Swingle Singers - Swinging The Classics

Styles: Jazz, Bop, Cool
Year: 2009
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:20
Size: 135,3 MB
Art: Front

(5:39) 1. Air For G String
(2:07) 2. Zortzico
(1:13) 3. Scherzo
(7:12) 4. Three Windows
(4:20) 5. Adagio
(5:04) 6. When I Am Laid In Earth
(2:14) 7. Tango In D Major
(1:29) 8. Etude Op. 25 No. 2
(3:33) 9. Vendome
(1:25) 10. Limoges, The Market
(4:17) 11. Little David's Fugue
(3:30) 12. Andante
(6:31) 13. Ricercare
(2:37) 14. Romance Espagnole
(4:53) 15. Alexander's Fugue
(2:09) 16. Short Fugue

Originally a French vocal band, founded in 1962 by Ward Swingle, specialized in singing classical songs with a capella/jazz arrangement. They were very popular in the USA, they won 3 Grammy Awards in 1964 and 1965. The French group disbanded in 1973, Ward went to England where he formed Swingle II with an expanded repertoire, he continued actively with the group until 1985. The Swingle Singers have continued, with various new members and with Ward as musical advisor, to this day.

The original double-quartet: Alto: Alice Herald - Anne Germain Soprano: Christiane Legrand - Jeanette Baucomont Tenor: Claude Germain - Ward Swingle (Arranger) Bass: Jean Cussac - José Germain

The current members are: Sopranos: Sara Brimer, Joanna Goldsmith-Eteson Altos: Clare Wheeler, Lucy Bailey Tenors: Christopher Jay, Richard Eteson (- 3/2010) Basses: Tobias Hug, Kevin Fox

They have performd and record under the names The Swingles, The New Swingle Singers and eventually, The Swingle Singers. Since the London group's incarnation, the group has never disbanded. https://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/artist/the-swingle-singers

Swinging The Classics

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The Swingle Singers, The Modern Jazz Quartet - Place Vendome

Styles: Jazz, Bop, Cool
Year: 1966
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:09
Size: 86,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:17)  1. Little David's Fugue
(5:40)  2. Air For G String
(3:32)  3. Vendôme
(6:33)  4. Musikalisches Opfer Bwv 1079: No.8 Ricercar A 6
(5:04)  5. When I Am Laid In Earth (Dido's Lament)
(4:51)  6. Alexander's Fugue
(7:10)  7. Three Windows

For a short time in the mid-'60s, the Modern Jazz Quartet were working primarily in Europe and recording for the French division of Philips, with the results coming out in the United States on the MJQ's regular label, Atlantic. There was only one exception to this rule: Place Vendôme, which comprised the collaboration of the MJQ with the Swingle Singers, and which appeared in the U.S. on Philips' American subsidiary through Mercury Records. For Philips, the collaboration must have seemed like an inevitability; Ward Swingle had sung with the Double Six of Paris, which had backed up Dizzy Gillespie who, of course, had led the big band out of which the MJQ was formed in 1952. The Swingle Singers had been jazzing up the music of Johann Sebastian Bach since at least 1963 with phenomenal success, and while John Lewis wasn't quite as into the Bach bag in 1966 that he would be later, his MJQ compositions had long been taken up in European devices such as fugue and the renaissance Canzona.

Although Swingle and Lewis agreed to collaborate backstage after an MJQ concert in Paris in 1964, it wasn't until 1966 that the two groups found themselves in Paris at the same time. The resultant album, Place Vendôme, was a huge international success commercially, with the track "Aria (Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068)"though then popularly called "Air on a G String"charting strongly in Europe and the album easily earning its keep in the U.S., though it did not chart there. Not everyone was pleased; jazz critics savaged the album, the consensus being that a pop vocal group like the Swingle Singers had no business making an album with an exalted jazz group like the MJQ.
~ Uncle Dave Lewis https://www.allmusic.com/album/place-vend%C3%B4me-mw0000521943


The Swingle Singers: Jeanette Baucomont – soprano; Christiane Legrand – soprano; Alice Herald – alto; Claudine Meunier – alto; Ward Swingle – tenor, arranger; Claude Germain – tenor; Jean Cussac – bass; José Germain – bass

The Modern Jazz Quartet: John Lewis – piano; Milt Jackson – vibraphone; Percy Heath – double bass; Connie Kay – drums

Place Vendome

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