Free The Swing Book by Degen Pener

swing grew, the more wonderfully unbelievable it was to the people at its core. But even this popularity turned out
     to be just the tip of the iceberg. Swing was about to be discovered nationally and picked up by the media. It would never
     be the same.
NATIONAL SUCCESS
    The mainstream swing snowball—fueled also by the popularity of the revived cocktail culture—began rolling with the release
     of the Jim Carrey movie
The Mask
in 1994. Featuring a zoot-suited Carrey dancing with Cameron Diaz to the Royal Crown Revue’s “Hey Pachuco!” at a forties-style
     nightclub, the movie was the first to demonstrate neoswing’s crossover appeal. Soon newspaper and magazine stories began to
     cover the phenomenon, usually taking an incredulous approach to the fact that swing had returned and treating it like just
     the latest pop culture novelty trend. Some fad. In 1996 the hot indie film
Swingers
premiered, starring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn. It featured Big Bad Voodoo Daddy performing their original song “You and
     Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight (Baby),” a snazzy collection of retro clothes, and some scenes of spot-on dancing. A
     year later the Squirrel Nut Zippers —a band that’s been lumped in with the swing revival though their sound is more of a twenties hot jazz vibe—saw their 1996
     single “Hell” become a hit on alternative rock stations, a surprising development that was credited with opening the radio
     waves to even more retro music. Benefiting from that entrée in 1998 were “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail”—a cover of Louis Prima’s classic
     by the Brian Setzer Orchestra (which the former Stray Cat had put together in Los Angeles in 1993)—and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ original song “Zoot
     Suit Riot.” Both singles not only became huge radio hits, but also had videos in heavy rotation on MTV. “This is the most
     awesome thing I’ve ever been in front of,” said Setzer at the time. In particular, Setzer’s video, which featured such hard-core
     dancers as LA’s Sylvia Sky-lar and San Francisco’s Cari Seiss, slickly captured the style, dancing, and music of the scene
     all in three minutes. Ska bands, who with their emphasis on horns were another early influence on the revival, now started
     morphing into swing bands. “Kids that drove Vespas and wore porkpie hats are now putting on zoot suits and playing Benny Goodman,”
     says Jay Siegan, a manager of such swing bands as the New Morty Show and Blue Plate Special. Venues like the Lawrence Welk
     Resort Center in Branson, Missouri, started jumping on the swing bandwagon, promoting their forties-revue shows as part of
     the new craze. Vintage prices went through the roof. Pretty soon Setzer’s third album,
The Dirty Boogie,
had sold two million copies, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (even without a radio hit) and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies each sold
     a million records. Within the course of six months, swing, the music that people started doing again simply because they loved
     it, was big business. “It was an impossible dream. Who would ever have thought that a band could make money playing swing
     music on MTV? No way. Forget about it,” says Michael Moss.
----
    Ten years of Swing: A Timeline
    1989
    Royal Crown Revue, the pioneer band of neoswing, forms in Los Angeles
    The Club Deluxe, ground zero for the retro scene in San Francisco, opens
    Midsummer Night Swing, a month of outdoor dance nights, debuts at Lincoln Center in New York
    When Harry Met Sally,
with its Harry Connick Jr. soundtrack, is released
    1990
    Five Guys Named Moe,
the musical based on the life and music of Louis Jordan, has its world premiere in London’s West End. The show plays 445
     hit performances in New York when it opens there two years later
    1991
    Café du Nord opens in San Francisco, becoming the weekly home of singer Lavay Smith
    Royal Crown Revue plays its first shows in SF at warehouse speakeasy parties, then at the Deluxe
    Big Bad Voodoo Daddy