Category Archives: djing

the tyranny of distance: audiences and performers/texts in high and low art forms

Laura has asked an interesting question here on a previous post:

…I would like to ask a question about “the everyday”, in those CS quote marks – is consumption of canonical or high art an everyday activity, and if it isn’t what is it? Posted by: Laura at August 7, 2006 03:30 PM

I think the man to answer this question is right up there in the cs canon (or at least the audience studies canon). Take it away Henry Jenkins…
I skip about a bit in the next part of this post (I’m a bit distracted, so I can’t really take time to formulate a sensible argument)…
I think the key point (in my approach, anyhoo) is not so much the nature of the actual text or practice, but the way it is institutionalised, commodified and ‘valued’ by various cultural and social forces.
I’ve been looking at this issue in reference to dance (of course), comparing the way ballet and vernacular dances like hip hop or breaking are approached by audiences.
[In an aside, the discussions on wikipedia’s project dance (esp the talk pages) – people want to capitalise the names of specific ballet choreographies, but aren’t so sure about how to capitalise vernacular dances like lindy or hip hop].
I’ve also noticed that the way swing dancers – DJs in particular – approach jazz is quite different to the way the genre is approached by jazzniks. One of the clearest and nicest illustrations of how different groups imagine jazz lies in the way Bennett’s Lane puts on gigs (Bennett’s Lane is a well respected local jazz venue – devoted to ‘quality’ jazz). They are very strict about noise during performances, and do NOT allow dancing. This is such a strange and bizarre contrast to the way jazz functioned socially in the 20s, 30s and 40s – it was pub music. It’s also a serious contrast to the way I experience and enjoy jazz at the Laundry in Fitzroy on Saturday afternoons: it’s loud, it’s full of smoke and drinkers, the band members will get down off the stage and kick audience arse if they give them trouble. They don’t care if we dance, and there is – as a consequence – a really exciting and dynamic relationship between dancers, musicians and audience at these gigs.
But at Bennett’s Lane (and other venues around the place), there’s a definite positioning of jazz as ‘art’, which must be ‘appreciated’ from a distance, rather than enjoyed with the body, up close and personal. There are quite culturally specific ways of demonstrating appreciation going on. Just as Jenkins noted that Checkhov fans used different language to describe their interest in theatre, there are clear differences in the way certain groups approach jazz and music.
Here’s a quote from chapter one of my thesis about the relationship between audiences and performers, audiences and texts in dance:

Considering dance, whether vernacular dance or performance dance, as a public discourse, allows us to analyse it for ideological content, for the ways in which identity markers such as class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, age and so on are represented and valued by a particular community of people. Reading vernacular dance as everyday discourse encourages us to see social dance as an exchange of ideas, and as a site for the negotiation of identity and social relations between individuals and groups within a community. I draw clear distinctions between vernacular dance traditions, where dance occurs in everyday spaces, between ordinary people, and concert or performance dance traditions, where dance is relegated to particular ‘dance spaces’ which are separate from the everyday spaces of a community. Ward makes this distinction: “there is a categorical divide between dancers and the audience in performance dance …that does not exist between dancers and spectators in social dance, where those roles are interchangeable” (18). I read this dynamic relationship between the roles of ‘spectator’ and ‘dancer’ in social or vernacular dance as a clear example not only of call-and-response, but also of the ways in which readers participate in the making of meaning in textual interpretation. (pg5)

Later on I add this:

The word ‘vernacular’ in a discussion of dance refers to the everyday or ordinary, common dance of a particular group or culture. Vernacular dance is distinguished from concert or theatre dance through its positioning in everyday spaces, rather than existing only as a formalised, and usually choreographed, performance of a particular dance on a concert stage. Vernacular dance is intrinsically participatory and happens in all sorts of spaces, both public and private. It is also necessarily mutable and reflexive, responding to the cultural needs of its performers. (pg9)

