lindy hop and other dances – Page 42

Jazz dance is feminism

I wrote this post in April this year. And I began it with Clementine Ford’s piece ‘Why ‘can you have it all’ is this century’s dumbest question’.

I’d like to make a provocation:
A dance floor of one’s own is as important as a room of one’s own. And just as Virginia Woolf’s essay(s) are problematic for women of colour, the idea of a dance floor of one’s own is not without its own problems. But let me begin to explore the idea, and we’ll pick up those problems as we go.

There something powerful about simply having the time and energy to commit to self expression, to a creative art, to pleasure for pleasure’s sake.
Accepting and acting on the idea that what you have to contribute is valuable, important, creative, funny worth while is a radical act. Speaking up – getting on the dance floor – is a radical act, because it presupposes your ideas are important. In this respect, dancing is a contribution to public discourse, to public life, and to creative, social life. This is where lindy hop – as a social dance that you do with other people in public spaces – is different to writing or painting or other visual arts. It is a public, social cultural and creative practice.
The distinction between professional dance and amateur dance is important. There is the sense that being a dancer is ok if you can ‘make a living from it’ or ‘make something of it’. Dancing just for the sake of dancing – for the pleasure of your own body in movement – is dismissed as irrelevant, trivial, selfish, unimportant.

There is nothing more important than a woman accepting, and being able to accept, that her own pleasure, her own interests, her own ideas are important and relevant. Important and relevant to her. They do not need to be deemed important by a male observer, or by culture and society as a whole. They can be wonderfully, deliciously, selfishly important to the person dancing, and to her alone. She needn’t even be very good at it, so long as it makes her feel good and brings her pleasure. Or even if it brings her occupation, challenge, stimulation. This is important in the broader context of patriarchy, where women are expected to subsume their interests, desires and pleasures in the needs of others. For men, for children, for parents, for employers, for babies. One of the most challenging and powerful parts of lindy hop is that it can exist solely for a pure, social and selfish pleasure.

Clementine Ford makes this point:

It’s abundantly clear that women … aren’t considered to have ascended to the status of accomplished human being until they shuck off that amateur mantle of ‘woman’ and become mothers.

In this sense, women are expected to prioritise the needs and interests of others. To concentrate solely on art or creative practice, to use her body for something other than making babies, is considered less important, less valuable. By extension, women are judged for their bodies, not their creative or cultural or social actions. This body must be beautiful, and it must make babies, and these babies must be the centre of a woman’s life.

There is the obvious discussion about women’s bodies and sex to be had, but that is not what I want to talk about. I think the idea that a woman might use her body for something that is not sex or sexual reproduction is quite radical and powerful. I’m not the first to point out the empowering qualities of physical exercise. I’d argue that lindy hop combines the power of adrenaline and knowing your body can be trusted, is powerful, is a source of pleasure and excitement, with the creative and artistic process of painting or drawing or writing. But while painting or drawing or writing in their most traditional forms are quiet, solitary things, lindy hop is loud and exuberant and dangerous. Even when it is at its quietest and gentlest.

As a jazz dance, lindy hop responds to jazz music, which combines both structure and improvisation. Rules and rule-breaking. Cooperative and collaborative work with individual, independent creativity. While we might shut ourselves away to write a book, lindy hop demands its participants publicly accept and value a woman’s creative work in a public, and creative communal space. Lindy hop is a public discourse, a public creative space. And women’s contributions are not only tolerated, but expected and required.

On a more prosaic level, simply choosing to leave the house to go dancing is a radical act. I choose to walk away from the dirty dishes, the unfolded laundry, the unwritten essay, the incomplete report, the unfinished argument. I go out into the night, by myself, to meet other people in a public space. And in that public space, I can commit myself, wholly to my own body, to my own pleasure and satisfaction. When I dance with men, we are both negotiating a public relationship that is necessarily mutually respectful and creative. Though there are always moments when the power dynamic between partners is fucked up (the disrespectful, controlling lead), lindy hop itself – with the open position – builds in time for subversion, resistance and powerful self-expression. Improvisation is expected. It is required.

This is where solo dance and women leading become the ideological icing on the cake. A woman leading is an act of radical politics in a community that cannot even manage to divorce the word ‘lead’ from male pronouns.

The follow up piece to this post, then, is what happens when a woman lindy hopper has a baby? This is particularly relevant to us now, as the most recent generation of lindy hopping women move on to having children. Is there space in lindy hop for women with babies? Can they have it all? At this point, I want to rage the way Clementine Ford does. This is not the question that I want to ask.

We should be asking: “How can we make room for fathers with children in lindy hop?” and “How can we make room for children and babies in lindy hop?” We should not be assuming that caring for babies is the sole province of women. It is the work of men and women, in partnership, alone, and with same-sex partners. More importantly, for a community which has perennial problems with longevity and social sustainability, children are the responsibility of all of us, of all lindy hoppers. It is in our interests (as well as theirs!) to build dance communities which accommodate children, babies, parents and carers. Not simply for the sake of those children, or for our communities.

