It dont mean a thing if it aint got that swing!

The SWING ERA started in the mid thirties in Los Angeles, USA. Dance bands and entertainers had been making a living in Bangalore long before that, from providing orchestras for silent movies to tea dances. They soon adapted to this new form of music.

Well before the commencement of WW2 Swing began to make inroads against the Viennese waltzes and rag time jazz which was so prevalent at that time. Reggie Manuel was credited with first introducing the saxophone into India when he brought one in from Singapore in the early twenties. His cousin Willie Manuel became one of the big names in Bangalore Swing.

Early personalities include Cawas Khattan (better known as Chic Chocolate), Solo Jacobs, Eddie Jones, the Ireland brothers, Claude Thomas, and Freddie Hitchcock. Several important musicians of the time started their careers in Bangalore before moving to other parts of India, among them, Pat Blake, Hal and Eddie Green, Clifford Forbes, Noone Collars and the legendary Dizzy Sal. During the war, bands included Claude Thomas and The Elite Aces, Freddie Hitchcock and the Swingfonians, Willy Manuel with his Five Pennies, Willie Saldanha with his Big Band and Caetano Pinto with his Swingsters.

Willie Saldanha started his musical career in Burma, then a fertile ground for musicians. He moved to Bangalore when the threat of the Japanese invasion became apparent, and soon built up a great reputation. He was finally eclipsed by his younger brother Eddie, nicknamed Dizzy Sal and a brilliant pianist who, in the mid fifties, was sponsored by Dave Brubeck to study at Berkeley School of music in the US, at the time when he was with Ken Mac in Bombay.

With the British Army culture predominant in Bangalore, most of these musicians made a very good living entertaining troops and civilians alike. The halls were always in full swing. Freddy Hitchcock was resident at Funnels (now the offices of the Deccan Herald). Harry Rose was at the Opera before it became a cinema, Claude Thomas was resident at the Bowring with stints at the BUS Club and various military camps in the town. Pinto (later to become known as Cycle Pinto because he owned a cycle hire shop off St Marks Road,) performed at a Chinese restaurant on Brigade Road with his band, the Swingsters, and finished up at the Metro.

Most bands contained a full complement of Goan musicians with their natural musicianship coming into their own.

With the multitude of venues both civilian and military, there was more than enough for all the bands in town. One basic problem, however, that all these  musicians complained about was their fight against insufficient exposure and the unscrupulous restaurant owners who got their services on the cheap. All, without exception, were so thrilled to just be playing music that they did not even think of their profession as a business at all. By the mid fifties, the tender blossom of the Swing Era came to a close but in its short existence it left a lasting legacy and vivid memories.

Ron's New e-mail: ronnie.johnson@usa.net (or) ronniejohnson@hotmail.com"