That's Swing!

Sunday 25 July on the paper (El País. My translation): "Swing is not just a type of jazz, or a certain kick of the golf-stick, but also a spiritual gift, a gift you could not buy with money. You either have it, or you don't have it. "To swing" means to move sideways, to balance oneself, to move as a cradle, to cause to turn: they are variants of a verb which refer to a harmonic movement, a movement that springs from within, becoming the aura around the body."

According to this little column, if you have swing, you carry it around in everything you do, as a type of domestic spiritual undulation: when you walk, when you sit down or get up, when you shake hands, when you call the waiter in a restaurant, when you tell a story, when you pour the wine, when you smile at a compliment, when you make love, when you stretch in the morning, when you feed your dog a buiscuit, when you yawn. "Swing goes beyond body harmony, beyond personal charm, you cannot learn swing".

And then you have swing for recovering as well, as a spiritual strength that comes with you anywhere you go: "The person with swing applies this undulating, oscillating, balancing formula to get out of any problem, turning it around until it's under control."

And then he goes on to give examples of what has swing and what doesn't: "Swing is there in certain passes by Zidànne, Schumacher's Ferrari when he turns, the rhythm of some of Borges's tales [for some bee-bop, read Julio Cortázar's tale on Jazz], ... the fluid walk of certain women [for perfect descriptions of women's walk as swing, read almost any Earl Lovelace], and the elasticity of the jaguar against its victim."
He finishes saying that certain silences are also swing...

Well, I would recommend Louis Armstrong's "Swing That Music", 1936. I have only read a section of it. In the part that I've read, Armstrong explains that the idea of swing was not something new. "The swing idea of free improvisation by the players was at the core of jazz when it started back there in New Orleans" ("Swing That Music", XII. Record Fans and Hot Clubs). Then this type of jazz disappeared because the record companies wished to write down every song and keep it that way, but then, Armstrong explains, swing lovers would continue swinging in jam sessions at night. That is how swing became a different genre, out of something quite intrinsic, essential, in jazz.

I guess everybody has more or less swing. I guess it's a way of dancing your life away, moving about until you find the rhythm... too-too-tooroorooo...