Our creative worlds are made eminently richer by the presence of the dancing woman, who has that moment in time and space to be utterly submerged in her own body and own dancing pleasure. Because that moment of utterly independent pleasure is essential to the health of our communities as a whole. We cannot be a socially sustainable community if we assume that for the majority of our dancers (and women are the majority of our dancers in lindy hop) their own dancing can never be their highest priority. Adequate child care facilities, supportive partners, robust communities allow women moments where they can make their own dancing the most important thing in that moment. Child care does not disappear for them in that moment, but they have the freedom to accept and believe and be confident that someone else is looking after their child, and that they can be trusted.

Our culture spends a lot of time – all of its time? – convincing us that men in particular cannot be trusted. That they are dangerous. And that women have to protect themselves (and children) from men. From the world. Working to secure child-friendly dance communities works hand in hand with securing women-friendly dance spaces, without sexual harassment and bullying. And, ultimately reworking our perceptions of bodies and bodily responsibility are good for men too. If it is bad to be continually thinking of yourself and your body in danger, what must it be like to be continually, always regarding your own body and self with suspicion? To fear, all the time, that you might hurt someone. You might rape or assault them. That your body cannot be trusted, that you cannot be trusted? Patriarchy is not kind to men either.

Having said, that I think Ford makes an excellent point when she says

Gender inequality wasn’t created by women and their unreasonable ambitions. It’s vital that we shift the focus of women’s oppression back to its beneficiaries rather than perpetuate the kinds of meaningless conversations that imagine these things are perplexing problems for women alone to solve.

I think we need to start engaging with masculinity and ideas about men in the modern lindy hopping world. \

90 minutes

I have no evidence or further reading to support any of the claims in this article, but it’s interesting.

Basically, it argues: work for 90 minutes or less, then take a break. Then repeat.

I’m personally of the opinion that no meeting or class should be longer than an hour. After that, we start to get stupid. More importantly, an hour time limit forces you to focus and get shit done in a reasonable, structured way. No time to waste babbling on about rubbish.

I’ve used this approach in planning dance workshops weekends. I don’t let classes run any longer than 1 hour and 15 minutes, and I insist on a rest (of at least 15 minutes) between sessions. That rest has to include changing tasks – you’re not allowed to practice or film or whatevs. You have to eat or sit down or talk or go to the toilet. Doesn’t matter what it is, you’ve just got to change tasks.

This can be challenging if you’re teaching: when you’re in the zone, any break feels like an interruption that might ‘break’ the zone. But it’s really better to take that break, reset and come back in fresh.

When I’m writing, I usually sit down and write solidly for hours at a time. I forget to go to the toilet. I don’t eat. This is how I got my PhD done. But that sort of obsessive work isn’t helpful. Even if you do really enjoy that feeling of being in the zone, with the rest of the world blocked out.

I’m also of the opinion that a dance practice session shouldn’t be any longer than 90 minutes. And, unsurprisingly, I guess, I find 90 minutes is my optimal DJing set length. I can and have gone longer, but I find I get in, do good work, then come out a winner if I keep it to 90 minutes. A ten minute break in the middle… now, that would be good.

But she deserved it. She was the one opening her mouth, right?

No, actually. That’s incorrect.

So far’s I can tell, this is how it goes:

Sister writes moderately feminist (not especially radical feminist) piece about gender shit in dancing.

Some of her peeps read it, link it up. Word circulates. Peeps get to chatting. Tumblr gets a-whirring. Discourse, discussion, grown up talk and thinking happens. All is cool.

A high profile blogger/aggregator finally gets to that feminist piece in their rss. They link it up on their well-trafficked fb page with some sort of provocative line about feminists or boobs or gender wars or who-fucking-knows-what-just-make-it-shit-stirry.

The sister’s piece gets nine million billion hits, and a squillion really nasty emails/comments from dickwads who didn’t bother to read the post, but came in swinging because they were primed that way by the high profile blogger/aggregator. Shitstorm ensues. High profile blogger/aggregator’s stats go through the roof.

Sister feels a bit low. Blames herself for speaking louder than a whisper in public.

Peeps with brains send that sister emails or messages on fb or whatevs voicing their support. Remind her that her word is legit and important and valuable.

High profile blogger/aggregator carries on, business as usual. Unless someone calls them on their bullshit. Then they sook.

For fuck’s sake, people. You know there are too many fuckwit blokes out there in the online dancing world, just itching to get up there and blow some uppity female away for, oh, I don’t know, being out in the internet on her own at night wearing something inappropriate (like an independent thought). Think about how you prime your readers before you send them off to linkbomb, k? Maybe even have a think about writing your own piece calling fuckwits on their bullshit behaviour?

Relationships with dancers in other cities

Near… far!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!… near again!…. far again!…

(sesamestreet… and yes, I’m still reading MindlessMunkey’s tumblr. It’s the business.)

Revisiting ‘A difficult conversation about sexual violence in swing dance communities’

In May 2011 I wrote a post called A difficult conversation about sexual violence in swing dance communities

I need to bump this post again, because it’s been getting a stack of traffic lately.

This was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever written. When I started linking ideas together, and mapping out the way gender roles and ideology contribute to sexual violence in my community, it nearly broke my heart. I was so, so upset by the connections I was making. I didn’t want to realise these things about my people, my places. I started being afraid. Afraid of my own dance spaces – the places I felt best about myself. So I decided that rather than letting this sorrow eat me up from the inside, I’d do something about it. Fear and anger and despair will eat you up and finish you. So you need to step up, do something, make something, change something. Be a force of good. Remind yourself that jazz dance is built on a history of resistance to oppression. It is radical politics. It is a powerful tool. A powerful idea.

