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6 unusual facts about Swing Time


Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook

Awarded four and a half stars by Down Beat Magazine in 1963, this album contains a fine selection of Jazz standards, with All the Things You Are, (named by Tony Bennett as his favourite song), a wistful Oscar winning The Way You Look Tonight, which contrasts beautifully with Sinatra's more famous swinging version from his 1964 album Sinatra Sings...Academy Award Winners, and A Fine Romance from Astaire and Roger's Swing Time.

John W. Bubbles

In the number "Bojangles of Harlem" from Swing Time (1936) Astaire dresses in blackface as the Sportin' Life character and dances in the style of Sublett while ostensibly paying tribute to Bill Robinson.

La Grande Station

Other movies that used Santa Fe's La Grande Station included Choo Choo 1931 (Our Gang - Little Rascals), Lady Killer, 1933 with James Cagney, Swing Time 1936 (Fred Astaire) and Something to Sing About 1937 (James Cagney).

Samba reggae

The surdos (bass drums) play a 2/4 rhythm with swing while other instruments provide contrasting rhythms in straight and syncopated time.

The Way You Look Tonight

"The Way You Look Tonight" is a song featured in the film Swing Time, originally performed by Fred Astaire.

You Were Never Lovelier

Here, as in the "Pick Yourself Up" and "Bojangles of Harlem" numbers from Swing Time, Kern belied his claim that he couldn't write in the Swing style.


3 O'Clock Blues

By the time of the record's release two years later in 1948, Fulson's style had already evolved into a West Coast blues style typified by his hit recordings for Downbeat and Swing Time, such as "Every Day I Have the Blues" and "Blue Shadows".


see also

Confession Blues

"Confession Blues" is a song by The Maxin Trio released in 1949 as a single on the Down Beat Records label (later known as Swing Time).