it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing

Summary

It Don′t Mean a Thing, If It Ain′t Got That Swing

"It Don′t Mean a Thing, If It Ain′t Got That Swing", named after the legendary Duke Ellington song from the 30s, shows what "swing" really meant in the post-war years.

When songs like Meine gute alte Tante or Put′n on the Ritz are played, Alfred Erblich, an active dandy at the Hot Club Hanover, knows that music has more to do with the heart than with the mind. Together with Heinz Both, the "Mr. Swing" of the British occupied zone, Alfred Erblich, another still active swing-veteran, experienced how fingers were snapped and feet flew in Hanover, Berlin and Paris to old role-models like Louis Armstrong. Swing was like a language that everyone understood; it brought people together and was part of a lifestyle between ruins and a new beginning. Swing popularized jazz, the music of the liberators, and post-war Germany experienced the liberation from dictators and chamber music with a new form of music that caused goose-bumps then just as much as it does today.

Source: German films Service & Marketing GmbH