“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
African-American spiritual arranged by Deane Kincaide.
Recorded by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra for Victor on February 17, 1941 in New York.
Tommy Dorsey, first trombone, directing: Ziggy Elman, solo trumpet and first trumpet in final chorus; Ray Linn, first trumpet; Chuck Peterson and Jimmy Blake, trumpets; George Arus, Les Jenkins and Lowell Martin, trombones; Freddie Stulce, first alto saxophone and clarinet; Johnny Mince, alto saxophone and clarinet; Paul Mason and Don Lodice, tenor saxophones; Henry “Heinie” Beau, baritone saxophone and clarinet; Joe Bushkin, piano; Clark Yokum, guitar; Sid Weiss, bass; Buddy Rich, drums.
The story:
The role of the arranger in the musical life of every swing band was both large and essential. It could be likened to the muscles every human being has and needs to survive and function. The more skillful the arranger, the better the quality of music that he/she produced was. If one combined a skillful arranger with skillful swing musicians, the result would be good music in the swing idiom, perhaps analogous to athletics on the collegiate level. If several talented jazz soloists and a virtuoso bandleader who was capable of inspiring great performances were added to the band, you got a great band, analogous to Olympic level athletics.
Tommy Dorsey’s band of the early 1940s was truly Olympian. The entire attitude of the Dorsey band emanated from their charismatic and driven leader: anything less than 100% effort at all time was grounds for being fired. Tommy could be brutal in how he applied this standard. But what made his attitude somewhat more palatable to his sidemen was that he asked nothing of any other performer that he himself didn’t do. TD’s sidemen also noticed that the quality of his band’s performances was excellent, and they very much wanted to be a part of that. In addition, Dorsey’s trombone playing was at a virtuoso level. He chose to apply those virtuoso skills to playing melodic solos, and leading the trombone section.(1) This resulted in an immense amount of hard work for him on every gig.
Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra as they appeared in the Paramount film Las Vegas Nights in late 1940. Front, L-R: Heinie Beau, Johnny Mince, Freddie Stulce, Don Lodice, Paul Mason, TD, Joe Bushkin; middle (trombones): Lowell Martin, Les Jenkins, George Arus; (trumpets) Clyde Hurley, Ray Linn, Chuck Peterson, Ziggy Elman; Buddy Rich, Sid Weiss; back: Clark Yocum, Jo Stafford, John Huddleston, Connie Haines; Frank Sinatra.
But in addition to that, he was constantly searching for music that he thought his band could bring vividly to life. Once he found a piece of music that he thought would work, he assigned it to one of the many arrangers he worked with over the years to cast the music in an appropriate style. Once the arranger delivered an arrangement to TD, it was rehearsed carefully, indeed meticulously, until it was being performed in the manner Tommy thought best. Then it was played on gigs, first usually on dance engagements, where TD could gauge the band’s performance in terms of its quality, and what effect the music was having on audiences. If he thought any adjustments were needed to the band’s performance, he made very clear to his band members what to change and how to change it. This process of perfecting the performance of various new arrangements was going on constantly in Tommy’s band, as new music was constantly coming into the band’s current rotation of “numbers.” Once the quality and spirit of a piece was right, TD would then record it.
The process described above usually covered a span of several weeks, possibly as long as a couple of months in rare instances. But on a few truly unusual occasions, it took longer because the finished product, the commercial recording, for whatever reasons, did not meet or exceed Tommy’s expectations. Such was the case with the TD recording of Deane Kincaide’s arrangement on the Afro-American spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Kincaide had begun submitting arrangements to Tommy in mid-1938. They were all very distinctive and reflected his orientation toward traditional American music. (Among the Kincaide arrangements Tommy Dorsey recorded in late 1938 early 1939 were: “Washboard Blues,’ “Tin Roof Blues,” “Milenberg Joys.” (Links to all of these appear in the endnotes below.) Kincaide’s charts on “Hawaiian War Chant” and “Boogie Woogie,” which were also recorded then, became big hits for Tommy on Victor records.) Deane’s arrangement on “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” came into the TD band in the spring of 1939. Tommy took it through his normal process of development then, and decided to record it on May 22, 1939. The recording of it made on that date was not issued by Victor, probably because it did not satisfy Tommy. Nevertheless, TD continued playing this arrangement, including on radio broadcasts on March 9, 1940 and February 11, 1941, just a few days before the recording presented with this post was made. (Above right: Deane Kincaide.)