I wonder if one of the key differences between ‘low’ and ‘high’ cultural forms and practices is this issue of distance – there is (in Western culture …?) a divide between the audience and text/practice in high art forms, whereas the ‘low’ forms encourage close proximity between audiences and texts – you have only to consider the Big Brother website and voting system to see how particular industries and textual forms encourage audiences to get close to texts. If only so that they can be more easily targetted by advertisers.
It can’t be an accident that high art forms like ballet and opera have trouble keeping audience numbers up, and that various marketing strategies that aim to make these sorts of forms more approachable to wider audiences are at once endorsed, yet also regarded with some suspicion by those sections of our community which have a vested interest in maintaining social heirarchies.
…there’s a good article by Joann Kealiinohomoku on reading ballet as an ‘ethnic’ dance that examines how race and class work in high and low art form (and in anthropological approaches to ‘culture’ and ‘society’): Kealiinohomoku, Joann. “An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance.” What Is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism. Eds. Roger Copeland and Marshall Cohen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. 533 – 49.

it’s a tall order to claim yourself a guiding force in the dancing lives of a few thousand dancers

I have in the past noted the difference between ‘classic’ swinging jazz of the ‘Swing Era’ (ie 1930s-40s) and ‘new testament’ swing (ie post WWII), focussing on the role of the rhythm section.
I still find julius‘ discussion of the topic over on yehoodi the most useful for discussion of jazz and lindy hop:

This is all based on informal research, i.e. facts that I cannot document. They are opinions based on watching clips and talking to oldtimers and people who have talked to oldtimers and watching oldtimers and new dancers dance “now” and “back in the day” … and listening to a LOT of music.
Swing-era music (henceforth called “swing”) is driven primarily by the rhythm section. The bass would play on the quarter note and the drummer would beat the same quarter note with the bass drum. The guitarist would also chord on the quarter note along with the bassist and drummer. In addition, the drummer kept the rhythm swinging by playing a swung rhythm on the hi-hat. Rhythmic motifs (such as horn riffs) were often played in unison rhythm (although not unison notes, which were a feature of bop later on). Drum solos often featured march-style drum rolls and rarely used polyrhythmic devices such as playing three with the left hand and four with the right.
The combination of guitarist, drummer, and bass playing on the quarter note made swing music very propulsive. At that time, jazz was not played behind the beat as much as it is now. The rhythm section was almost, but not quite, playing in unison on the quarter note.
The dance reflected this propulsion by emphasizing quarter notes and the swung rhythm. The steps of the basic that we know today are derived from that rhythm: 1, 2, 3 and 4 (swung), 5, 6, 7 and 8. There was very little upper body movement, although the limbs were extensively used to reflect energy and excitement. Charleston steps (often in unison with your partner) were very common because of the tempo and feel of the music. (Note that 20s Charleston is much more staccato and than 30s Charleston, because hot jazz was much more staccato than swing music.)
If we listen to post-war music, we detect a difference in the feel compared to pre-war music. Jimmy Blanton revolutionized bass playing with Ellington’s band by using more ornamental techniques on the bass, and Ray Brown brought bass virtuosity to the fore by playing far less staccato than swing bassists did. His playing virtually defined the feel of post-war straightahead jazz by holding the bass notes and creating a much deeper “pocket” for the rhythm section. With the advent of bop, the drums began to lay behind the beat, which was now kept almost entirely by the bassist. Drummers moved the swing rhythm to the ride cymbal; the bass drum was used to “drop bombs” — playing very loud accents, only barely playing quarter notes, and sometimes even playing on the offbeat.
Arrangements for bands began to feature more rhythmically complex parts and the solos began to use more than the basic major, minor, diminished, augmented, seventh, and ninth chords of swing. The upshot of this new harmonic and rhythmic complexity was a change in the dance, with Frankie notably complaining to Dizzy Gillespie (I think) that you couldn’t dance (lindy hop) to it.
In the modern era, people commonly dance to straightahead jazz from the 50s … not bop, but music heavily influenced by bop’s harmonic concepts and post-war, way-behind-the-beat rhythm. The music chosen by DJs today also tends to be on the slower side than swing era music taken as a whole, and there are a lot of influences from West Coast (which was itself derived from lindy hop) observable in modern lindy hop. For example, the upper body is used often to express the music; frequently dancers will acknowledge musical “hits” with motion.
Why this change has occurred, I cannot say. One of the first people I encountered who taught this style of dancing were Paul and Sharon. When I was first learning I learned from people who had learned from old-timers directly, and were commonly emulating the rhythm-based style of lindy hop dancing. Then I saw people in San Francisco dancing and they were doing a more melody-based style of lindy hop.
Over time I think lindy hop has embraced both aspects of musicality (rhythm and melody), but some areas of the country are still locked in one or the other.
Edited to add something a bit more judgmental:
Dancing to the melody makes it very hard to dance fast, because it feels as if one is being unmusical in not acknowledging the music going by. Dancing to the rhythm makes it very easy to dance fast and requires better balance and technique because there is less time to recover from mistakes. However, dancing to the rhythm makes dancing slow less interesting.
The very best dancers in the world dance to the music, employing whatever is appropriate and not worrying whether the music is “too fast” or “too slow”, because they have integrated everything about the music into their dancing. Dancing reflects the music, not the other way around. I am fairly sure that lindy hop, alone of almost every social dance in the rest of the world, is danced to the widest tempo range of music. That’s one of the things I really like about it, that I can go balls-out on some insane flag-waving swing anthem, or dance more intimately if I want (Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 8:55 pm).

