Category Archives: lindy hop and other dances

upcoming DJing

My DJing schedule for the next little while:
Sunday 28th February: DJing @ Blues Night in Sydney (8:30-9:30)
Thursday 4th March: DJing lindy hop @ Czech Club in North Melbourne (9:30-10:30)
Friday 5th March: DJing in blues battle @ Forever Dance (BBS in Melbourne about 1/3 way through the night)
Saturday 6th March: DJing band breaks 9-12 @ Y-Dance (BBS)
Sunday 7th March: DJing 12-1:30 @ The Copacabanna (BBS late night).
Just enough to keep me busy, but actually a terribly demanding load – just little blobs of sets here and there.

digital resources… mostly

This post is really just to track a range of online sources I’ve used today. I’m really interested in the relationship between different tools, and between online and face to face tools. I want to frame this post/discussion by pointing out that swing DJs are interested in music primarily as dancers and as DJs for dancers. So their interest in music and dance and history is almost always tied to the physical experience of dancing. And dancing is ALL about the body, no matter how intertubed you are. Dancers also tend to have quite extensive online networks, networks of friends and acquaintances which crisscross their country and the world. I just know that if Peter wasn’t actually playing music as I type, he’d be chiming in with useful tweeted comments and links.
The body pwns the intertubes any day.

I read this thread on SwingDJs this morning, which directed us to: this story about hot jazz in a full-text issue of Life on Google books.

I replied in the thread on swingdjs, but also in a post on my own blog, here.

Reading the list and thinking about hot jazz as I wrote that post, I was reminded of things I’d read in books (!), one of which is also available in full text on google books here.

I have also found full text versions online, but I can’t remember where. If you start with The Jazz Study Group @ Columbia and Jazz Studies Online you’ll probably eventually find them all.

But while I was reading these things in books, I came across references to a series of photographs and films which are very popular with dances – by Gjon Mili. Mili is best known amongst dancers for his short film Jammin’ the Blues which is available on youtube along with other films he made featuring jazz musicians (I link them here.)

There’re some iconic photos of dancers in Life magazine in their ‘Life goes to…’ series. These are available in Google/Life’s online collection. Gjon Mili also did some very interesting photos as part of a photo shoot for Esquire in a Jam Session series.
I’ve already written about magazines and jazz ad nauseum.
Meanwhile, that original Life article listed ’30 good hot records’. Which made me think about canons. And discographies as canons. There are various online versions of discographies, but the good ones aren’t freely available online. Boo. Hiss.

Canons and discographies made me think about following particular musicians, and all this talk about ‘essential’ lists of jazz musicians and songs made me think about the Great Day In Jazz photo, which has a documentary film attached, and which Rayned used to structure his Yehoodi Radio show, which you could stream online.

After I’d written that post earlier today, I was still thinking about these issues. And I remembered seeing a note attached to an Australian photo from the 20s in an online collection. I eventually found the photo on flickr.com in their flickr commons (with which I am obsessed) by typing ‘bands jazz sydney’ into the search box, getting this list. This is the photo. I was particularly interested in the comment that black American bands were banned in Australia from the date of this photo (1928) until 1955 (when Louis Armstrong visited Australia). I wondered if it was true.

So I asked twitter. This led to a discussion between (mostly) The SwingDJ, DJRussellTurner, a discussion witnessed by all the people who followed one or all of us on Twitter.

TheSwingDJ was sceptical.

DJRussellTurner tweeted clarified the Rex Stewart thing.

DJRussellTurner suggested a distinction between ‘band’ and ‘musicians’, and then linked to an an article by Alec Morgan in the journal Scan which used the original photo and added

But, not all musical imports were welcomed by Sydney’s moral guardians. Sonny Clay’s renowned Jazz band, The Colored Idea, arrived here from the USA in 1928 to play the burgeoning nightclubs. After a couple of white women were found in a hotel room with the Afro-American musicians, the band was escorted back to the ship and told never to grace our shores again. While the occasional black musician was allowed in after careful scrutiny for a limited period, Afro-American bands were not permitted back until the mid 1950’s when Louis Armstrong and his band pushed the colour-bar down.

