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1
What I
Think of
Swing
By Glenn Miller
"VJhai do you think of swing?"
'A personable young representative of the genus jitterbug approached me between dance numbers at a college hop recently and pinioned me v/'ith that question.
It was like asking Babe Ruth v/hat he thinks of baseball or Rcscoe Turner how he feels about flying. Paraphrasing an old ballad 1 gave her the obvious answer:
"It made me what I am today." In justice to swing I coulcn't honestly paraphrase more than the opening line of that venerable tearjerker — "The Curse of an Aching Heart," I think it was called — for swing hasn't "dragged ME down 'til hope within me died."
Quite the contrary. It has lifted my orchestra into the top bracket cf dance bands and brought me a modest measure of fame and fortune — which I hope will not be too fleeting.
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Glenn Miller, the Iowa farm boy who recently signed a movie contract with his band for $IGO,ODO. His BEuebird recordings place him in the tcp spot as America's favorite band.
There is more to it than that however.
If there is one thing 1 like, it is good music. I have never had enough of it. And swing is good music — when intelligently played.
Two of my pet "hates" are (1) bad music and (2) people who detest swing. The first is usually responsible for the second.
Perhaps I should be more tolerant of people who don't like swing, for there have been a lot of musical crimes perpetrated in its name.
Some misguided musicians seem to feel that to swing g number it it necessary only to "give until it hurts." Their prime objective appears to be to smash beyond hope of repair the eardrums cf the defenseless customers.
You must have a good basic melody before you con success
fully swing it. It can be sad or it can be gay — but it must be tuneful. And to produce real swing, the band has got to give out something more than deafening sound and fury.
Experience has convinced me that even the most rabid alligators prefer their tom-toms muffled by other sounds of the jungle. Rhythmic dissonances send shivers down' the spine but when they are blatantly poured out in unrestrained volume, the resultant effect can be completely paralyzing.
Swing fundamentally is jungle music. While I don't Pelong to the Explorers' Club, I'm reasonably certain that our foremost jungles have more to offer in pleasing sound effects in their warbling birds' songs than in the
(Continued on Page 14) RADIO VARIETIES — DECEMBER