I am not going to accept the general response to these issues: that violence towards women happens on the street (not my street!), in bars (not my local!), to ‘slutty’ women (not my women!), and is perpetrated by rough/violent/aggressive/’low’/male strangers (not my friends! not me!)

Sexual harassment happens in your lindy hop community. In your city. To your friends. And it is perpetrated by people you know, maybe even by your friends. This makes it your responsibility.

The only logical response to this is sadness, despair, RAGE. And then action. Do something. Do something!

Treat your DJs good: get more chicks

I read some thing on vernacular jazz dance about the lack of female DJs at European swing dance events…which I now realise was a response to my joke post about women DJs, which was actually Olive and Astrid in Fringe, being science nerds.

This past MSF (which is one of the two biggest Australian events), we had these DJs:

(c/o KatGalang)

me (I’m a woman btw)
Kat Galang (woman)
Alice Roberts (woman)
Barb Heggan (woman)
Allie Payne (woman)
Manon van Pagee (woman)

Mike Healey
Trev Hutchison
Gas Fernandez
Keith Hsuan
Tim Jones
Matt Greenwood

That’s 50% wimminz, 50% menz.
I was the DJ coordinator. I don’t think about gender when I’m putting together DJ teams. I look for:
– mad skills (ie can work a room, keeping the floor full is just entry level requirement)
– professionalism (answer emails promptly, on time, have the right gear, get their shit together, on time, etc)
– personable and easy to work with (grumpy poos can get fucked)
– good music collection
– experienced (I don’t use new DJs for big events)

Any DJ who gives me shit is immediately blackballed – eg if they send me nasty emails because I didn’t hire them (yes, this happens about every second event); if they’re nasty to _anyone_, if they do something I asked them not to (eg play soul in a swing set, dance during their set, etc etc), if they miss sets or are late to sets, etc etc. This last set is the most important criteria for me. This job is kind of tiring and annoying, and I just don’t need some dick giving me shit at 2am on the third night of an exchange. If I’ve told you to play fucking swing, play fucking swing and shut that funk down.

I don’t think it’s an accident that I get good men:women ratios. Most of the local DJs in most local Australian scenes are women. But they rarely step up to national level events – they’re under-represented. I think that’s because they’re not confident about stepping up, and aren’t supported (I’ve written about this a LOT, so you may want to search for more posts on this if you’re looking for some rants).

Why do some Australian events have massively more male DJs than men? The events that have these imbalances almost always also have pretty shitful working conditions and pay deals for their DJs, and they almost always have pretty awful approaches to DJ recruitment/hiring. They just hire randomly. They hire DJs who approach _them_. Seriously, why would you do that? If you want good DJs, you chase THEM. Don’t give them a chance to approach you – woo them! This means that they get the pushy blokes on their roster. And they miss out on the less confident ninjas.
There are times when events have fewer women DJs than men and the organisers have done everything right. Some years and some events, this is just how things pan out. But if you don’t have a good female:male DJ ratio for your event year after year, _you’re_ doing something wrong.

Why should you chase DJs? Isn’t that more work? Yes. But fuck, do you want good DJs or do you want people who pimp themselves out aggressively? Also: don’t be a lazy arse. Get your shit in gear.

Once you get your DJs, treat ’em right.

(c/o KatGalang)

I treat my DJs with respect. Even if I’m exhausted. Because YOLO, so you bloody well owe it to people to treat them right. And being nice to people makes you feel nice. WIN.

I pay DJs as much as I can, and I agitate for better pay ever year. btw the base line for a decent event is now: a free pass, plus at least $25 per hour. The best deal is a free pass + $30 per hour. I think this is total rubbish. DJs deliver the bulk of music at Australian events, yet is has the lowest value. WRONG TOWN. I don’t think we pay our DJs anywhere near enough, so I keep banging on to organisers about improving pay.

I’m also very strict about working conditions for DJs – safe, clean work spaces. Good notice on set times. If you’re booked for a set, I pay you for it, even if it’s cancelled. If you pay longer, you’re paid for that. Your name is plastered over the PR material. You get lots of public props. Prompt pay, in cash. Don’t harass your DJs. Make sure they’re not being harassed by the punters, and if they are, shut that shit down. If a DJ has a problem, YOU solve it – they just handball it up to you. BAM!

If I can’t manage these things (sometimes shit happens), I make sure I fix it as SOON as I can. And I apologise. I chase down DJs after events for feedback, and I assume that we can always improve things.

(c/o DJTrev)

I’m also always on the look out for new talent. Yes, I do favour experienced people, and because our national scene is so small, you’re going to see the same names on my lists. But that’s because they’re good. I don’t do nepotism. I do awesomism: if you’re awesome, I’ll hassle you until you DJ for me.
When I find new talent for big events, I only use them if they have experience with smaller events. They have to have been DJing for a few years, and dancing for longer. I have to have seen/heard them DJ before.
I try to give all the DJs I hire a lot of support – I deal with their problems, etc etc. And I try to make sure newer DJs have support too – maybe an experienced DJ buddy, or perhaps they need more time to set up before a set. Or maybe they need a bit of a pep talk. Or some quiet time. Whatever it is, I try to make it work. I think that if I want ninja DJs, I need to invest in ninja DJ development.
I also try to make sure the experienced people don’t get too burnt out. But that’s hard – we have too few DJs to work all our events. I also try to offer them interesting set briefs, and I encourage interesting set ideas.

