The Swingle Singers

The last edition of Archie's Archives was, as I explained, generated by random selection of an enormous collection of music files I had placed in a folder at WXPI, just for the eventuality that I might someday not have a program (of the usual sort) ready to air.  The selection of tunes on the program were as much a surprise to me as it might have been to anyone listening to the broadcast.  Among other things, it reminded me about what an awesome group the Swingle Singers were.

From what I can gather, The Swingle Singers was formed in the early Sixties in France, by Ward Swingle, an American jazz musician.  The original group performed all sorts of music, but their genius was the scat singing (singing to the nonsense syllables used by jazz singers) of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, most famously, the Air from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, which has come to be known by the odd name The Air on the G String, because some fellow decided to play it on the G string of his violin.  (Some years ago, the local Civic Chorus decided to sing this piece Swingle Singers style, and I was in love.  It was just awesome to sing, and just as great to listen to.  The original movement, in four parts, was a masterpiece of writing, and the Swingle Singers sing it essentially unaltered.)

You can read the Wikipedia article on them for yourself.  (The Wikipedia folks make some snide remarks about documentation, but the information about recordings credits and commercial appearances are a matter of record anyone can look up, e.g. on CD inserts, and the credits for TV shows.)

All along, I gather, they have sung works by a variety of composers, even if their fame rests largely on their singing of Bach.  Their singing of Mozart, especially, seems very effective.

I'm still working on the show with the theme of Magic for this weekend, but I might include a number of pieces by the Swingle Singers, in particular their Mozart pieces, and among them the Canzonetta from Don Giovanni that was played last Saturday.

Archie