See Hear Podcast - Swing Girls

Pantheon - Home for Music Lovers

When you attended high school, did you have a music program? If so, were you enthusiastic about playing what was selected for you? In the early days of music tuition, chances are you had to play dull tunes that were in line with your limited abilities...on a recorder. Within 3 or so months of picking up an instrument, could you play tunes made famous by, say, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman? No? The girls (and a boy) at Yamakawa High School did.

Welcome to episode 122 of See Hear Podcast.

Kerry was unavailable, but Tim and myself carried on to discuss the 2004 film “Swing Girls”, directed by Shinobu Yaguchi. Beat for beat, this is the same film as Yaguchi’s 2001 film “Waterboys”, but replacing a group of inept boys learning synchronised swimming with a group of inept girls learning to play jazz and form a swing band. A jazz version of School of Rock? It seems similar on the surface, but these kids are motivated differently to learn their music.....their only drive IS the music, not to win a competition. They learn to love swing jazz (essentially, it's pop music) and realise it's not – as they first surmise – for “brandy snifters”.

Cards out on the table – we adore this film. We look at its universality (Japanese school kids playing a distinctly American art form), how a film with no villains or conflict can still be compelling, and mostly we celebrate a love of music. Tim rightly compares this film to an earlier one we discussed about a love of music for its own sake but the style was vastly different – home is here your musical interests lie.....the rest is detail.

Swing Girls is available in full to watch on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEz_TNtkCRc&t=381s

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