During the span of time from May of 1939 to February of 1941, the swing side of the TD band had changed substantially. Basically, the band went from having most of its swinging arrangements being written by Paul (Wetstein) Weston and Deane Kincaide, to having most of their swinging arrangements written by Sy Oliver. And the jazz soloists had changed from Yank Lawson on trumpet, Babe Russin on tenor saxophone, and Moe Purtill or Dave Tough or Cliff Leeman on drums, to Ziggy Elman on trumpet, Don Lodice on tenor saxophone and Buddy Rich on drums. I must stress that the level of performance in the TD band remained excellent throughout all of this time. It was the character of the band that had changed. Consequently, the sound of this recording of Kincaide’s arrangement is quite different from the sound of other of Deane’s arrangements that the 1938-1939 Tommy Dorsey band recorded.
The music:
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is an African-American spiritual song, and one of the best-known Christian hymns. Originating in early African-American musical traditions, the song was probably composed in the late 1860s by Wallace Willis and his daughter, Minerva Willis, both Choctaw freed persons. Performances by the Hampton Singers and the Fisk Jubilee Singers brought the song to the attention of wider audiences in the late 19th century. The earliest known recording of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was made in 1894, by the Standard Quartette. (2)
The song was originally intended to be sung in a call-and-response (antiphonal) format that draws from the heritage of African styles of music. That approach is still widely used in African-American churches today. A leader sings the differentiated lines, and the congregation replies. In “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” the reply is: Comin’ for to carry me home. This style of performing a spiritual can be heard in the existing recordings of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. This call-and-response performance style is the most common form of spiritual. Also, the melody is pentatonic, meaning a musical scale with five notes, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major and minor scales). (2)
Arranger Deane Kincaide and Tommy Dorsey likely were inspired to create their own interpretation of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” by a recording made of it by Bing Crosby for Decca on April 25, 1938. Kincaide later recalled how he went about creating his arrangement: “I took a lot of stuff from some race records by Mitchell’s Christian Singers and made a sort of hodgepodge of what they did and what I used to do when I was arranging for Bob Crosby.” (3)
Kincaide’s arrangement begins with a simple melodic fragment played by the reeds, which include three clarinets (Johnny Mince playing lead). TD then appears, playing the main melody on his solotone-muted trombone, as the clarinets continue with their opening melodic fragment as a background. A brief burst of muted brass separates the first of these two melodic tracts from the second. Then the brass, now unmuted, flare as the reeds continue with their melody. (Above left: A view of some of the musicians in Tommy Dorsey’s band in the spring of 1939. TD is standing, playing his trombone. The clarinet trio is L-R: Deane Kincaide, Johnny Mince and Freddie Stulce. The guitarist behind them is Carmen Mastren. Behind him are Pee Wee Erwin and Andy Ferretti.)
Notice how Kincaide then uses the reeds differently, with what are essentially two choirs, the clarinets, and the saxophones (led by Freddie Stulce), which play in dialog with the open trumpets and trombones. This colorful sequence leads into a soulful open trumpet jazz solo by Ziggy Elman. The background Elman plays against at first is a combination of open brass played softly (first eight bars), then, as he moves into a higher register, the clarinet-flavored reeds. (Above right: A photo Ziggy inscribed for his trumpet section colleague Chuck Peterson.)