I suddenly decided I needed to know more, and I certainly needed to verify this idea that ‘black bands were banned in Australia’ during this period. The important question here is why? Why did I want to be sure? Partly because this would indicate interesting things about:

  • race and racism in Australia (White Australia Policy)
  • jazz and jazz culture in Australia (jam sessions, playing with and listening to other musicians is central to the exchange and cultural transmission of creative, ideological and discursive forms. A lack of African American musicians in Australia would go some way to supporting my continuing suspicions about the whiteness of Australian jazz. And, consequently, white jazz dance.
  • the music and entertainment industry in Australia.

I had a bit of a squizz in various online sources, but eventually decided I needed to look at some more newspapers from the day. These sorts of (albeit somewhat unreliable) primary sources can be helpful.

So I started simple, and followed this link from the flickr page. Not a whole lot of help right now, but it would be worth following up the original photographer.

Then I remembered someone on twitter mentioning an online tool which allowed you to search online Australian primary sources. I couldn’t remember who it was who put me onto it (I still can’t), so I just followed a bunch of links from likely sources.

Until I saw a name I recognised: Trove. And started searching for “Sonny Clay”.

I found this newspaper article on Trove which outlined accusations about the musicians’ union from the ‘banned band”s representatives.

Meanwhile, TheSwingDJ confirmed our suspicions but also noted that Rex Stewart wasn’t black, according to the musicians’ union (I wish I had his reference for this, actually).

He also tweeted other interesting tidbits including one about ‘good reputations’ and ‘paying’ to be allowed to play.

And then there were various comments on twitter from peeps ‘listening in’ to our 3-way chat, including comments about the photos as resources for fashion, Trove’s value for private research projects and so on. I asked for help RE Trove’s browser-compatability as I wanted to edit the scanned text of the article, but couldn’t log in. Various tweeps offered tips and feedback.

Then I revisited DJRussellTurner’s link to the Scan article and the original flickr photo page and discovered that the author of the Scan article had a blog where she discussed this photo and issue. Her thinking about this issue led to her discussion of flappers and gender here and here.

I then checked our her blog’s ‘about’ page and discovered she’s at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at UQ where I did my BA and MA and where I still have friends working.

In one of those blog posts she notes in a caption for (a repro of that original photo from flickr):

(Members of Sonny Clay’s Coloured Idea (including the singer Ivie Anderson) on deck as they pull into Sydney, 1928)

And this made me think: Ivie Anderson! Best known (in my world) as a singer with Duke Ellington’s band. So I did a crappy search of my music (using the wrong date) to see if she recorded with Ellington during this period. I also scanned the photo carefully to see if I recognised her. I was, pretty much, guessing. But I was using photos of Anderson I found online to try and compare them with the women in those two original photos.

TheSwingDJ beat me to it with this link to a source many Swing DJs use quite often. That entry for Anderson includes:

Born in California, young Ivie received vocal training at her local St. Mary’s Convent and later spent two years studying with Sara Ritt in Washington, DC. Returning home she found work with Curtis Mosby, Paul Howard, Sonny Clay, and briefly with Anson Weeks at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in Los Angeles. She also found work in vaudeville, touring the country as a dancer and vocalist in the Fanchon and Marco revue, starring Mamie Smith, and with the Shuffle Along revue. She was featured vocalist at the Culver City Cotton Club before leaving to tour Australia in 1928 with Sonny Clay. Returning after five months down under she organized her own show and toured the U.S. In 1930 she found work with Earl Hines.It was while appearing with Hines that Ellington first heard her sing. He hired her in February 1931, and she quickly became a fixture of the orchestra’s sound.

(I’ve bolded the important bits.)

