy the old music styles.