finetune artist: The Swingle Singers

The commercial success of this French choir undermined many ingrained prejudices by pop consumers against serious music, preparing them for Walter Carlos' Switched On Bach, Deep Purple's Concerto For Group And Orchestra and the promotion of the Portsmouth Sinfonia as a pop act. In 1963, the Singers were assembled by Ward Lamar Swingle (b. 21 September 1927, Mobile, Alabama, USA), a former conductor of Les Ballets De Paris. Addressing themselves to jazzy arrangements of the classics - particularly Bach - their wordless style had the novel effect of predetermined mass scat-singing. After Jazz Sebastian Bach and Bach's Greatest Hits made respective inroads into the UK and US Top 20, the outfit was catapulted into an arduous schedule of television and radio appearances during back-to-back world tours. While the main choir continued to earn Grammy Awards for 1965's Going Baroque and similar variations on his original concept, Swingle formed a smaller unit (Swingles II) for more contemporary challenges such as Luciano Berio's Sinfonia which was premiered in New York in 1973 - and for Cries, A-Ronne and other increasingly more complex works by the same composer. The Swingle Singers had performed over 2,000 concerts by the 90s.

Listen to The Swingle Singers at Finetune.

(2007) Anyone For Mozart, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi?
(2006) The Swingle Singers
(2006) Around the World - A Folk Song Collection
(2006) Vocal Amadeus
(2003) Christmastime
(1986) Anyone For Mozart, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi?
(1963) Jazz Sebastien Bach

First movement from Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048
Aria
The Drunken Sailor [England] (arr. Jonathan Rathbone)
Rondo alla turca from Piano Sonata No. 11 in A K331
Medley: Carol Of The Bells