At this point, we’re still thinking about and looking up sources. Meanwhile, colleagues from the CCC at UQ have chimed in about the author of that blog, discussions about archiving this sort of research are happening, I’m listening to 1930s Ellington featuring Ivie Anderson and I’m just about to look up youtube for some clips of Anderson to see if I can check her out more thoroughly.
But first, I think I’ll go dancing.
(srsly)

The Coloured Idea Band of Sonny Clay arrives in Sydney, 1928 / Sam Hood

The text accompanying this 1928 photo reads:

Note: The band entered Sydney Harbour playing their newly composed “Australian Stomp” on deck, with their dancers performing. After good reviews, the Truth newspaper organised for the band to be raided. They were found with Australian women and deported. African American bands were banned from visiting until 1954. The Library has photographs of the Louis Armstrong tour, the first Afro-American entertainer to visit after the ban was lifted, and of the Harlem Blackbirds in 1955, the first Afro-Amercian group to visit.

lists and canons in jazz

An interesting discussion has cropped up on SwingDJs called “30 Good Hot Records” from LIFE. This is what I’m about to post in response.
I love lists of iconic or ‘good’ songs/books/films/texts. I love them because though they are presented as definitive, they are always[ more effective as a provocation than a definitive answer to questions about what counts and is important enough to be listed. Discograhies work, pretty much, as definitive ‘lists’ or ‘canons‘.
I’ve come across a few different uses of ‘hot’ in articles and books from the 1930s, particularly in reference to discographies. Kenney’s discussion of jazz in Chicago outlines the differences between ‘jazz’ or ‘hot’ bands and music and ‘dance’ bands. These differences are not only musical, but also inflected by race, class, the recording industry, live venue management and ownership, gender… and so on. I’ve also come across quite a few discussions in an academic (rather than populist or ‘music critic’) sources about the expression ‘hot jazz’. The most useful sources point out that any attempt to finally define ‘hot’ or ‘jazz’ is not only difficult, but also problematic.
Krin Gabbard discusses the cultural effects of constructing canons – in which discographies play a key role – and points out that lists of ‘hot’ or ‘important’ or ‘real’ jazz records aren’t neutral or objective lists of songs – they are highly subjective and negotiated by the author’s own ideas about music and place in society generally.
Kenney (who’s written some absolutely fascinating stuff about jazz music in Chicago in the 20s) discusses Brian Rust’s discographies, making the point that Rust distinguishes between ‘hot’ and other types of jazz recordings. Friedwald talks a bit about Rust (and other discographers) in his jazz.com articles. Kenney’s research into the recording and live music industry in Chicago suggests that who got to record or play what types of music was actually dictated in large part by record companies’ ideas about race and class and markets rather than musicians’ personal inclination. That last point suggests that you could make some interesting observations about the correlation between race, class, recorded songs, ‘popularity’ and ‘jazz’ in Chicago jazz during this period. I don’t know enough about it, though, so all I’ll say is that you could, but you’d better have some badass sources to support your arguments. And you’d also better be prepared to accept the idea that though America had a national music industry, different state legislations and music cultures resulted in quite different local practices: it’d be tricky to generalise Chicago’s story across other cities and states. Not to mention countries.
Life and other magazines’ comments on and participation in music promotion in the 30s is also pretty interesting – these guys had ideological barrows to push, just as did Rust and other discographers. One of the effects of publishing this type of list (which was no doubt as hotly contested then as it is now – except by a wider audience :D) is that it does stimulate discussion and debate. And, hopefully, record and ticket sales. One thing I’d be interested in knowing is who owned LifeGreat Day In Jazz photo, I think about the fact that it was a photo for Esquire magazine, and that Esquire also produced a series of live concerts, recordings… and of course, photo spreads in magazines. While GDIJ works a fabulous representation of jazz it also serves as a canon, and as such is also subjective, ideologically framed and interpreted (eg asking why are there so few women in this photo leads us to questions about gender and jazz?) Canons are fascinating things, and can be the jumping off place for all sorts of great discussions and debates. I think this is why I was so excited by Reynaud’s session on Yehoodi Radio where he used the GDIJ photo as an organising structure for the music he chose. In that case, the photo became a listening guide for a radio program. I’d just rather not use them as definitive, fixed lists; I like them more as provocations, or a place from which to begin discussing (and arguing about) a topic.
If I saw a list like the one in Life today, I’d be extra-suspicious. Songs on So You Think You Can Dance, for example, are owned by the company which produces that tv show. There’s been quite a lot written about the Ken Burns’ Jazz series and its role in cross-promoting sales of records from catalogues owned by the same media corporation. The Ken Burns example is an especially interesting one: that series does not present an ‘objective’ list of important artists and songs. It is a jumping off place for a very successful marketing project surrounding back catalogues and contemporary musicians like Marsalis. George Lipsitz has written quite a bit about histories of jazz (including Burns’), and he makes this point:

