Electro Swing

Electro swing (also sometimes called swing house) is a mixture of modern electronic dance music and swing which emerged around 2000.

Pumping house beats and electronic basslines are combined with elements of swing and charleston music from the 1920s to the 1950s like big band horns. Other influences include klezmer music and gipsy jazz. Contrary to other electronic dance music styles, genre live acts often not only consist of a dj but include vocalists and instruments like brass, guitar, double bass, sometimes whole bands.

The genre's earliest example probably was »Doop« by Dutch project Doop from 1994 – a house track featuring charleston elements which even reached No. 1 in the UK but remained a one hit wonder. But by 1999 a swing house scene had formed in Chicago and from 2005 on, artists like Parov Stelar from Austria and Caravan Palace from France fueled the electro swing genre.

The first big pan-European genre hit was »We No Speak Americano« by Australian duo Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP in 2010, based on »Tu vuò fà l’americano« by Renato Carosone from 1956. Highly successful electro swing albums are »Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor« (2010) and «The Shocking Miss Emerald« (2013) by Dutch singer Caro Emerald.