‘Swing! Swing! Swing!’ evokes era, but energy strikes out

“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” The Duke Ellington classic provided the appropriate opening admonition Friday at the Hollywood Bowl for “Swing! Swing! Swing!,” featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the swing revivalist group Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

Unfortunately, it was an admonition that was largely ignored in a program that too often seemed unaware of the full meanings of the word “swing,” which, used musically, is both noun and verb. “Swing,” the noun, usually combined with “era,” refers to an epoch in American popular music in which the buoyant rhythms and imaginative inventiveness of jazz intersected perfectly with mass popular tastes. “To swing,” the verb, refers to the utterly unique, inherent lift and propulsion of jazz rhythms.

The opening set by the Philharmonic (conducted by Jeff Tyzik) and the following set by Voodoo Daddy fully grasped the meaning of “swing,” the noun, via selections from the swing era (by the Philharmonic) and a collection of swing classics and swing-styled originals by the Voodoo Daddies.

So far, so good, since the material embraced memorable items from the books of Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie and Glenn Miller orchestras and the originals were indebted to swing-related styles such as boogie-woogie, ragtime and New Orleans.

The rub was in the verb, with neither the Philharmonic nor the Voodoo Daddies generating anything that could accurately be described as “swinging.”

Despite the presence of the jitterbugging Hollywood Hornets dancers on stage, virtually no one in the audience took to the aisles to try their own high-stepping.

It’s difficult, of course, for any ensemble the size of the Philharmonic to generate rhythmic swing, especially when the players phrase and articulate with precision at the cost of lift. But they were further handicapped by Tyzik’s orchestrations, which emphasized dulling masses of sound rather than the clean instrumental contrasts of big band swing.

The Daddies hit closer to the mark, especially via their horn section. But more often, they were far more captivated by the superficial style and manner of the swing era than the exhilarating excitement of rhythmic swing.