So, basically, if you treat your DJs well, and get up off your arse and hunt down some peeps with mad skills, you’ll get good gender ratios in your DJ line up.

OMG JUST LIKE REAL LIFE

Fully fats

Fully fat from dogpossum on 8tracks Radio.

title – year – artist – bpm – length

You Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya – 2009 – Luke Winslow-King (Rich Levison, Cassidy Holden, Shaye Cohn) – 142 – 2:12

Truckin’ – 2012 – Paul Asaro And The Fat Babies (Andy Schumm, John Otto, Beau Sample, Jake Sanders, Alex Hall) – 189 – 4:27 – What a Heavenly Dream: The Fats Waller Rhythm Project

Shortnin’ Bread – 1941 – Fats Waller and His Rhythm (John Hamilton, Gene Sedric, Al Casey, Cedric Wallace, Slick Jones) – 195 – 2:41 – The Last Years (1940-1943) (disc 02)

The Girl I Left Behind Me – 1941 – Bob Wills – 206 – 2:40 – San Antonio Rose [disc 10]

Bearcat Shuffle – 1936 – Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy (Mary Lou Williams) – 160 – 3:01 – The Lady Who Swings the Band – Mary Lou Williams with Any Kirk and his Clouds of Joy

Peckin’ – 1937 – Johnny Hodges and his Orchestra (Cootie Williams, Barney Bigard, Otto Hardwick, Harry Carney, Duke Ellington, Fred Guy, Hayes Alvis, Sonny Greer, Buddy Clark) – 165 – 3:10 – The Duke’s Men: Small Groups Vol. 1 (Disc 2)

Fat And Greasy – 1935 – Fats Waller and his Rhythm (Herman Autrey, C.E. Smith, Eddie Anderson, Fred Robinson, George Wilson, Rudy Powell, Gene Sedric, George James, Emmett Matthews, Fred Skerritt, Hank Duncan, James Smith, Charles Turner) – 162 – 3:11 – I’m Gonna Sit Right Down: The Early Years, Part 2 (disc 02)

Here Comes Your Pappy (With The Wrong Kind Of Load) – 1936 – Putney Dandridge – 177 – 2:37 – Complete Recordings Putney Dandridge 1935 – 1936

Stomp It Out Gate – 1938 – Rosetta Howard acc. by Harlem Hamfats (Herb Morand, Odell Rand, Horace Malcolm, Joe McCoy, Charlie McCoy, John Lindsay, Fred Flynn) – 142 – 3:06 – Harlem Hamfats Vol. 4 1938-1939

Give Me Some Skin – 1941 – Lionel Hampton and his Sextette (Karl George, Marshal Royal, Sir Charles Thompson, Ray Perry, Irving Ashby, Vernon Alley, Shadow Wilson, Ruble Blakey) – 138 – 3:16 – The Complete Lionel Hampton Victor Sessions 1937-1941 (Mosaic disc 05)

Sent For You Yesterday – Benny Goodman – 158 – 3:04 – China Boy
St. Louis Blues – 1939 – Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra – 183 – 4:46 – Ella Fitzgerald In The Groove

Jive At Five – 2013 – Mint Julep Jazz Band – 171 – 3:23 Durham On Saturday Night

Splanky – 1966 – Count Basie and his Orchestra – 157 – 3:52 – Live at the Sands

B-Sharp Boston – 1949 – Duke Ellington and his Orchestra – 126 – 2:55 – Duke Ellington and his Orchestra: 1949-1950

No Regrets – 1936 – Billie Holiday and her Orchestra (Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, Cozy Cole) – 130 – 2:38 – Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday On Columbia (1933-1944) (Disc 01)

Sugar – 1946 – Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven (Vic Dickenson, Barney Bigard, Charlie Beale, Leonard Feather, Allan REuss, Red Callender, Zutty Singleton) – 138 – 3:26 – The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (disc 03)

Laff, Slam, Laff – 1945 – Slam Stewart Quartet (Erroll Garner, Mike Bryan, Harold ‘Doc’ West) – 156 – 2:59 – Bowin’ Singin’ Slam
Stompin’ At The Savoy – 1944 – Teddy Wilson Sextet (Emmett Berry, Benny Morton, Edmond Hall, Slam Stewart, Big Sid Catlett) – 182 – 3:52 – Teddy Wilson: The Complete Associated Transcriptions 1944

Chasing Shadows – 1935 – Louis Prima, Pee Wee Russell, Frank Pinero, Garry McAdams, Jack Ryan, Sam Weiss – 170 – 3:04 – Louis Prima Volume 1
The Spinach Song – 2004 – Terra Hazelton (feat. Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards) – 165 – 4:57 – Anybody’s Baby

Me, I Get High on Reefer – 2010 – The Two Man Gentlemen Band – 200 – 2:17 – ¡Dos Amigos, Una Fiesta!

