One of the things I love most about Swing Era comedies is the music. That might seem obvious, but it has hidden dimensions. Musical comedies of the period depended a lot on the continuous threading through of themes in the background score — the atmospheric accompaniment of the dialogue and the action. Not only comedies of course, but it’s a distinctive part of the 30 and early 40s comedies. The score acted as a kind of independent actor, like a chorus, that would connect the audience more directly with the affect than the stars could. Hollywood comedy music of the time became a famous style. The arrangements tended toward the sweet and romantically comforting, with lush orchestrations heavy with strings, and often (but not always) developing the ideas of the film’s songs. The style was supposed to evoke elegant nightclubs like the Copacana and Coconut Grove (and the house bands of those clubs formed the core of some of the studio orchestras); and as they got lusher and lusher, they evoked the Hollywood Bowl.
But there was another more lively style, too, which came into its own in the swing era — and may in fact have had a powerful influence on the development of the hot style of the white swing dance bands. It built on the early hot ragtime that accompanied the silent roaring 20s comedies, but with superior recording and playback technologies it developed a richer and more disciplined style. Not much has been written about those swing soundtracks. Most of the writing about film music of the period focuses on the European orchestral chops of the legendary studio composers and arrangers. When jazz is the topic, it’s usually about the films that featured the major swing bands; or increasingly the way Black jazz musicians were embargoed or marginalized in that studio culture. I wish folks would study and discuss the swing scores more.
Playing film scores in the ’30s and ’40s was hard work. Musicians had to be able to sight read perfectly, since they had very little time to rehearse before they were gathered to record. Their backs were to the screen that the conductor watched alertly and they had to hit their cues on the nose. They had to command their instruments and ensemble playing at a high level because there weren’t many opportunities for do overs. And they were relatively high paying gigs, with a lot of musicians in L.A. eager to get one. Pressure to play at peak level was high. As a result, some of the best played music of the era is in those movies. But it’s not easy to find out who these musicians were and who was responsible for what. The studios all had masterful musical directors who were usually composers, conductors, and instrumentalists in their own right; but they were often like producers, handing off the nuts and bolts of arranging and orchestrating to others, some of whom became well-known in their own right, but most of whom went uncredited. That goes double for the musicians. It may not matter as much for lush orchestral legato scores, but for a jazz band, it matters who is playing hot and tight.
Almost from the beginning of the great Broadway backstage musicals in the early 30s, the movies would feature extravagant jazzy underscores that we rarely think about. Most movie comedies’ opening credits began with exciting musical fanfares to prep the spirits. They act like drugs, releasing waves of dopamine, and so most of the time we don’t pay attention to their musicality, just to how good they make us feel.
I like to listen to films after I’ve seen them. Just put on the headphones and turn off the screen. Instantly, the film becomes a sonic artifact. It’s amazing what artistic gems are revealed. One thing that strikes me about the arrangements of swing comedies’ scores is how similar they are across the different studios. I’m not sure why. But on the whole it’s a good thing, because the level of musicianship is so high. The performances are extremely tight, brass-intense, and the arrangements reach — to my ears — the highest level of richness and complexity of the best bands of the era. And most of the time the audience is paying attention to something else. Ah! the movies. Here are a few examples.
Here’s an early one, the credits to Big City Blues (1932), directed by one of the leading comic directors of the time, Mervyn LeRoy, who also directed the non-psychedelic parts of Gold Diggers of 1933. It’s played by the Vitaphone Orchestra, which really was a legend in its own time (and was, I believe, anchored by the house orchestra of the Copa).
Here’s an example from 1936, the credits for Sing, Baby, Sing. It was made by the 20th Century Fox studio, which was to become the most important studio for jazz comedies in the coming years. The studio head, Darryl Zanuck, was apparently uniquely interested in the musical scores of his films and he employed the most revered composers.
One more, the famed opening of Footlight Serenade (1942).
Paying attention to opening credit suites is fairly easy to do. It’s harder work to focus on the background music when there’s action and dialogue to pay attention to. That’s why I like to turn the visuals off. With no distracting shiny objects, the music comes into the foreground, and even the dialogue becomes part of the soundscape. I’m especially fond of the music for dancing or brawling. Listen to the bands of these.
Here’s the dance/brawl scene from Battle of Broadway (1938), also a Fox product.
Here’s a dance scene from These Glamour Girls (1939), an MGM film, with Lana Turner and Lew Ayres.
Another one I like, from A Girl, A Guy, and a Gob (1941), with George Murphy, Lucille Ball, and Edmond O’Brien. (The studio in this case is RKO.) The uncredited band plays a fiery “Three Little Words.”
In rare cases, the band is identified. Here it’s the Woody Herman band in the opening of relatively late Sensations of 1945 (1944), which also includes the only dance routine of Eleanor Powell’s that I like.
So, as I mentioned, most of the studio swing bands sound similar. I’m not sure why. When they aren’t playing ballads or schmaltzy background music, they emphasize extremely tight arrangements and punchy, clean brass attacks. For my ears, the best of these swing soundtracks came from the 20th Century Fox studios. Fox made films in which Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and their bands were diegetic characters. But the house style of the studio also featured the style of Raymond Scott, a composer and arranger who wrote a lot of film music, and became legendary when Carl Stallings adapted a lot of it for Warner Brothers cartoons. Scott had a successful group, The Raymond Scott Quintette, which played eccentric, interesting compositions that were so tight, with so little space for improvisation, that — legend has it — Bunny Berrigan quit the band because he wasn’t free to invent anything.
Here’s a piece I love in the Fox house swing style — it’s from the Sonja Henie movie Happy Landing (1938). The band is uncredited but I’m pretty sure it’s a Raymond Scott operation.
Here’s my single favorite swing moment of this style, Ethel Merman singing “You Appeal to Me” in Happy Landing. It’s especially fine when midway through the song the Scott group actually walks through the patio doors and the music changes to doubly syncopated group virtuosity, sounding more like the late 40s than the late 30s. (For folks who don’t think something with no room for improv can be considered jazz, I feel some traces of this super-tight composing in the early work of Lee Konitz.) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this.