…the film is a spectator’s story aimed at generating a canon to be consumed. Viewers are not encouraged to make jazz music, to support contemporary jazz artists, or even to advocate jazz education. But they are urged to buy the nine-part home video version of Jazz produced and distributed by Time Warner AOL, the nearly twenty albums of recorded music on Columbia/Sony promoting the show’s artists and ‘greatest hits,’ and the book published by Knopf as a companion to the broadcast of the television program underwritten by General Motors. Thus a film purporting to honor modernist innovation actually promotes nostalgic satisfaction. The film celebrates the centrality of African Americans to the national experience but voices no demands for either rights or recognition on behalf of contemporary African American people. The film venerates the struggles of alienated artists to rise above the formulaic patterns of commercial culture, but comes into existence and enjoys wide exposure only because it works so well to augment the commercial reach and scope of a fully integrated marketing campaign linking ‘educational’ public television to media conglomerates. (17)

Lipsitz is interesting because he says thinks like Why not think about jazz as a history of dance? Why not look into the lives of musicians who gave up fame and fortune in massively famous bands to work in their local communities?
Friedwald, Will. “On Discography” www.jazz.com, May 27, 2009 http://www.jazz.com/jazz-blog/2009/5/27/on-discography
Gabbard, Krin. “The Jazz Canon and its consequences” Jazz Among the Discourses. Duke U Press, Durham and London 1995. 1-28.
Kenney, William Howland. “Historical Context and the Definition of Jazz: Putting More of the History in ‘Jazz History'”. Jazz Among the Discourses. Duke U Press, Durham and London 1995. 100-116
Lipsitz, George. “Songs of the Unsung: The Darby Hicks History of Jazz,” Uptown Conversation: the new Jazz studies, ed. Robert O’Meally, Brent Hayes Edwards, Farah Jasmin Griffin. Columbia U Press, NY: 2004: 9-26.
References for my posts on Esquire.

twitter continues to swallow up my intertubes brain

Things are kind of rolling along here in Sydney.
It rained all last week, every single day, and that was terrible. But today it’s sunny again. SUN!
This is what it was like last week (and this is WHY I couldn’t go out running yesterday morning when it was raining, TWITTER):

