Robot Arms’s post and link to Benny Goodman with Gene Krupa addressed this but the saccharine-sweet version of big band jazz played by Welk were pallid examples of a once vibrant genre of music. Years ago, we had another thread on Welk here at the SDMB where I mentioned it was rather sad that a generation that grew up listening to people like Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louie Armstrong, the Dorseys, Harry James, Artie Shaw, and Glenn Miller in the end listened to Welk since he was the only one left who played their type of music.
On a related note, a long time ago I read a magazine article featuring an ad from the 1920s for an early hot jazz edition of Welk’s band.
I wonder how many times they’ve replayed the one Welk show with the, umm, very interesting song, one that he apparently thought must be a Gospel or Spiritual number because the name Jesus is in the lyrics - “One Toke Over the Line”
I’ll admit that it’s hard to hear him distinctly. The sound quality on that video is not great, and the strumming is always synchronized with the bass and drums.
The Welk Orchestra strikes me a something of a special case in terms of being a big band. The leader played the accordion, ferpetessake. How many charts did Fletcher Henderson write that used an accordion? How many lineups of Ellington, Basie, Goodman, Miller, Dorsey, Webb, Whitehead, Shaw, etc. even had an accordion?
It’s just not a swing instrument. And I dare say it makes any selection from the Great American Songbook sound like a polka.
It’s very complicated, I would if I could however:
When I stumble upon Lawrence Welk on PBS and my heart is flooded with memories. My parents and grandparents beloved aunts and uncles would watch on Saturday nights when I was a kid, that was their show and their music. Now at age 54 almost all of my family are gone and to tell you the truth I can’t watch the show for more than a few minutes before tears well up I was filled with much nostalgia and feelings of great loss.
Funny tangentally-related story: The guy I worked with in commercial radio in the '90s had been a DJ for Radio Moscow in the late '80s. He was able to slip Monty Python’s “Lumberjack Song” into his mix by telling his superiors it was about the ruthless capitalistic exploitation of ordinary Canadian workers.*
*Yes, they were stupid enough to believe him. :smack:
Reminds me of the Homecoming shows I was in in high school. The actors are just as wooden and the music is just as bad. And hey, dig those yellow blazers and white slacks! That’s class!
