SWING (technical definition): The production of momentum or forward motion in music by means of displacements of the basic pulse and syncopated accents, which nonetheless strongly imply said unstated pulse. Swing is the antipode of anything stiff and machinelike. It has sometimes been compared with bipedal locomotion - the proverbial walking bass, booting sax, or strollin' or jumpin' rhythms. It can also be seen as breathing in musical time: Like the lungs with oxygen, swing expands and contracts the regular beat. More often it has been expressed as the workings of the circulatory system or the pulmonary organs. The "beautiful irregularity of the heart", even. Organic music, in other words: living sound imbued with tension and release created through rhythmic dynamics. Picture a little boy soaring forward and back on a swing set, gravity taking hold as he reaches the arc's apex, his motion ritardando before the moment when his weight snatches him back; he then kicks his feet underneath him and is sent whizzing in the other direction. The fluxes in that pliable playground rhythm are the living rhythm of swing, the soul of moving music. Taken to its extreme, such vivaciousness can be seen, philosophically, as the very essence of jazz and, in its absence, according to Duke Ellington's famous formulation, one is, arguably, faced with utter meaninglessness. Ellington's description of the Count Basie orchestra's rythm section offers another solid definition: "They are the greatest exponents of that emotional element of bouncing buoyancy, otherwise known as swing." Swing comes in myriad forms: loud or soft, fast or slow, and made by a big or small band with or without drums.