I’ve started doing the couch to 5k, which is really just an interval training approach to running 5km. So far I walk/run about 4km. It makes me feel like a gun. I didn’t think I’d like running this much, but the endorphines are fabulous and helping me stave off a case of the unemployed-understimulated-uninteresting-s. It also helps me keep my mood stable – no ‘what am I doing with myself?’ introspection and anxiety… well, a little bit. But mostly that sort of thinking is under control. I’m also delighted by the effect just a couple of weeks of the program has made to my dancing. That, as well as finally ditching the wedding-exchange cold has me feeling fit, collected and energetic on the dance floor. Yay.
In other news, I’m all signed up for a pgrad diploma in Information Management. It will cost a ridiculous amount of money, but at least this degree will get me a job. I’m especially interested in digital archiving and increasing the accessibility of public collections like the Powerhouse’s, the National Archives, the State Library, etc etc etc. It’s all a bit exciting. I was asked to teach some undergrad subjects when I contacted the postgrad coordinator, but I said no because a) that’s too weird, and b) I want to focus on my own study and to (brace for ridiculously over-achieving ambition) do really well and kick arse. There’s a complicated online enrolment process (not like in my day, when we had to line up at the office to hand in our forms in person) and a heap of screwing about to do yet, but it’s all happening.
This is a fairly demanding course, so I’m not sure just how much traveling for dance I’m going to be able to do this year… not that we could afford much, what with the zillions of dollars this course will cost. But I will make do with local Sydney and Canberra stuff and a mid year trip to Melbourne and November trip to Melbourne for MLX. The latter are combined with family visits, of course. This means, sadly, that I won’t be able to go to Hullabaloo, which I tend to think of as one of the Big Australian Events, both in terms of DJing and dancing. The dancing is good and the music is good at Hullabaloo, and Perth always puts on a quality event with lots of attendees. I’d also have liked to DJ at Hullabaloo (if they’d have me), but we simply can’t afford $1000 in plane fares plus assorted expenses. That’s a subject and a bit of my course right there.
In other news, I’ve been experimenting with bread baking. I’m not hugely good at it. It looks ok, but it tends not to taste too good. Sort of sweetish and overly yeasty. I’m going to try some sourdough next (as inspired by Tammi to see if that improves the flavour. A different sort of yeasty taste. But I’ve not had a chance to get the starter going, yet, so that’s a way off. In other food thoughts, we’ve been eating well, but the shitty humidity has sapped our appetites. Lots of boring salads and little interest in anything else.
On the DJing front, things continue as usual. Lately Sharon has been DJing like a demon, inspired by international travel and an unfortunate laptop theft. I think the theft was actually a good thing, as she’s been going through her music, re-adding CDs and transferring files from her other computer, rediscovering forgotten stuff and adding new things. It’s meant that her DJing has suddenly had a burst of inspiring energy, and is absolutely great for dancing. She’s a madkeen balboa dancer, and much of the music she loves dancing bal to is my perfect cup of lindy hopping tea. Yahoo.
The tempos in Sydney have also jumped up quite a bit (interstate visitors over the wedding exchange weekend last month commented on the speediness), and I have to say that this also delights me, as I really do prefer the higher tempos for dancing. By higher, of course, I mean over 160bpm. Tempos at other Sydney venues remain ridiculously low. I’m not interested in a majority of songs below 120bpm (srsly) with the odd dodgy ‘faster’ song for ‘balboa’. Egads.
We’ve also got a Swiss DJ in town who’s also a bal nut and a solidly swinging classic jazz fan, so nights at the Roxbury have been really, truly great dancing. For me. One thing we’ve noticed, though, is that the beginners have sort of dropped away a bit. In part, I think because the first half hour (8.30-9 or so) is super-fast tempoed for bal-nuts and crazyjazzlindyhopfools. By 9, things return to normal, but the tempos over all have been a bit higher.
This is great for me, and great for the scene as a whole, I think, as Sydney really needed a wider range of tempos in the classic swing vein. There’s lots of superfast neo at Jump Jive and Wail, but that’s not much good for lindy hop (well, for my lindy hopping taste). So we just needed some faster stuff. Right now, though, I think we could perhaps re-administer a little more at the lower end of the spectrum (120-140) just for variety’s sake, and then we’re laughing.
When I DJ I’m very conscious of working the wave (moving up and down the range from 130->200 and down again), and the mega-humidity and heat have made this even more important. My last few sets have seen me working a fairly predictable wave: 140-160-180-200-180-140- etc. It feels as though I’m covering the tempo bases pretty well and managing dancers’ energy levels more effectively. I think in the recent past I’ve tended to clump at specific tempos, neglecting the wave. I’ve also tried hard to manage energy levels as well. Though dancers are more interested in higher tempos, now, they simply can’t hack the physical demands of fast lindy hop in 90% humidity (which is where we’ve sat for the last two Roxbury nights) and mid 30s temperatures. It’s just too draining – the humidity in particular.
I think that balboa has, once again, to be thanked for many dancers’ comfort, or willingness to experiment with, faster tempos. Faster tempos simply seem less threatening when you hear them more often. And when you hear really fast tempos, 180bpm just doesn’t seem too fast at all. Which is very nice. My own increasing fitness has made it much easier to deal with the humidity and to enjoy faster dancing again. Yay.
Though we have perfect growing weather now (warm, wet, sunny), we still haven’t put in a proper herb garden. We are feeling its lack quite seriously, but we just haven’t had time to get to the markets for plants, or to get some seeds sprouting. We must get on that ASAP, as fresh herbs are so important in our day to day cooking.
Twitter continues to swallow up my intertubes brain. It’s the instant gratification that I like. I’ll try to do better.
I’m sure there’s more to write about, but I can’t think of it. So, enough, then.