Swing Revival

The Swing Revival embraces a fun-filled, cartoon vision of the original Big Band era. The movement has as much do to with the flashy clothes, complex dance styles, swaggering attitudes, and potent cocktails of the 1940s and '50s as it does the upbeat music. Current contenders Royal Crown Revue and Cherry Poppin' Daddies differ from such earlier revivalists as Joe Jackson (see 1981's Jumpin' Jive) and young crooner Harry Connick Jr. with their addition of a modern rock beat and vocal style to music that is more Jump Blues than the Big Band jazz of the 1940s. Fronted by a singer who copies Billie Holiday's vocal inflections, North Carolina's Squirrel Nut Zippers hit the charts by employing pre-Swing jazz and R&B elements with "do it yourself" enthusiasm. Former Stray Cats leader Brian Setzer keeps the popular Jump Blues and Western Swing templates but has largely avoided the pitfall of recording weak original tunes (like those of many retro acts) by tacking his flashily aggressive, signature guitar sound onto time-worn standards.