Shave ’em Dry – 1997 – Asylum Street Spankers – 131 – 4:21 – Nasty Novelties

This is the set I did on Sunday night at the late night dance during MSF. It was a cracking night. The workshops had been fun, and people finally felt they could stay up late and dance like fools. The evening dance had been a crowded event (1600 people bought tickets!) and there hadn’t been too many opportunities for dancing. So the late night was where it was at.

(photo c/o Trev

This was a challenging set for me. I was at the back of the room, at floor level, in a loooong narrow room. In that photo of Trev’s above, you can _just_ see the DJ, right at the back, silhouetted against that bright square. That’s either me or Kat DJing at a table [EDIT: Kat says that Trev says that that’s her DJing, not me. So I’d have been DANCING! SCORE!]
I could see perhaps 20 people of the 200 in the room. And those 20 were at the ‘back’ of the room – the newer dancers. I’m used to playing with the show offs and more experienced dancers right in front of me. During those sets, I have to keep reminding myself to watch the _whole_ floor, not just those peeps. But on Sunday I had to keep standing on a chair so I could see even perhaps just a few body parts of that same crowd.

I was following Kat Galang, who is relentless. She comes in hard and fast, pounds the dancers, then goes out with a bang. She makes people CRAZY with adrenaline. Fucking best dancing fun. Can be a challenge following, as a DJ, as she leaves the dancers utterly shagged. And I’ve found that if I chill it out too much (to give dancers a rest), they just sit down, realise how shagged they are, then pass out. So I have to keep things a bit sprightly so I don’t lose them. But if I pounded it the way she did, they’d probably die of heart attacks. So the goal is good energy, working shorter waves with lots of resting points, but keeping things exciting and interesting.

Here is what I noticed:
Because I couldn’t really see anyone’s bodies or faces, I couldn’t read the crowd. I couldn’t even really tell if the floor was empty or full, because I couldn’t SEE it. So I had to go with my instincts and… well, I guess I was going by my nose, and making sure I walked the room a lot.
I definitely benefitted from that particular time slot – peeps were ready to rock out.

Righto, what did I play?
First off, I love that Luke Winslow King song. Galang had played quite a few good NOLA tracks, by modern bands, and LWK is a NOLA boy, Cassidy Holden does lots of NOLA bands. So that echoed her work. It’s a moderate tempo, but it sprongs along with that gorgeous steel string guitar giving a nice western swing edge. The trinkly piano reminded everyone that this was still NOLA. Sort of. Best song. Only bad thing about it is that it’s TOO SHORT.

Fats Waller is in my brain a lot atm as we teach with him a fair bit, and I’ve found he’s really, really interesting for good solo dance work. So I wanted to DJ him a lot. He’s so light and funny, but he’s also so technically stunning, and the arrangements are rippingly good – really perfect for the complexities allowed by solo dance.
So I played that Fat Babies version of ‘Truckin”, to segue from the LWK, and to get to more Fats.

Then I played my favourite Fats Song, ‘Shortnin’ Bread’. I was being a smartarse playing Fats after a Fats ‘cover’. Shortnin’ Bread is FABULOUS.

I was still thinking about LWK and western swing, and I wanted to get the energy back up to Kat levels, so I played that great Bob Wills song. I love Bob Wills. LOVE HIM. That song is fuck-off great.

Then I chilled it out a bit with some Andy Kirk. This is a song everyone knows (well, the old sticks do), so it’s nice and comfortable. I teach with a lot, and think of it as a mellow, friendly song. Still nice and right in the middle of my favourite style.

More chillaxin’, with ‘Peckin”. But this version builds and gets pretty wiggedy wacked in the middle, so it’s a good way to get to other stuff. It’s always fun to dance to, and again, it’s familiar. So these two were ‘safe’ songs for the dancers. I was also watching Skye working the room, and I wanted to make sure there were some more relaxed songs for the newer dancers to pounce on him for. I really liked that Skye worked the back part of the room, too, rather than just sticking with the ‘cool’ kids. That was nice.

More Fats. Current favourite teaching song. This one is fucking great for the Al and Leon shim sham. It sounds like Leon James’ dancing.
The beat (the guitar/drums) gets a bit more uppy-downy, bouncy-stompy, which is what I wanted to set up for the next song. The vocal style is also something I wanted to set up for the next song. Also, this song is THE BEST.

Putney Dandridge. I haven’t been able to chase down the specs for this song, but the band sounds so much like the group who did stuff 2nd March 1936 – Putney Dandridge and his Orchestra (Richard Clarke, Johnny Russell, Teddy Wilson, Arnold Adams, Ernest Hill, Cozy Cole) – that I think it might be them. And look at that band. Yes PLEASE.
This song fucking rocks. Dandridge’s vocals are best. BEST. I love the way he brings that sprongy, bouncy-stompy rhythm to the song. Loveity love love.

But peeps needed a bit of a rest, so I went to this nice Hamfats song. Mike Faltesek played this once in Melbourne and every time I play it now, people rush up to ask what it is. It’s great. Nice, slower tempo, but with a good, stampy rhythm. Nothing too complex, but great, great dancing.

