Jazz: A technical look at swing rhythm in music (Acoustical Society of America/Acoustical Society of Japan)

"Ray Charles was really good at snapping, says musical acoustician Kenneth Lindsay of Southern Oregon University in Ashland. Charles’s snaps that open his famous song 'Fever' with Natalie Cole [it is hard for me not to think of 'Fever' as Peggy Lee's 'famous song,' and as Little Willie John's -- ed.] are timed so well that he is never more than 5 milliseconds off the tight beat. Lindsay studies the physics of the sound of swing music such as Ray Charles’ hits, and in a talk last week at the Acoustical Society of America’s joint meeting in Honolulu with the Acoustical Society of Japan, he explained how he created a visual analysis of the bouncy, energetic, even lopsided musical style of swing." -- from the press release.

The rest of the story (pdf): <http://www.tlafx.com/jasa06_1g.pdf>.