Personally, I prefer the sort of ‘classic swing’ sound to the post WWII sound, which I tend to think of as Old and New Testament, respectively, in part as a response to the influence of Basie on this issue – the man’s career ran from the 20s to the 80s, and he was one of the most influential band leaders in the big band swinging jazz genre.
I’ve been listening to some Jo Jones recently, and reading the Allmusic entry here, where they note:

Jo Jones shifted the timekeeping role of the drums from the bass drum to the hi-hat cymbal, greatly influencing all swing and bop drummers.

This is an interesting point, as Jones played with Basie’s band for a chunk of his career, and formed the backbone of Basie’s rhythm section, with Walter Page (bass), Freddie Green (guitar) and Basie himself (piano). To think that this man might have played a key part in the shift from bass drum to high hat in the foundational rhythm of a big band is kind of a tall order. I know nothing beyond the stuff I read in liner notes and on the internet (hardly excellent sources, but you know how it is – I’m too busy with other stuff to read up on this… though I’d dearly love to audit a decent undergrad course on the history of jazz), so I can’t really comment intelligently on this topic. But it’s worth thinking about.
I am a fan of Lionel Hampton, who was a percussionist (drums, vibraphone, assorted other) and bandleader (though I’m not sure what role he played in his bands’ arrangements and compositions), and I’ve noticed that big bands tended to reflect the instruments and interests of their leader – so you get a different emphasis in Benny Goodman’s stuff, than you do with someone like Basie, in part because they played clarinet and piano, respectively.
This stuff is really interesting to think about when you’re comparing the work indivdidual members of a group did with their other bands – I’m obsessed with Benny Goodman’s small groups, and have been enthralled by the differences between this group, Goodman’s bigger band stuff, and the role of Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, etc, in those small groups and in their own big bands. You can really hear the musical emphasis shift from Goodman and the clarinet to, for example, the vibes/rhythm section in Hamp’s bands.
So the fact that Basie played in his rhythm section, and that his band was so influential in swinging jazz is kind of important.
…I’m not sure where I’m going with this, really.
But I suppose that one of my ongoing concerns as a DJ is how how to balance the old testament sound with the new testament. As a dancer, I much prefer the chunk-chunk sound of the old testament rhythm section – that high hat action in some of the 50s stuff (and late 40s, depending on who it is) gets up my bum. As a DJ, I’m much more flexible – I will happily play stuff from the 30s through to the 50s for lindy hoppers (with deviations into more modern stuff in the old school style), and from the 20s (and more recently if it rocks) for charleston and other dances. I feel I have a ‘responsibility’ as a DJ to sample good music from all these historical periods, and more importantly, from the range of swinging jazz that is available. While I feel I can comment on musical choice and taste and its impact on dancing in my local community as a dancer, I am more reluctant to make those value-laden judgements as a DJ, perhaps because of the perceived power and influence of DJs in the swing scene. I’ve seen people do some awsome shit on the dance floor to all types of music, and who am I to dismiss something simply because it reflects the music of a period which post-dates the ‘original’ swing era?
It’s a difficult issue, because I do feel that I need to promote the old testament stuff in Melbourne because it is so under represented in the DJing of local DJs, and in the teaching of local dance teachers. We have a preponderance of ‘groove’ music, a definite emphasis on not-old-school dancing, to the point where new dancers frequently fail to recognise someone dancing in the ‘olden days’ style as lindy hop (and often don’t know that name for ‘swing dancing’ at all).
Yet, at the same time, my job as a DJ is to get people dancing, and if old school jazz doesn’t do it for them… I can either trick them into it, leading them gently back to the Good Old Days, using such tools as the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra, Mora’s Modern Rhythmists and the Kansas City Band, or I can hop on the old high horse and play with no reference to what’s going on on the dance floor around/below me.
This seems the perennial question for a DJ who plays almost exclusively in their own, local scene (particularly one which is as parochial as Melbourne).
My solution, though, has been to follow my nose – to seek out the artists and music that I really enjoy, and to combine them in ways while I’m DJing that will get dancers out onto the floor despite themselves. Kind of a honey rather than vinegar approach. There are a number of on-the-spot techniques for doing this, from quick transitions between musical styles and tempos, through to using a combination of old recordings, new remastered recordings, and recordings by new artists, and I’m endeavouring to master as many of these skills as possible.