I was beginning to think I needed to change the styles up a bit at this point. It felt like I’d done enough of that particular style, and I needed to get a bit more solidly classic swing, or to head towards the 1940s. Lionel Hampton feels like good, solid top-40 style lindy hopping swing to me. And I love this song at the moment. I like the lyrics (“You know much about ‘lectricity? I know ’nuff to leave it alone!”). It’s a great, medium tempo dancing song. Great, catchy melody. Yes.

This stuff reminds me of Count Basie. And ‘Sent for you yesterday’ reminds me of Basie (of course). So I played the Goodman version, because it’s unexpected. It has what I think of as a ‘building’ vibe – I play it when I want to set things up for a performance, or to build the room back up to high energy stuff.

So from there I went straight to the Savoy with Ella and Chick’s band. This one is a bit overplayed these days, and I was going to play something else like ‘Everybody Rock’ from those concerts, but I thought “Heck, I’m doing ‘top-40 lindy hop classic swing. So _do_ that.”

I was still thinking about Basie. But I wanted to chill people out a bit (they were really kind of shagged at this point). I do like this Mint Julep Band, and this version of ‘Jive at Five’ isn’t as smooth and groovy as the 1950s Basie versions, but the band has a guitarist I really like, and I wanted a hi-fi vibe to set up for the next song. So I played this version rather than the Basie 1939 one.

At this point Trev had come over to chat for a couple of songs (he was looking a bit pale, actually, and I was a bit worried that he might _really_ need a sit down – he’d been dancing like a fool for ages). I said “I need something really classic Basie… you know, like Easy Does It.” And then we both thought of the Live at the Sands version of Splanky at the same time. That nice in-the-pocket Basie sound, but with a bit of punchy energy, as the band responded the more modern music around them.

WIN!

I always think of the Big 18’s Easy Does It, Splanky, and this lovely Ellington song in the same group. B-Sharp Boston is tops. Ellington’s band did some great lindy hopping music in 1949 – really solid, classic swing. Just before they started doing some really wiggedy wacked stuff. And this is what I wanted. Solid swing, easy tempo, nice, clear melody. But if you listen carefully, the drummer is actually doing some really interesting things with brushes (?) and shuffley stuff, which quietly intimates what’s to come for the band.

Thinking about later Ellington going nuts, I was reminded of Billie Holiday, of course. She was doing such radical things with timing, and she really was super important. I find dancers often puzzle a bit over Holiday’s timing, but this crowd was totally ok with such relatively minor challenges. And I was thinking ahead to the Slam Gaillard song I wanted to play, which really does do wiggedy things with timing.

I love matching the Louis Armstrong version of Sugar with that Billie Holiday song. Because I associate Sugar with Holiday. I love the song. And this recording is interesting, for the name (the Hot Seven in 1946?) – it’s part of a lovely lump of 1940s Armstrong stuff which really rocks. And when you put Holiday and Armstrong next to each other like this, you really understand how they were both revolutionary in their approach to _swing_. True genius. Armstrong’s trumpet and Holiday’s vocals – it’s the same thing. And of course, in the back of my mind, Lester Young is connecting Holiday and Basie.

Finally we get to Slam. This song is teh sheeet. I love dancing to it on my own. It’s complicated. It’s interesting. It has a good, solid beat. Until that beat gets screwed with a bit. Again, the band is edging towards modernism. It’s only 1945, but you can hear Errol Garner beginning to think about the future; the space between the beats that swing requires, is getting stretched a bit, and kind of pulled in different directions.

Teddy Wilson. Oh, I love you. And with Slam Stewart in the band. Just the year before. This is good, tight chamber jazz. A little group of big talents, doing a very solid, safe swing classic. But they make it tight and interesting. Unlike Benny Goodman, it feels like there’s a bit more maneouverability here. The band feels like they’re allowed to be a bit softer. Less a super group like Goodman’s small group, more a super good group doing something really nice. This is one of my favourite shim sham songs. In fact, this is my favourite sort of music. Complex, tight, yet super swinging.

Right. Change it up! Less cerebral, more stomping. I love early Louis Prima, and I love this song because there’s a Putney Dandridge version that’s more widely played (Fatima played it at Hullabaloo! It was the only song in her set that I had a copy of and knew well. Sheesh. She’s a gun). This uptempo version isn’t quite as tight as it could be, but it has a lot of energy and fun. I do like the Chicago boybands (LOVE the Mound City Blue Blowers), but this one isn’t as esoteric as some of the MCBB, so it’s a bit more accessible.

Then I changed gear without the clutch. It felt like I’d been to fancy and complex. Time to just pull out the pub jazz (thanks for that line, Georgia). Shouting, stomping arse kicker chick music. Made the dancers crazy.

Then I extended the innuendo/euphemism theme with this great song about another type of green. I played this song mostly so I could see Trev mime smoking reefer and then trucking. I was not disappointed.

Loling at Trev, I lined up the next song and he yelled ‘you should play Shave em Dry next’, but he was joking. I wasn’t joking.

Shave em Dry is a good one, because it was overplayed to DEATH in about 2006, mostly for blues dancers. There were quite a few groans from the experienced dancers, and Trev shook his head in disappointment. I admit it: this was a cheap play for laughs. But at the same time, I was taking the piss. And yet not – what’s not to love about a woman singing about being big and fat and loving to fuck real good?
I play it a lot at the Roxbury at home, matching it with the Two Man Gentlemen Band and other shouty rude bands. I think that this stuff really embodies the Sydney lindy hop/rockabilly/rock n roll crossover community. The fight and fuck-off-fun attitude of rockabilly matched up with some spanking rhythm and musicianship of lindy hop.

