Recommend some small combo swing jazz

Cafe Society
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Lots of good suggestions for Big Band jazz in this thread, but I prefer small combos. I’ve never cared much for blaring trumpets, and I prefer swing jazz to bebop.

I like Benny Goodman’s quartet more than the full orchestra. I like Stephane Grappelli & Django Reinhardt, and really enjoy Mark O’Connor’s Hot Swing Trio. I also like western swing, such as Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys.

I like Brian Setzer’s stuff a lot, but would like it more without the horn section. Guitar-based swing jazz is my favorite, but I like saxophone and clarinet also.

Any recommendations?

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My apologies if you’ve got any of these already -

Bucky Pizzarelli - In particular, his stuff with Frank Vignola (whom you will already know from the Mark O’Connor Hot Swing Trio), New York Swing (with John Bunch and Jay Leonhart) and a delightful album with Doug Jernigan called simply ‘Doug and Bucky’. He plays rhythm on John Pizzarelli’s albums, but I prefer his stuff as leader…

Carl Kress and Dick McDonough - they are featured on a couple of albums Pioneers of Jazz Guitar and one other I’ll have to look for…

Frank Vignola - I particularly like his ‘Vignola plays Gershwin’ and ‘Meeting of the Grooves’ (with Gene Bertoncini)

Diz Disley, who played for Stephane Grapelli for a time…

It depends on how exactly you mean ‘swing’ - do you mean the period of the '20s and '30s, sometimes referred to as the swing era, or are you meaning a style with a broader time frame that is a little less adventurous, harmonically speaking, than bebop? Either way, there’s lots of great music out there…

Hope this helps.

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I think I am going to stink at this - hmm; you have all the stuff I would recommend (I really dig O’Connor’s stuff), and **Le Ministre **is light-years past me on stuff like this and the choices of his that I recognize, like Pizzarelli and Vignola are total monsters; really good.

Have you tried Charlie Hunter? Plays 8-string guitar/bass in various combos - can totally swing, but the styles vary a bit.

Tuck Andress of Tuck and Patti? Biggest issue there is that he plays solo a bit.

Joe Pass - any of his small combo albums of standards? I have a Live at Yoshi’s I love.

There is a CD I have of the Benny Goodman Sextet, featuring Charlie Christian, the pioneering jazz guitarist who practically invented the single-note lead run on electric guitar, which is really, really good - probably right up your all.

Oh! How about Gerry Mulligan Encounters Ben Webster (I think that’s the name - Google both names and I am sure the right one will surface). No guitar, but some truly top-shelf Tenor and Baritone sax. Ben was the old, old man play old music and Gerry was the new young turk - who happened to love the old man. So Gerry paired up with Ben to “acquaint the hep jazz cats” of the day to the music of the previous generation - Ben was part of Duke Ellington’s band, alongside Coleman Hawkins. Small combo stuff, with horns obviously, but really really good.

I suspect checking Pandora might work - there are a TON of jazz players out there that I read about in my guitar magazine that I don’t have the time to chase down who sound like they would play stuff right up your alley…

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Le Ministre, I mean swing as a broader style and time frame. I like the stuff from the 20’s and 30’s, but I like the newer stuff too. I like a lot of the newer bands mentioned in the Big Band thread, I just prefer smaller combos without a big horn section.

I’ll check out the Bucky Pizzarelli recommendations- I’ve heard the name but don’t have anything by him. I like Frank Vignola a lot, but don’t have any of his stuff. I’ve seen the Hot Swing Trio in concert a couple of times, and Frank just blows me away.

I have a Pioneers Of Jazz CD by Eddie Lang that features Carl Kress on a couple of tunes- Dick McDonough too, I believe. I like it a lot. I’ll look into their stuff.

I’m not familiar with Diz Disley, I’ll check him out too! Thanks!

WordMan, I haven’t heard of Charlie Hunter, but he sounds very interesting!