One of the key parts of this process is simply collecting and listening to as much music as possible.
In Melbourne today, many, hell most of the DJs simply swap their collections, rather than seeking out new music on their own. One of the clearest results of this has been a definite lack of variation in the music we hear out dancing in this town. One of the less direct results is a lack of diversity in the dancing and improvisation we see on the floor – if dancers do not hear ‘new’ music (whether in terms of individual songs, or different styles), and dance is about making music visible, we are unlikely to see ‘new’ stuff on the dance floor if DJs continue with these small-pond approaches to music and DJing. And speaking as an old school hippy feminist, diversity = good. It’s sure as fuck more interesting than homogeneity.
As I am finding, though, the exchange of music between DJs serves as more than simply the sharing of music and the expansion of individual collections – it is a key vehicle for the development of interpersonal and professional relationships between DJs, and between new and more experienced DJs. To refuse to swap is a delicate matter, and one must tread carefully the line between ethical approaches to copyright legislation and forging relationships with other DJs. Particularly when one does not access to other avenues of becoming part of ‘the gang’ in this community.
With all this in mind, then, how can I go about both satisfying dancers’ desire for the familiar, and exploring and sharing my own musical tastes and passions, and consequently, encouraging DJs to include music that suits my tastes, so that I have the opportunity to dance to this stuff as well?
One the one hand, there are the practical DJing techniques I’ve discussed above.
But I’m also increasingly of the conviction that DJing for new dancers is really important.
I enjoy DJing for new dancers. The first set of the night is usually considered the ‘beginners” set in Melbourne, in part because of the importance of pre-social dancing classes (usually populated by beginners). When I began DJing earlier this year, that first set was dismissed by most other DJs, many of whom wouldn’t accept sets in that slot. As a new DJ desperate for experience, I happily took on thost sets. I discovered that the new dancers were not only fresh and excited about dancing (unlike the more jaded, cynical and decidedly picky more experienced types), they were also excited about the music, and far more open to a wide range of music.
So I enjoy playing for beginners, even if it means that I have to be careful with tempos.
And it means that I’m wondering if perhaps I should be strutting my stuff as a DJ at more beginner-friendly, after-class venues in order to advertise my tastes, create a market and perhaps ensure a greater tolerance for wider musical styles in the future?
Those sorts of claims feel insufferably smug and arrogant: it’s a tall order to claim yourself a guiding force in the dancing lives of a few thousand dancers.
But I’ll report back, and we’ll see what happens.

Joe Turner’s Boss of the Blues


There’s a reason they call these doods shouters.
The second of my amazingly quick-to-arrive CDs from Caiman (less than 2 weeks from Europe), I’m sucking up Big Joe Turner’s Boss of the Blues.
The super-jazz-nerds amongst you are no doubt thrilling to the thought of Freddie Greene playing on this 1956 recording. The rest of you should just settle in and enjoy… take care to get a firm grip on the sofa, lest Turner blows you away.
I’ve not had that much experience with Joe Turner. I have bunches of his stuff with people like Basie, and I’m pretty fond of most of it, but this is the first proper Big Joe Turner album I’ve bought. I like it. It’s uncompromising. I like those shouters – I love Dinah Washington especially. I like the thought that most of them started singing in church, and all that shouting is about Jesus. But Jesus dancing with his skirt up round his hips, on a table, dancing the crazy-I’m-dancing!-I’m-dancing!-like-a-fool type of dancing.
There’s lots on this album for DJing, from saucy blues to jumpy lindy, but our favourites in this house are the boogie woogie bits – that version of Roll ’em Pete makes you want to run around like a fool*. Sometimes the quality is kind of fagged** by Turner’s volume. But that’s kind of cool. Like feedback on a Nirvana album in 1992.
*funnily enough, I was just listening to my ‘lindy music’ on shuffle and came across another version of that song that I really, really like and wish I had more opportunities to play for dancers (from Basie’s Breakfast Dance and BBQ). It clocks in at 230bpm, so it’s kind of not all that playable most of the time. It starts: “Well I got a gal, she lives up on the hill” and continues…
**using this term the way my dad would – meaning ‘tired’ or totally buggered from overwork.