Then I handed it all over to Keith, who made us dance like fools.

….You know, reading this back, I realise that all this explanation of what I was doing is in retrospect. When I’m actually DJing, I’m just going with what feels nice. I’m just making shit up on the fly.

I do think that you need to have a good idea of how to work a room, and how to balance tempos and things so you don’t kill people, but really, you’re working on the fly. I think that if I didn’t have so much experience working this particular event, I’d have struggled mightily without being able to see the dance floor. That was horrible. And I’m also pretty sure I would have done a better job working the room if I’d been able to see. But I think that the compromise was that I did a better job combining songs and working my collection, playing a wider, more interesting and less familiar set of combinations.

edit: reading this again, later on (now I’m home in Sydney again), I’m struck by how important my interaction with other DJs was that night. Kat, me and Keith were the DJs for that gig. Here are two of them:

(photo c/o Kat)

One of the things I love about big exchanges, is getting to work with and spend time with other DJs. People like Trev and Keith and Kat and Alice and… all those other great doods. I’ve learnt so much from sitting in on their sets (ie just sitting next to them, listening to them think their way through a set or respond to what they see on the floor). In fact, the most interesting sit-in I’ve done has been with a blues DJ, Manon, who is such a clever, observant DJ. I just don’t understand blues DJing, so Manon’s observations are so interesting.

I love sharing ideas about dancing and music, and I love the sorts of DJ in-jokes that get around. Rickrolling someone with C-Jam Blues, just as they step onto the dance floor with a famuss dancer. Playing their favourite song in the set before they’re DJing. Pulling out yet _another_ Fats Waller track, because all the other kids are doing it. I just find it all so inspiring and interesting. And I love hearing their latest loves – the songs they’re really into at the moment and just busting to play.
It’s where I get the best ideas for DJing and my own new music. I mean, Kat has THE best version of ‘For Dancers Only’ by Bob Crosby’s band – I can never remember to hunt it down myself, and every time she plays it, by last third I’m running at her to gush. And I play that Jimmie Noone 1930s songs ‘Blues Galore’ because Trev played it at MLX in about… 2006?… and I just love it. And Keith and I, because we also run events together, are always scheming a good scheme, coming up with a ridiculous plan for some sort of DJ-centred event. The climax of which was us two doing a ‘DJ jam’ set together one night, where we shared a plate of home-made-hommus-and-veggies while we pounded a couple of hours of music together, swapping songs back and forth.

#TeamSuperDJFriends. I’ve got the feels for you.

On fucking up in front of a crowd

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(pic by Beth Evans)

My first instinct, when discovering I’ve fucked up, is to hide the fact. You know, cover it up.
When I was first learning fall off the log, I’d been quite ill with flu, and it was a really hot, humid Brisbane night. I don’t quite know what happened, but everything went black, and I’m suddenly on my arse on the floor. I leap to my feet and carry on like nothing ever happened.
I’m fairly certain that everyone was onto me.

Since then, I’ve made huge, public errors in many ways, and in front of many different audiences. I’ve been the only person in a solo jazz performance fucking up the choreography (I’m usually the only person in a solo jazz performance fucking up the choreography). I’ve sworn loudly into a microphone at a large, public gig. And there was that time when I was at the end of a semester, lecturing for the first time, on my own, pounding out a lecture a week on a range of topics I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. We get to week 10, on The Media In War Time, and I realise, in an exhausted, confused and overworked daze, the night before the lecture, that there hasn’t just been one ‘gulf war’. Furthermore, I have no idea where Afghanistan is, beyond the fact that it’s somewhere ‘in the middle east’. So I go through the lecture and carefully reword things to be precisely imprecise on the geography of the region. I remember, as I’m banging on in front of a group of 200 bored undergraduates, exhausted and strung out on powerpoint, looking up and seeing that row of middle aged women students in hijab making the ‘what the fuck, young person?’ face. Madames, I’m afraid I had no idea what the fuck was up. And I apologise.

More recently (and most embarrassingly), in fact just this year, I realised that the dancer in this photo that I had thought was Al Minns, was actually Leon James:

Fifteen fucking years of lindy hop, writing and talking about jazz dance, teaching solo jazz and pontificating about uses of history, and I find out NOW that that guy is NOT Al Minns, he is LEON JAMES. Face fucking palm, right?

At the end of the day, though there are really only a couple of ways you can respond to all this. You can leave, immediately, and never look back, retreating to some sort of solo jazz cave in the far western suburbs of Sydney. Or you can quietly continue teaching and crapping on, just with new facts, and never acknowledging your mistake. Who, me, not able to identify one of the most famous dancers of the age? No way, man, I am a SPECIALIST.

But all that kind of sucks. You just carry the shame of mistake around with you, feeling embarrassed and kind of anxious about the whole thing.

That’s all very tempting. But it’s also crap.

This is my preferred method:

Discover the Facts.

