Swing Swang Swingin’, a Blue Note release that helped to kick off an incredible hot streak from saxophonist Jackie McLean, is coming back to vinyl. Released as part of the Blue Note Classic Series, Swing Swang Swingin’ returns mastered stereo and all-analog from the original master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl.
First released in 1959, Swing Swang Swingin’ is McLean’s second release for Blue Note Records which came after nearly a decade of cutting his teeth in the jazz scene of New York City. The album features an assortment of stands from the Great American Songbook. Included on Swing Swang Swingin’ are “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” composed by Irving Berlin, “I Remember You” from the songwriting duo Mercer and Schertzinger, and “I’ll Take Romance” from Hammerstein and Oakland. The album also features one original track from McLean: “116th And Lexington.”
The title of the last song takes its name from an intersection in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. McLean was born and raised in the neighborhood, and came up idolizing and eventually working with some of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century. In interviews, the saxophonist was frequent to show his admiration for other performers like Charlie Parker. He would recall sneaking downtown as a kid to see Parker perform at a club. “I would just go down there to watch Bird walk down 52nd Street. We’d run up and talk to him and speak to him. One night he looked at us and said, ‘You kids live around here? Every night I come here, you guys are here.’ I said, ‘No, we live up in Harlem.’ ‘You come way down here? Why do you come down here?’ I said, ‘We came here to see you go to work,’” he later recalled to Jazz Weekly. “I wouldn’t trade anything for those days and being in the aura of those men.”
Swing Swang Swingin’ finds McLean as the only horn player on the album, but is accompanied by Walter Bishop Jr. on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Art Taylor on drums.
