u/CalendarNew6707

Opinion and interest question here, has anyone heard of the concept of “sweet jazz” before?

I’m speaking as a history buff and a man who really enjoys all things vintage. I’m not a music expert. But I enjoy listening to music from the 1930s and 40s. I find myself drawn to particular type of music that I can’t quite put down as a specific genre. Until I found this idea.

Wikipedia says it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet\_jazz

Sweet jazz is an early derivative form of jazzwhich adapts the blues-based harmony, syncopated rhythms, and complex arrangements of Dixieland jazz to a populardance band[disambiguation needed] format with a slower, straighter rhythmic framework which allowed it to find popularity with white American and European audiences in the early 1920s. Though considered the height of sophistication in the genre by some critics at the time[1], the sweet jazz style has long been criticized as inauthentic and generic compared to "hot" jazz[2], and by some later critics has even been excluded from the category of jazz altogether due to the reduced role of improvisation and the general lack of swing time.

It’s a bit long lol but overall, especially based on the list of musicians

Glenn Miller, Paul Whiteman, Les Brown, Fletcher Henderson, Guy Lombardo

I would say I agree it’s this kind of thing. It’s not quite simply jazz, and many don’t consider it as such, not even me. Hell no. I don’t even like jazz very much. But it’s the sweet part that gets me. It’s the five man reed section in Glenn Miller’s orchestra, or sentimental crooners or anything else, like Geraldo and his orchestra. I can’t exactly explain it. It’s the interplay of the various reeds, brass, not quite big band jazz in the normal sense, but imagine that except slower, sweeter, and less brash. I find it has a lot of overlap to kind of the pre-war swing and British Dance Bands genre which I also like. This is all my opinion. I can probably give some examples of songs that match this, and you can try and see for yourself what you think

“Along the Santa Fe Trail” - Glenn Miller
“Walkin’ By The River” - Geraldo
“My Devotion” - Vaughn Monroe
“Blue Moon” - Vincent Lopez
“It’s All Forgotten Now” - Ray Noble
“Red Sails In The Sunset” - Guy Lombardo
“You Were Never Lovelier” - Paul Whiteman
“My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time” - Les Brown

Now I’m not really sure it’s just what sounds like it would be sweet to me. Because I mean where would one really draw the line between sweet jazz and sort of the typical big band pop of the era? Well, I like it all, but this is like honey for a fly to me.

Thoughts?

I’ll give you an example here. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was prided on its precision, its tightness, its blending. I may be reading into this but I think as many people point out, the differences in the use of one or mics in an acoustic hall vs one for each instrument and a modern studio, is kind of representative of the culture. This is my own personal beliefs, and you can disagree with me by all means, but I think in the 1940s the culture was much more united, more unified and less individual, more of a community or society focused era, what with the Great Depression and the wartime era. I hate talking about the recording quality or anything else when it comes to this. There are much more fundamental differences. The musicians had different training, the instruments were slightly different, utilizing much more mutes and plugs and such on the brass, and just the arrangements that Glenn Miller and Jerry Gray have done were very well done, so that it was precise and just this wall of sound. Jazz these days are meant for listening, even as early as the bebop era. But dancing music like in that era was just, to me, more fun. Big band at the time was essentially how pop music is today. It had to be perfect because it was mainstream. Too many bands today that try to emulate the sound try too hard. They try to play like Glenn Miller. Glenn Miller tried to play music.

This post contains content not supported on old Reddit. Click here to view the full post

Does it even exist? I have not seen them anywhere. All their accounts on instagram are like, there are many of them. From like years ago. It’s like they make a new every 5 years. The last one was in 2022. Where the fucking hell do I find these people? I hope to god they better be at nso because if not I am going to lose it. And pardon my language but that’s like a big thing for me in college.