Editing Swing era (section)

===Rhythm sections===
In May 1935, the No. 1 record in the country was Jimmie Lunceford's "Rhythm Is Our Business". Released a few months before [[Benny Goodman]] triggered the national craze known as swing, the song offered a foretaste of the coming deluge. "Rhythm is our business/ Rhythm is what we sell," Lunceford's singer declared: "Rhythm is our business / Business sure is swell."[7] If rhythm defined the swing bands, its foundation lay in the [[rhythm section]]: piano, guitar, bass, and drums.

In big bands, rhythm sections fused into a unified rhythmic front: supplying the beat and marking the harmonies. Each of the leading bands presented a distinct, well-designed rhythmic attack that complemented its particular style. The rhythm sections of [[Duke Ellington|Ellington]], [[Count Basie|Basie]], and Lunceford, for example, sounded nothing alike. Just as the soloists were champing at the bit of big-band constraints, rhythm players were developing techniques and ideas that demanded more attention than they usually received. In the 1930s, rhythm instruments made dramatic advances toward the foreground of jazz. In the process, they helped set the stage for [[bebop]]. In 1939, Duke Ellington discovered virtuoso young bassist [[Jimmie Blanton]] and hired him into his Orchestra. Blanton revolutionized the bass as a featured instrument in the band, until he left the band in late 1941 due to terminal tuberculosis.

Towards the end of the 1930s the roles of the piano, bass, and drums in the rhythm section changed significantly under the influence of the Count Basie Orchestra  Early swing drumming relied heavily on the bass and snare drums, with a secondary role for the high hat cymbal in timekeeping. [[Jo Jones]] inverted that relationship, making the high hat the primary timekeeper and using the bass and snare drums for accents and lead-ins. Basie introduced a rhythmically sparse style of piano playing emphasizing accents, lead-ins, and fills. Both of those changes increased the importance of the bass and guitar in timekeeping, ably held by [[Walter Page]] and [[Freddie Green]].  The lighter and sparser, yet more dynamic, sense of rhythm expressed by the Basie rhythm section lent greater freedom for the band's soloists and set a trend that would culminate in the rhythmic ideas of bebop.