The title of our show comes from a song of the same name, written by Harold Arlen and Jack Yellen for a “college” musical called You Said It., which opened in January, 1931. “Sweet and Hot” is also a good metaphor for all popular music of the time. “Hot,” because the unfolding of jazz and blues in the 1920s had produced a direct transformation in the music and lyrics of popular songs. And “sweet,” because the period also saw the emergence of the popular ballad, the “How to say I love you in 32 bars” song which was to become so ubiquitous in the mid-30s.
It was a prolific period of great energy and inventiveness in popular music and jazz which has gone somewhat unobserved in more recent times. We have all become well aware of the startling contributions to jazz of Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke, and we are certainly aware of the dramatic emergence of the Swing Era in 1935, for which Benny Goodman was the catalyst. But a great deal of exciting music was being written and performed in the interim.
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| Event Personnel |
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| Vocalists |
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| Musicians |
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Steve Owen, reedsFrank Kenney, reedsJames Phillips, reedsBrian McWhorter, trumpetTim Clarke, trumpetCaleb Standafer, tromboneVicki Brabham, pianoAlan Phillips, guitar, banjoNathan Waddell, bassAlan Tarpinian, drums |
| SET I - 1931: Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries |
| |  | Big City Blues (1929) Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 Con Conrad, Sidney Mitchell, Archie Gottler (w/m) |
| SET II - Rockin' In Rhythm |
| |  | Creole Love Call (1927) Rhyth-mania Duke Ellington, Bubber Miley, Rudy Jackson (m) |