Alberta Hunter’s Downhearted Blues

While I fear I’ll die of old age before my order from raisedonrecords (via Amazon) comes, I’ve received both my recent acquisitions form caiman.com via amazon (they rock – Caiman are always really quick to deliver and no hassle to deal with). The first was Alberta Hunter’s Downhearted Blues, a live recording by one of my favourite artists. You can read about her over on allmusic, but I think the phrase ‘dirty lesbian nanna’ pretty much sums it up. This album is fun – you can hear that nanna working the crowd. Not so much for DJing, but it’s certainly worth listening to, and heaps of fun.

because you may or may not be interested…

Since I started DJing (way back there in February – CRAP, how time flys!), I’ve noticed that my hearing has kind of gone downhill. This upsets me, because I previously had amazing hearing – really the aural equivalent to 20-20 vision. But not so much any more.
I’m considering getting some proper ear plugs. But they cost a lot.
It’s a bit of a dilemma…

bleus round-up

I think it’s worth me running through DJing at the Blues night last Sunday, seeing as how I took the trouble to blog about it.
Much of this I’ve copied from my post on Swing Talk, so feel free to skim-read/skip. But I have added some additional comments, so you might just miss out if you do.
To start with, here’s my set list (Sunday 4th June 2006, first set (9.30-10.30pm)).

 

 

 

Name Artist Album Year BPM
Willow Weep For Me Louis Armstrong Ella And Louis Again [MFSL] 1957 90
My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More Alberta Hunter Amtrak Blues 1978 76
Reckless Blues Velma Middleton with Louis Armstrong and the All Stars The Complete Decca Studio Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars (disc 06)   89
I Ain No Iceman Cow Cow Davenport History of the Blues – disc2   89
Save It, Pretty Mama Sidney Bechet The Blue Note Years 1945 91
I Left My Baby Kansas City Band Kansas City: A Robert Altman Film 1995 83
Stormy Blues Billie Holiday The Complete Verve Studio Master Takes (disc 2) 2005 62
I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl – Nina Simone Nina Simone Sings the Blues 2006 66
I Never Loved A Man Aretha Franklin Greatest Hits – Disc 1 90
Please Please Please James Brown Sex Machine 1991 74
Amtrak Blues Alberta Hunter Amtrak Blues 1978 95
Back Water Blues Dinah Washington with Belford Hendricks’ Orchestra Ultimate Dinah Washington 1957 71
Baby, Get Lost Billie Holiday The Lady Of The Blues 70
Rocks In My Bed Ella Fitzgerald Ella Fitzgerald Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook 1956 68
Hamp’s Salty Blues Lionel Hampton and His Quartet Lionel Hampton Story 3: Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop 1946 86
Long John Blues Dinah Washington 22 Original Classics 96

There are some incomplete details there – missing dates etc. This is partly the result of slack cataloguing on my part, a complete disinterest in cataloguing on The Squeeze’s part (he’s responsible for the Aretha and JB stuff) and general all-round pftness.
This was my first time DJing to a blues crowd at anything other than a party. It was a bit weird, for a few reasons:

  • technical issues. there are always technical issues. but there were only two pissy speakers, no bass to speak of and a very crowded room. so i had to really fiddle with the knobs. mostly to no effect. but this screwed with some of my song choices. i learnt a lot about playing under these conditions.
  • it’s really dark. so you can’t see what people are doing. this makes it tricky to judge the mood of the crowd.
  • blues dancing is kind of samey. so you can’t really judge the mood or energy levels of the room by what people are doing on the dance floor
  • i felt like they would have danced to anything – this isn’t like playing for experienced dancers or picky lindy hoppers.