I like Tuck Andress, I have Reckless Precision on CD- I haven’t listened to it in ages. Thanks for reminding me! I like his version of Santana’s Europa from a Tuck & Patti CD I have.

I’ll check out Joe Pass- and I’m ashamed to admit I have no Charlie Christian in my collection. I will take care of that immediately!

I’ll also look into Gerry Mulligan & Ben Webster- sounds like some good stuff!

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, guys! I’ll report back after I listen to some samples!

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Kevin O’Donnell’s Quality Six and Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire. Both are groups with pretty much the same lineups except one is Kevin’s project and the other is Andrew’s project.

Bird’s Oh! The Grandeur and Thrills are the two jazz combo albums. After that, he went in a different direction.

There’s also The Squirrel Nut Zippers, which are “hot jazz” and not entirely small combo. But you really can’t beat their albums The Inevitable,* Hot* and Perennial Favorites.

Offshoots from this group are Katherine Whalen’s Jazz Squad and Tom Maxwell’s album Samsara.

The Countdown Quartet really swings my socks off.

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There’s a large, incestuous swing scene in Austin, typified by the force of nature that is Slim Richey. Slim anchors several different bands (see his “shows” tab at the above link), whose various members spin off into their own groups, etc. For instance, Emily Gimble plays piano with Slim’s Jitterbug Vipers, plus the Marshall Ford Swing Band, where her Grandpa occasionally sits in. Which leads us to the western swing branch and Johnny’s best student’s band Hot Club of Cowtown. I could go on and on, and frequently do.

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Okay, it took most of the day at work (they actually expected me to do stuff), but I managed to listen to some samples from almost all of the suggestions.

Le Ministre, I liked what I heard of Bucky Pizzarelli. The only thing I found by Carl Kress and Dick McDonough was the Pioneers Of Jazz Guitar CD that also features Eddie Lang- which I already have. I thought it was mostly Eddie Lang; I don’t have any liner notes to tell me who played what, I downloaded it from emusic.

The Diz Disley CD Live At Corby Festival Hall, with Stephane Grapelli, sounds very nice.

WordMan, I like the Charlie Hunter stuff a lot, especially Mistico and Bing Bing Bing, which has a version of Nirvana’s Come As You Are on it!

I thought Joe Pass was good, but I like a little more beat or groove.

I absolutely have to get the Charlie Christian (with the Benny Goodman Sextet) CD, The Genius of the Electric Guitar!

And the Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster sounds good, too!

ZipperJJ, I liked Kevin O’Donnell’s Quality Six and Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire. I enjoyed Bird’s fiddle playing.

Tom Maxwell’s album Samsara sounds very interesting; I liked it!

I have The Inevitable by The Squirrel Nut Zippers; I like it, but it does have horns- as did The Countdown Quartet. Not bad, but I’ll probably go with the other stuff first.

don’t mind me, I liked Slim Richey, but I liked the Marshall Ford Swing Band and Hot Club of Cowtown even more! Love some good western swing! And Johnny Gimble is great; it seems like he’s been around for ever!

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions, everyone. I love discovering new music (new to me, anyway)! Looks like I’ll be adding a lot of good stuff to my collection in the near future.

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What are your feelings on the Reverend Horton Heat?

Sadly, your tastes run contrary to mine. I like horns in my jazz, and when I don’t I want it to be some variation of bop. So all the older straight small combo swing stuff I know would be out. You mentioned Django, do you know Jellyroll Morton’s catalogue? How do you feel about Delta Blues? Too downbeat? What about a nice rag or two? How about the Carter Family? Too Country?

I wish, right now, that I still had easy access to my friend’s Western Swing library, but he has moved out of the state. He did have some of the most in depth knowledge of Western Swing of anyone I have ever met. Unfortunatly Western Swing doesn’t do a whole lot for me (I prefer the blues side of that coin) and I can’t think of anything right now. I do know that Bob Willis was one of his favorites though. A quick look at Wiki reminds me that Tex Williams and Pee Wee King were two others in his collection. If I remember, I will give him a call later tonight and ask for more.

