bright swing?

[mrchief128]

i've been approached to help out a brass band play the song Zoot Suit Riot (Yeah, my first gig!!!) The song is pretty simple, but its a challange because i'm not very familliar with sheet music, but i can figure that out. The problem is swing. The song is supposed to be played with a "bright swing" and I need some clarification as to what that means. Next to "bright swing", it shows two eighth notes becomes a quarter and an eighth with a three over top. I understand the basic concept of swing rhythm, what i need to know is whether the swing rhythm in this case applies only to eighth notes, or if it applies also to quarter notes....also, what does the 3 over the eighth notes mean?

Thanks for the help

[Ed Fuqua]

First of all "Bright swing" is conveying two different pieces of information - tempo and feel. Tempo - bright means sort of up tempo. Not bat out of hell uptempo, but what jazz musicians might refer to as "medium up". Feel - yes, swing. By all means.

It shows two eighth notes becomes a quarter and an eighth with a three over top. All that gobbledy gook is trying to do is approximate what a swing feel is supposed to feel like to people who don't ever listen to jazz. What that is saying is that when you read two eight notes, it should be played as if you were instead playing an eighth note triplet, with the first two notes tied.

It's a jump swing tune, if you have any questions just listen to a bunch of Louis Prima and Louis Jordan records and make it sound like that....

[bassmonkey144]

emphasize beats 2 and 4 more than 1 and 3. that will make your feel much more swingin. Listen to recordings of Walter Page playing with Count Basie.

[Ed Fuqua]

Maybe it doesn't matter much for what's happening here, but that approach can really nail the time to the floor instead of keeping it moving forward...

[bassmonkey144]

Well, that depends on the style of the song I think. If you are playing a song with a 2-feel, then thats totally true, you shouldn't emphasize 2 and 4. But for this song, which I'm assuming is the song by Cherry Poppin' Daddies, a little emphasis on the back beat will help you stay within the style of the song, which is part of the revival of the jump-bands from the 30's.