Lindy hop into the spring with help from Chicago a cappella.
The vocal ensemble will perform its spring concert “Swing, Swing, Swing: Music of the Big Band Era” at 8 p.m. April 8 at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Oak Park, 8 p.m. April 9 at Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston, 8 p.m. April 22 at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville, and 4 p.m. April 24 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago. Proof of vaccination and masks are required.
“It’s a concert celebrating the music of the big band swing era, which is essentially the 20s, 30s and 40s,” Music Director Paul Langford said.
A virtual event will also be held at 7 p.m. May 12, with Langford and a few ensemble members talking about some of the songs and sharing video from one of the concerts.
The 90-minute concert will feature about 30 different songs, some full-length, others as part of medleys.
“It’s all the dance band music of that era, mixture of slow and fast,” Langford said. “It’s all been arranged for a cappella voices.”
Patrick Sinozich, who picked the music and wrote 28 of the 30 arrangements, programmed the concert.
Among some of the era’s standards that audience members will hear are “Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Begin the Beguine” “Stompin’ at the Savoy” “Alright, Okay, You Win.” “Moonlight Serenade” “Moonglow,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” and (“I’ve Got a Girl in) Kalamazoo.”
“It’s all these famous songs that people who listen to this music or some of the older folks who were alive during this time period will recognize,” Langford said. “But it’s unique to try to tackle it a cappella because all of it was originally done with an 18-piece big band for dancing.”
For quite a bit of the program, the 10-member ensemble will be imitating big bands, he said.
“So sometimes they’re singing lyrics and melodies and words, and other times they’re singing instrumental parts,” Langford said. “This group does that kind of thing all the time, but not necessarily with this kind of music.
“It’s just a cool opportunity. I think people are really going to like this show. It’s quite different from the previous show, which was more sort of slow and reflective,” he said.
In February Chicago a cappella performed its winter concerts, called “Coming Out of the Dark.”
“It’s a real swing, stylistically, way to the other end of the style spectrum,” Langford said of the upcoming concerts.
Within the general category of swing music there are different styles and genres, Langford said.
“The swing music of the ’20s was different from the swing music of the ’40s. It evolved a little bit,” he said. “And also each band had its own style. So the Count Basie Orchestra sounds a little bit different than the Glenn Miller Orchestra or the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The casual observer might listen and say, ‘oh, they all sound the same.’ But they kind of don’t.
And the songwriting changed a little bit.”
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A song like “The Continental,” made famous in the 1934 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film “The Gay Divorcée,” has a different attitude and feel than “Take the ‘A’ Train,” which was written in 1939.
“Part of it has to do with musical devices and what chord progressions were used and what rhythms were used,” Langford said.
The concert covers at least three decades and multiple styles within the groups that made swing famous and the songwriters that created the music, Langford said.
“So even though it’s all kind of lumped under the umbrella of big bands, it’s pretty diverse when you start looking at it carefully,” he said.
There are songs like “Three Little Fishies,” a 1939 song that became a hit for Kay Kyser and his band.
“That’s really kind of a nonsense song with lots of made up words in it,” Langford said. “That’s representative of a whole different genre swing music that’s really just about having fun and creating music that was good to dance to. The lyrics are not deep or meaningful.”
Some of the music originally had no lyrics at all.
“For instance, ‘Moonlight Serenade,’ when you look up the original Glen Miller version there’s no vocals on it, it’s just an instrumental piece to slow dance to,” Langford said. “And then later on somebody wrote lyrics to it.”
The concert will conclude with “Sing, Sing, Sing,” a song made famous by drummer Gene Krupa.
“That has a very different attitude and feel and style than anything else on the program.”
‘Swing, Swing, Swing: Music of the Big Band Era’
When: 8 p.m. April 8
Where: Pilgrim Congregational Church, 460 Lake St., Oak Park
When: 8 p.m. April 9
Where: Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston
When: 8 p.m. April 22
Where: Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville
When: 4 p.m. April 24
Where: Epihany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago
When: 7 p.m. May 12
Where: online
Tickets: $33-$45 for live shows; $33 for link
Information: 773-281-7820 chicagoacappella.org
Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.