The secret of swing unraveled
A team from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) and the University of Göttingen has used a targeted experiment and data analyses of over 450 famous jazz solos to get closer to the peculiarities of swing.
Although the swing feeling is one of the most important characteristics of jazz, it was long believed that swing could be felt but not explained. Only the sequence of eighth notes played at different lengths, downbeats and offbeats, is an easily audible component of swing. However, this characteristic alone is not sufficient for swing.
To clarify this question, the research team designed an experiment in which they manipulated the timing in original recordings with piano in various ways on the computer. The strength of the swing feeling in the recordings was then evaluated in these manipulated recordings. In a first study, the team was thus able to prove that random timing deviations do not contribute to the swing feeling, but can even reduce it.
However, the swing is apparently considerably enhanced if only the downbeats are delayed evenly by around 30 milliseconds, while the offbeats of solos remain in sync with the rhythm section. Downbeat delays were thus identified as a cause of the swing feel.
Original article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-022-00995-z
