# Standards and Swing: The Great American Songbook



## melaniehiscock (Apr 11, 2014)

Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, the Andrews Sisters...

They've now pretty much disappeared from commercial radio as the average audience demographics for them are 80+ and rising, which is sort of sad.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Are you opening a topic on the Songbook in general (the songs of Rodgers, Arlen, Porter, Gershwin, Kern, Wilder, Sondheim, Vernon Duke, Hoagy Carmichael, Hugh Martin, Frank Loesser, Duke Ellington etc) or just for interpretation of those songs made in the swing period?


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## melaniehiscock (Apr 11, 2014)

anything goes is fine. I sing the songs of the Songbook - and the softer songs of the fifties and sixties - for small hotels and clubs.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Few minutes ago I was listening to Cole Porter's Ev'ry time we say goodbye in this version made by Ray Charles and Betty Carter.


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## Mesa (Mar 2, 2012)

One of the most influential people in the media today, Seth Macfarlane, is a massive advocate of the songbook and tries to crowbar it in to his projects whenever he can. Frank Sinatra Jr is in two episodes of Family Guy duetting with him (and a trio where Seth does two part harmony as different characters to back him). Considering the vast popularity of it, this kind of exposure isn't to be sneered at. One episode, for a throwaway gag, has Peter sing Shipoopi from the Music Man in it's entirety to celebrate scoring a touchdown. The day after, Shipoopi was the most googled word in America.

Did an album of standards too, here's the title track:





Not quite as dead or archaic as you seem to think


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## melaniehiscock (Apr 11, 2014)

Isn't Frank Sinatra Jr. the one famous for being kidnapped and after he was returned, Frank senior always kept a roll of dimes in his pocket for the rest of his life? (the kidnappers had required him to communicate through payphones if i remember correctly?)


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I have such great memories of that music. Though I wasn't part of that era, when I was in high school and on through college I was in dance bands playing for the WWII generation (people who were my parents' age). They were so much fun to play for - they could really dance, and they were so grateful that young people were carrying the music on. Also, they actually paid us. (Unlike the funk band I was also in).

This music isn't only fun to hear, it's fun to play. I must have played _In The Mood_ a couple hundred times, and I never got tired of it. And those melodies; you can really wrap yourself around them.

But I'm like you, though, afraid that this will fade in the distance. At least as of now, it doesn't seem to be going away, just more of a connoisseur genre. I have a friend in a swing dance group in Nashville, which has a lot of young people who spend the weekends dancing to the big bands. And I was in Vanderbilt's Blair Music School elevator the other day, and a teenage girl spontaneously broke out into _ Autumn Leaves _.

I'm glad you're out there and have discovered the joys of this music.

Are there any particular songs you enjoy performing?


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