Swingin’ on Something

Art by Samara Chaplain

I could argue that my obsession with swing music has roots back in my youth--those vague memories of a Backyardigans episode well-loved, all because it featured swing music. Even then, watching multi-colored animals dance on screen, I loved the personality of swing. 

In the present day, my full-blown affinity for the musical style was revived by accident. What started with wanting to know the name of that song from the end of The Shining turned into me looking into the discographies of swing legends, turned into following and listening religiously to Spotify playlists. 

I’ve been regularly listening to swing music for years now, but hold it as a more private pleasure because of what it means to me. I don’t advertise my taste in swing the same way I do in other genres of music because there’s a deeper connection to Louis Armstrong and Tommy Dorsey than there is to any other musician. Over the years, swing has turned into my safety blanket—the familiar ups and downs of Sing, Sing, Sing, and the easy, melodic riffs of Ella Fitzgerald’s voice in The A Train, feel more like old friends than music. 

If I had to guess why swing is my safety blanket music, of all genres, I would say it’s because it reminds me of my grandparents. Late last October, I acquired dozens of old swing and Big Band vinyl records from their house after their passing. It was those records that brought me out of my grief and gave me a posthumous connection to them. The intensification of my swing obsession came with the record player; I had loved the music before, but it was all I could listen to in the weeks following the record accumulation. I loved the intimacy of playing the same records my grandma and grandpa did. I loved singing along to the songs I could imagine them dancing to in their living room. The records resurrected my grandparents in my own room; they played the music and the memories lied in the vinyl themselves. My love for swing had no choice but to grow and nestle itself deep in my heart—the moment the records came into my life, the music adopted a fuller life of its own. By association, now, I find that I can’t disconnect my grandparents from swing music. They’re blended with the music, one perfect quilt, woven together to make me feel safe. 

When I listen to swing music, everything else melts away.  The emotional stresses of life in quarantine and the uncertainty of everything else in my life—school, money, family, the list goes on—are all put on hold when I’m listening to Duke Ellington. Benny Goodman inspires me to dance and let myself feel happy and free, despite being trapped indoors. Ella and Louis and Glenn and all the other swing giants and music-makers, they provide me with an outlet to feel normal. In the midst of this pandemic, that’s all I’ve really wanted to find--a semblance of normal, of life before all I knew was the pattern of my ceiling and walls. Swing is that vessel for me. Swing gives me a sliver of what life was like before, and it’s the thing that’s helping me transition back into a life of routines. 

I listen to Big Band in the morning as I jive my way through my morning routine. I play records in the background as I finish my summer homework or the countless new assignments that are trickling in for online school or my extracurriculars. I play swing when I need to focus and when I don’t—there’s never a time that I’ve found I can’t play or listen to my swing playlist. I think that’s another reason why I love it so much: swing is such a versatile genre. Each song has so much life to it, but they all feel so individual and unique like you’re listening to something completely new. In fact, I’ve listened to the same songs over and over again and their luster has yet to fade. For my favorite songs, I can always find something new to love in the melodies or a different sub-current to sing along to. My safety blanket, then, is ever-changing and evolving, always growing and adapting to my situation. 

And so, I’ve found that, during this time where life is so uncertain, the thing that’s letting me hold on again is swing music. Without fail, that steady, constant drumming has taken its place as my heartbeat, and the trumpets and clarinets and mind-blowing vocals power me through the moments that feel impossible. Normalcy is coming back to me again in the form of swing music, just like it did before. Life doesn’t seem so scary when I’ve got the Big Band behind me.