Timeless (1963)

1963 — temporarily out of work because his main employer had found greener pastures (in Hollywood, of all places), Ward sat down to figure out how the heck he could keep his group in the business.

I imagine this must have taken place in some Parisian sidewalk cafe with a group of jugglers to the left, a street musician to the right, and the sounds of a Bach fugue streaming out from a rehearsal room in a nearby conservatory, but I may be wrong.

What he came up with was so brilliantly simple and yet so unlikely that it just had to hit.

First name Ward, last name Swingle. Album: Jazz Sebastien Bach:

Stating the Obvious

Who hasn’t heard the Swingle Singers and their trademark ‘da-ba-da-ba-dah’s, the clear, thin female voices over a subtle drums ‘n’ bass accompaniment provided by male voices and a couple of jazz instruments, all coming together to dress up Johann Sebastian Bach’s music in a  cool, jazzy, almost unemotional swing?

Who hasn’t heard them and, deep down in some sentimental nook, liked it — at least when nobody else is around?

If one has, there is no doubt as to who they are; the sound is unique, the idea is unique, and the outcome is surprisingly fresh, even half a century later.

In hindsight, what Ward and the Swingle Singers did seems like such an obvious thing to do. I don’t know if this is because they actually did it and I’ve always heard their sound (which for that reason is obvious, in the same way Bob Dylan’s sound is obvious), or if it has to do with Bach’s music: that it so naturally adapts to a jazz idiom.

It’s the improvisational character, and the swinging triplet feel, which is not usually written into the score, but which was just as obvious and central to performance practice in Bach’s days as it is to today’s jazz musician. Back then, it was called notes inegales, but it’s the same thing as “Swing it, Sam!”.

Cultural icon

Whatever the reason: it’s here now, and it is obvious. It has become iconified, a cultural icon which carries a whole lot of meaning which is not bound to the sounds themselves but to their obviousness. This also means that the sound of the Swingle Singers is part of what defines our time, our culture.

Therefore, it can’t be repeated — there is no point in repeating the obvious. Anyone trying to do the same thing, now that it is obvious, will sound like uninteresting copy-cats (and not thrilling jazz cats…). This, by the way, goes for the group itself — the present-day incarnation of the Swingle Singers (yes, they still exist!), is neither more nor less interesting than any other Swingle Singers epigones.

Timelessness and pricelessness

What is timeless stands outside time, just as what is priceless stands outside the system of prices and the market.

It becomes timeless, not by being exceptionally good, or exceptionally apt, but by — for whatever reason — becoming obvious.