1930s AD

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 4, 1998 by Robin Taylor

The primary difference between the Zippers and other swing bands is the presence of Katharine Whalen, one of the group's founders, a lead singer and banjo player. Close your eyes and Whalen's voice takes you back to the smoky nightclubs of the 1940s, especially on slow, mournful songs like "Low Down Man" and "My Drag." Whalen is one of the only women to figure prominently in today's new swing movement, and the only featured female member of any of the groups mentioned here.

The downside

It's hard to find a downside to the swing movement. It's music that brings families together, as grandparents and grandchildren finally have songs they agree on. It's also helped young adults discover the joy of dancing together again. As Cherry Poppin' Daddies' front man Steve Perry said in a recent interview with music critic Jere Chandler, "At hippy shows, people dance around by themselves. At ska shows, they do that little robot dance. Or they mosh. They're all alienated forms of dance. It's all about you. With swing, it's you and your partner.... There's a sense of decency and decorum, of manners and style that's been lacking for awhile in rock and youth culture."

In spite of all this, there is a problematic undercurrent to the music. The sweet nostalgic glow is darkened by the startling lack of diversity in today's top bands. Maybe young women or people of color aren't encouraged throughout school to learn the trumpet, trombone or saxophone. Maybe, with the resurgence of swing, that will start to change.

If it does, though, the movement's language would need to shift as well. Throughout the songs, men are referred to as "daddies," while women are "babies." What would happen to a group like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy if a woman joined? Would Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Baby have the same ring to it? Troubling as well is the inordinate amount of lyric time that the bands devote to the glories of alcohol and drunkenness, with gin and tonics and whiskey being the swing drinks of choice. And don't forget your cigarettes. As the cool cat on the Setzer album cover suggests, smoking is part of being hip, too.

Nobody knows how long this current swing revival will last, not even the men who are making the music. In the end, that doesn't matter much to them. The bottom line is that most of them were jiving and wailing long before it was hip and will continue even when the fervor fades. And that love is what has kept swing alive, from the early days when my grandma sang along to her radio, until now.

Robin Taylor writes from Dayton, Nev.