Swing and Big Band Radio
Let’s face it, swing and big band music disappeared from the airwaves years ago for most of the country. In Orlando, we use to have a “music of your life” AM station, but that switched formats a while ago. We do have a local jazz station that will occasionally play some swing, but overall, they are a jazz format, not vintage big band and swing. For those of us who love the format, we are left finding other sources.
But wait, isn’t radio dead? We all have iPods now. Why not just use that? Good question. Well, to start, many people may not have extensive swing music collections. For those of us who do, it’s really nice to hear the variety of other people’s collections. Swing is a huge genre and I am always looking for songs and renditions of songs that I have never heard before. I often jot down notes of songs I want to get while listing to various swing stations.
There use to be a good swing/big band music channel on Brighthouse cable. However, I recently flipped over to the channel and found that they altered the format. It’s now something like “sing and swing” and it’s simply horrible. Very little swing and a lot of sleepy show tunes. Not that I am looking for strictly dance music, but the music selection left much to be desired.
My other source recently has been XM radio. Their 40′s station use to be somewhat sleepy. While it was good vintage music, for every one up-tempo song they played, there were about 3 to 5 slow ballads. It was so bad, that I even isolated their pattern. They would never play two up-tempo songs in a row. However, that all seemed to change sometime after the Sirius merger. Now their music mix is quite good and is probably one of the best vintage swing and big band mixes around. The only problem is that I hate paying the ever increasing rates for XM and I worry how long they will keep the format since everyone seems to be targeting stations to the tastes of a certain mainstream market.
The other option, of course, is to go online. I have to admit, the selection is large. Almost too large. The wide selection seems to allow people to focus online stations on certain niches. I’ve seen everything from straight up Lindy Hop dance music to really obscure pre-jazz era music. The problem seems to be finding something good and general. A nice mix of everything. Lately, I have been listening to The 1920′s Radio Network. Despite the name, they play everything from the 20′s through the 40′s. Their music seems to range from recognizable swing era tunes to the very obscure. Maybe not the best mix out there, but overall, enjoyable!
So here is my question to you: What is your swing/big band music source? Know of a good online station? Please feel free to post it in a comment!