100 Most-DJ’d Swing Tracks: 40 – 31

Week seven brings us into the top forty! Silly fun fact – if I total all the plays of all the top 100 songs up to this point, that’s 6,608 total plays. Which feels like quite a lot. As a little icing on the cake, you can listen to this week’s instalment on MixCloud!

I’ve also created a Spotify playlist to host all the tracks (or all the ones i can find on Spotify anyway) – and each week, I’ll keep adding the tracks for the week. You can find it here!

  Track Artist Album Time BPM Plays
40 Route 66 Gordon Webster Live In Philadelphia 4:02 151 114
  An amazing, gently building live version – lots of Gordon Webster’s trademark piano – but when the horns kick in a minute and a half in… oh boy does this get going.

LIsten on BandCamp
39 Wild Man Blues Woody Allen;Eddy Davis;Greg Cohen;Simon Wettenhall;Jerry Zigmont;Todd Robbins;Rob Garcia Wild Man Blues 3:36 151 114
  Another great Woody Allen track. Filled with hard-to-predict breaks (and *exactly* at the point when you’ve learned to spot when they’re coming, he pulls the rug out from under your feet, and stops doing them. Which is just evil)

Listen on Spotify
38 St. James Infirmary Clancy Hayes Doing the Hambone at Kelly’s, Vol. 2 3:08 157 115
  A fun, jaunty, cheerful version of this generally melancholy song.

Listen on Spotify
37 You Must Be Losing Your Mind Fats Waller Complete Jazz Series 1942 – 1943 2:33 165 116
  Definitely one of my favourite Fats Waller songs – partly for the vocals, partly for the energy and sense of fun in the music.

Listen on Spotify
36 Summit Ridge Drive Artie Shaw Non-Stop Flight 3:19 130 117
  Johnny Guarnierio on jazz harpsichord. Utter brilliance – with an amazing ending.

Listen on Spotify
35 Hollywood Pastime Larry Clinton & Bea Wain Larry Clinton & Bea Wain Transcription Sessions 1937-38, Vol 3:07 165 121
  This is a nice one – I like it as a gentle energy-builder in a set – or as a slightly more relaxing song when I’ve tired the floor out a bit with crazy energy – it seems to work both ways.

Listen on Spotify
34 Cole Slaw (Sorghum Switch) Louis Jordan & His Tympani Five Jukebox Hits Vol. 2: 1947-1951 2:46 136 127
  Classic Louis Jordon R&B. It used to be an article of faith with me that no food song could possibly be really about food. Until I heard Coleslaw – which is about … coleslaw. And nothing else. This confused me.

Listen on Spotify
33 Rag Mop Bob Crosby and the Bobcats Bob Crosby and the Bobcats: The Complete Standard Transcript 2:15 161 128
  There are a lot of versions of Rag Mop out there. I’ve just never heard a better one than this. Pure Bob Crosby brilliance.

Listen on Spotify
32 That’s How I Feel Today Jay Higginbotham St. Louis Blues (Best Of) 2:35 156 131
  One of the great swing trombonists, known for a slightly raucous style, which works well in this song.

Listen on Spotify
31 Love Me Or Leave Me Sammy Davis, Jr. Pop Masters: My Funny Valentine 2:53 149 132
  I’m not really a fan of the crooners – and most crooner-style music is not really aimed at dancers. This is a fantastic exception. Also – massively overplayed.

Listen on Spotify

Footnote: – For anyone who doesn’t know the term, BPM is short for Beats Per Minute, and is a standard way for DJs to measure track speed.

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