Groan. Shout a bit about my own stupidity. Scrabble around, double checking. Get confirmation from someone who Knows (aka a mentor type person whose opinion you respect). Suffer in my jocks for a bit. Then tell people, because it’s both excruciating and also hilarious. There really isn’t anything funnier than pride taking a fall, and usually the circumstances of that fall are totes funny. My general feeling about public humiliation is that it stops being painful and humiliating when you tell someone about it and make yourself laugh.

The freeking middle east, Hamface.

AL MINNS, Hamface.

But what if you are teaching a group of people you’ll be working with every week for the foreseeable future, and you realise you’ve given them wrong information, or you just don’t know the answer? And you’re trying to contribute good knowledge about dance history to your local scene, so we can stop listening to Wham at dances and making up horseshit about lindy hop history?

Probably the most helpful thing I’ve learnt about teaching was in a tertiary education teaching skills seminar, where we looked at the idea of teachers not as reservoirs of all knowledge, injecting it into students heads, but as guides to learning. The students are the ones doing the learning, and our job is to make that work easier for them.
With this in mind, it gets much easier to say, when a student asks a question and you’re flummoxed: “Sorry, man, I have no idea. But I reckon we could find out if we consulted X source. Or why don’t we have a go now, and see how it works?” and then you try that thing, and see if you can figure it out together.
In a dance context, this approach is made easier by adding in an extra element: make mistakes confidently. As Ramona says, a dance class is a laboratory, and this is where we experiment. We are here to try new stuff, and when we’re trying out new things and discovering, there really isn’t any right and wrong. Just various shades of new and interesting.

So what do I do when I discover I’ve taught something that’s completely wrong?

First, I ask myself, ‘Was it all completely wrong?’ Sure, that stuff I explained about the way your hips work in shorty george mightn’t have been strictly accurate when it comes to the mechanics of a shorty george, but was that general approach to biomechanics and rhythm completely wrong? I don’t think so.
Secondly, I remind myself: you are a guide to learning. You’re there to facilitate students’ learning. This isn’t all about you. So you need to stop assuming that they’re all focussed on you. You need to remind yourself, that we’re all there to focus on our own learning, on having fun, and on making mistakes.
Thirdly: just fucking tell them. They really don’t give a shit. They’re worried about the cut of their trousers, or whether that hot person likes them, or if their house mate will have eaten all the bread. They got other priorities. I mean, YOLO, right? Life’s too short to carry around a bundle of anxiety and worry about one tiny fucking mistake. Move on!

In summary, then, I find it both frightening and powerful to approach teaching as thought I will mistakes, and I will be incorrect. That’s the whole point. I’m here to learn too, and if I already knew what I was doing, the whole thing’d be super boring. My goal should be to change and grow and learn as a teacher. Or pontificator.

In practical terms, this is how I handle these things:

When my teaching partner and I are explaining something, and I just don’t know what I’m doing, I say so.
And I turn to my partner and I say “I’m not sure how to explain this. Do you have an idea?” and they usually do. If they don’t, then we all LOL and we just move on. Yolo, right? And we’re here to dance, not fret about something we don’t know.
Don’t try to make your class a seamless, perfect engine.
It’s actually great to say to your teaching partner “I think we should try this to music, what do you think?” and for them to say, “Mmm, maybe just one more time without music?” It’s great because it takes the pressure off you (you don’t have to be perfectly right all the time!), it models problem solving and partnership interaction for the students (this is how you work on stuff in class with your partner), and it lets the students see how you think about teaching and learning – you’re letting them see the sausage being made. So to speak. You are inviting them in, and not presenting a polished, impersonal facade.
If you find something hard or challenging, you say so. “I find this bit tricky. So let’s go through it slowly, and we’ll figure it out.” Usually they find it easier than I do, which I find very helpful, because I suddenly do understand. And again, you’re modelling helpful learning and in-class behaviour strategies. It’s all good.
If you teach something, then realise you were all wrong, it’s ok to come back and tell your students.
Sure, it feels like it’s going to be humiliating to admit you were wrong, but dood – you aren’t really the centre of their universe. They’re not going to be crushed because you fucked up that one time. Tell ’em. I do it like this: “You know how last week I said that we start on the left foot/that was Al Minns/Afghanistan is in ‘the middle east’? Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate.” And then I explain what I’ve learnt, and how I learnt it: “I emailed blahblah and got the good oil” or “I compared a bunch of videos and photos from these reliable sources” or “I looked at a goddamn map.”
And then everyone groans, you LOL a bit, and then you revise what you did last week. You can be sure that this particular dance step/conversation/point of geopolitical history will stick in their brains forever. And ever.

…and so on and so on. It’s ok to make mistakes, yo. But it’s not really ok to expect to be perfect, and to not acknowledge your own mistakes. It’s also not ok to stew on your errors and let them consume your thoughts. Dancing, unlike the history of digital media practices in the gulf war, is fun. So let it be fun, and don’t seek out ways to freak yourself out.

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(pic by only fools and vikings via mindlessmunkey)

NB: I spent quite a bit of time on Mindlessmunkey’s tumblr this week, and it shows. The man makes gorgeous, thoughtful internet, and it inspires me.

simple

“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” -Charles Mingus

I am currently obsessed with simple, perfect basic rhythms and movement. Without them, improvisation is just noise.

Jets and Sharks

(c/o mindlessmunkey)