An antiphonal transition follows with the reeds being prodded by open brass accents. Clarinetist Johnny Mince then picks up his alto saxophone to play a tasty sixteen bar jazz solo, backed by the warm open brass. This is followed by rocking sequence (Buddy Rich’s two-beat drumming much in evidence) with the now hotter open trumpets carrying the melody, the vigorous open trombones (led by TD), playing counterlines, and finally the reeds, adding a sheen of high notes atop the trumpets. This sequence winds down via a quick transition by the suddenly quieter trombone quartet.
Tenor saxophonist Don Lodice plays next. He constructs his improvised solo by lobbing out a series of two notes repeated six times to create tension, then releases the tension in the second half of his solo by playing flowing improvised phrases. Note the chirping, syncopated clarinets behind him, a felicitous arranging touch.
A photo of a part of Tommy Dorsey’s band in a recording studio in the summer of 1940. The saxophones are L-R: Freddie Stulce, Johnny Mince, Hymie Shertzer, Don Lodice and Paul Mason. Also visible are L-R: Les Jenkins, Lowell Martin, Buddy Rich, Sid Weiss, Clark Yokum and Joe Bushkin.
The finale is an extended series of mighty riffs, intricate and contrapuntal, but retaining the antiphonal quality that is fundamental to this song. The open trumpets, trombones and clarinet-led reeds each create their own layer of sound. The trumpets in this segment are led by Ziggy Elman, the trombones by TD, and the clarinets by Johnny Mince. Once again, drummer Buddy Rich provides the rocking 2/4 rhythmic foundation on which all of this rests.
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) From the late 1930s into the years of World War II, Tommy also usually had one of more other trombonists in his band who were good jazz soloists. A particular favorite of his in this regard was Les Jenkins.
2) The information about the song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is extracted from the Wikipedia post on it.
3) The Swing Era 1941-1942 (1970), notes on the music by Joseph Kastner, 55.
Here are links to other Deane Kincaide arrangements performed with verve by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra:
https://swingandbeyond.com/2019/03/04/milenberg-joys-1939-tommy-dorsey/
Thank you so much for featuring this song, Mike. It’s one of my all-time favorite numbers from the Swing Era and I never tire of listening to it!
In addition to the marvelous musicianship (I particularly love the use of the three clarinets–it makes the arrangement just sparkle!), it’s fantastic that it’s such a complex and unorthodox arrangement, but it never fails to swing. Kincaide plays with unsynchronized accompaniments and the unusual timing of phrases throughout the song. It starts at the very beginning, as the opening reed passage appears to begin in the middle of a musical phrase (as well as the middle of a measure–it starts on beat 3, despite the song being in 4/4 time). The first time I heard this, I was very upset, since I thought the beginning of the recording had been inadvertently clipped! I soon realized that this was quite intentional.
Right after that, TD plays the main melody, but it’s strangely compressed, taking a couple of beats less than you’d expect. The reed accompaniment isn’t quite in synch with his playing, either. And yet it works, marvelously!
This is just the beginning of the bag of tricks Kincaide and TD have in store for us. Phrases end abruptly or begin in the middle of the previous phrase. Blasts of the accompaniment come on the fourth beat of a measure, rather than the expected first beat. Two beat measures amidst the standard four beat ones are sprinkled liberally throughout the number, which was very daring stuff for the early forties. And the melody begins and ends in most unexpected ways
in various phrases throughout the song. I think the reason Kincaide was able to get away with all these shenanigans is that the entire number includes nothing but the simple, 8 measure basic theme to this well known spiritual. And yet, he’s able to extend it to a 4 minute opus, never once repeating himself, and delighting us throughout. And man, does it swing!
I love good, basic, swinging jazz, but a number like this one, so original and unexpected, and executed so brilliantly, really delights me. It feels like the mark of genius. Thanks again for including it on your marvelous website, Mike–you’ve really made my day!
Thank you Larry for your insightful comments. They make the musical picture a bit clearer.