Word: gutbucket
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When a Sweet Swing devotee tries to struggle out of the ooze and goo that is Lombardo, and investigate this thing called jazz, he is generally licked from the start. He is seized upon by friends steeped in jazz lore and subjected to Gutbucket Gus and his Dixieland Breakdowners. Appalled by the seemingly mad confusion of growl trumpets and crisscrossing trombones, he yields himself again to the blandishments of the Kysers and the Kayes, who, if cloying, are at least comprehensible...
Obviously, the offerings of a Gutbucket Gus are gibberish to the uninitiated. What the Sweet Singers need by way of introduction is someone who can play good jazz on something approaching their own terms. And Lunceford, Basie, and Ellington are the men for that. A comparison of their recordings of popular songs with the effusions of the Sweet, Swing set is eye-opening. The gulf between Ellington's "Take the 'A' Train," and Miller's is immeasurable. The Ellington band's complete grasp of the spirit of the thing, its spontaneity, its "soul," if you will, make Miller's version...
Some stimulating bits by the stimulating tyros: Nancy Walker as a rowdy blind date, putting over a gutbucket ballad The Three Bs (boogie-woogie, barrelhouse and blues) with Co-workers Victoria Schools and June Allyson; Maureen Cannon as a forsaken lyrical young lady, singing of her desire to be a Shady Lady Bird, and stopping the show dead in its tracks; triple-talented Betty Anne Nyman as a tap-dancing, singing, acrobatic prom date; a rousing Buckle Down, Winsocki, with a full chorus led by minuscule Tommy...