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I like the Reverend Horton Heat; I had one of his CD’s (the one with Big Red Rocket Of Love), but I can’t find it now.

I don’t have any Jellyroll Morton in my collection; looks like good stuff, though. I like delta blues, but I like more modern, electric blues more. I do like people like Hound Dog Taylor and Lightnin’ Hopkins. I was seriously into blues for a long time and have a lot of blues albums and CD’s. Buddy Guy, Son Seals, Elmore James, Roy Buchanan, Stevie Ray Vaughan (saw him in concert 11 times!), and lots more.

I like the Carter Family and traditional country music, as well as mountain music and bluegrass- although I prefer newgrass. I just went to see Sam Bush in concert Sunday night. Great show; he’s one of the founders of newgrass. I love Bela Fleck and his mixture of jazz and bluegrass and classical and anything else he feels like playing.

I like just about everything Mark O’Connor does (his guitar album, Markology, is fantastic- and he was 16 when he recorded it!). I think Edgar Meyer is a musical genius- in fact, he won a MacArthur Fellowship Grant a few years ago. I’ve seen him perform a few times.

I really enjoy listening to talented musicians perform, whatever genre they play. I prefer instrumentals and improvisation, and music with a good groove or beat to it. And I prefer stringed instruments, in case you couldn’t tell!

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Check out the album Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio–Lester on tenor sax, also with Barney Kessel on guitar. Lester was a swing era player that actually laid a lot of the groundwork for the beboppers, but without the iconoclasm of bebop that probably hits your ear the wrong way.

Another of those Austin swing bands from the nineties that didn’t get such a big name was 8 1/2 Souvenirs–check out their album Happy Feet. Some Django influence and a couple of Django tunes, as well as a couple of great sounding Serge Gainsbourg covers.

If you’re into Ellington at all, check out the small group sessions that were recorded under his direction, but under the nominal leadership of band members such as Johnny Hodges and Ellington’s longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn. It looks like the small group recordings can now be found on the two-volume compilation The Duke’s Men: Small Groups.

You might also want to check out modern Gypsy jazz guitarist Bireli Lagrene–I haven’t listened to much of him, but he’s obviously indebted to Django.

That’s all I’m coming up with right now. Hope something there helps.

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Especially Girl Talk and Temptation.

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Eman Resu, I liked the Lester Young & Oscar Peterson stuff very much. And 8 1/2 Souvenirs was really good too, just what I’m looking for.

The Dukes’ Men: Small Groups had a lot of good tunes on it, especially those featuring Barney Bigard on clarinet, and of course the Johnny Hodges and Billy Strayhorn sides. Another one I liked a lot was Side By Side with Hodges and the Duke on some songs & Strayhorn on others. It had some longer cuts, which I like.

I also enjoyed Bireli Lagrene; I found a collaboration between him and Jaco Pastorius that looks really good.

lissener, Holly Cole has a great voice, thanks for bringing her to my attention! And Temptation has Howard Levy playing harmonica! He is a fantastic musician who used to play with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones; I’ve got to get that one.

Thanks for all the recommendations, everyone. I hope I get my W-2’s soon so I can do my taxes, get my refund, and spend it all on new music!

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check out Hank Garland’s Jazz Winds from a New Direction (Amazon link) - read the review where the poster quotes a review from John Hammond, the genius of Columbia Records back in the day. Trust me :wink: and glad to hear you are finding stuff…

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You should check out Guy Van Duser and Billy Novick, a duo of guitar and clarinet. You can listen to samples of their work here.

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That looks like something I would really like, I wish I could hear some samples. Only 2 used copies available, one for $25 and one for $75! Maybe I should grab the $25 one.

Genre-jumping is certainly not new; Eddie Lang was playing jazz, blues, and classical back in the 20’s, and composers such as Duke Ellington were using classical elements in their music around the same time.

That’s some good stuff, thanks for the suggestion!