Lessons:
Blues dancing has a different wave than lindy. You work in longer sessions and with longer-term goals. I found I rely on tempo to change the mood in a room when I DJ for lindy, but this wouldn’t work with blues. I found I could play any old tempo, really, so long as I was very careful with mood. I found I was DJing according to mood and musical style rather than tempo. This could have been a major mistake, and I need some feedback from dancers to see how this worked out. I could be full of crap on that part. But the floor is always full at blues, so you can’t use that as a gauge.
Song choices:

  • The Kansas City song I Left My Baby, while it sounds great on my home stereo, at CBD and at funpit, kind of sucked on this system. It just ended up sounding like a slurry of sound with no depth or variation. If you know those albums, though, they’re a good indication of the mood of the room tonight: like a loud, raucous bar with people laughing and talking and having a good time.
    It got quieter when I played mellower music, but seeing as how I mostly played dirty nanna blues, the mood stayed pretty dirty nanna – loud, boisterous, rowdy, laughing fun. Which is what I want from a blues night.
  • I was heavy on the vocals, mostly because the instrumental stuff just sounded rank on the sound system. And I guess that was kind of an archetypal beginner DJ set – heavy on the vocals. But I was also going for high-energy, sassy but kind of tongue in cheek sauciness.
  • That last Dinah Washington song was an emergency song as Josh and I were playing the DJing equivalent of doctors and nurses, trying to figure out what went in which hole. In retrospect, Long John is kind of not appropriate for a noob blues crowd, as it’s really quite explicit.
    It is, however, one of my favourite songs.
  • Back Water Blues is my most favourite song ever. EVER. I love it so much – that’s blues dancing music to me. Saucy, kind of miserable, but really relishing the misery, not getting maudlin, but really stomping the blues with some sauce.
    I love Dinah Washington to bits. More than any other woman blues singer. I like the way she sings about sex and men and violence with a sense of humour and couldn’t give a shit about what people think.
  • Note the Aretha Franklin and James Brown. Perfect rhythm n blues moment that went down a treat with the crowd. A bit too serious for my liking, but a nice contrast to the rest of the stuff. It was nice to play ‘unswing’ as well, as it really worked for blues dancing, but was totally wrong for lindy hop.
  • During James Brown I had a request for Tom Waits, and I was sorely tempted as I’ve been digging Heartattack and Vine (thanks to a tip from Russell), but I wanted to bring the energy up, and that song is really hardcore and dirty.
    I really like playing ‘unswing’ for blues dancers, but sticking with the ‘vibe’ of blues music. I wouldn’t do this for lindy though, as it feels wrong. But it feels just right to have Aretha singing about dirty low down men or James begging his woman while you’re camping it in blues dancing. I’d have liked to follow up with ‘Root Man Blues’ by Buddy Johnson, from ‘Walk ‘Em’, but it was too strident and brassy for the sound system. But it would have been perfect, with it’s 50s sound and kind of queer lyrics. Really would have set off James’ dramatics perfectly.
  • The old scratchies went down a treat, not that I played many. But I was pleased when people appreciated the sauciness and humour of Cow Cow Davenport.
  • This blues dancing crowd is much more tolerant and interested in a wider range of music than the lindy hoppers I usually DJ for. Blessed be.

There was no after party that night, which is a shame, as that’s a chance for people to get all serious with their blues dancing. And I would have liked a chance to really try DJing hardcore for a crowd of blues dancers. But I had a nice time otherwise. Only danced for half an hour (or even less), but I really like Vibe as a venue – high ceilings, bar, wooden floor, olden dayes feeling. And I really like the mood of the blues nights.
…why do I keep typing bleus?

useful music and DJing resources

Music References
AllMusic
A music resource site with one of the most comprehensive (but by no means complete) guides to jazz and other music.
Red Hot Jazz Archive
Red Hot Jazz
Guides to jazz music.
Brian’s list
A local DJ’s list of great songs for dancers.
Radio Shows
Yehoodi radio show
The Yehoodi Radio shows are perhaps the most swing dancer-relevant radio programs available, produced by swing dancers for swing dancers. The focus is primarily on lindy hop, but not exclusively. The guest DJs are from all over the world and often post their set lists on SwingDJs or are otherwise regular posters on that board. The shows cover every type of swing dancing music, and the schedule is as follows:

* Stormy Mondays
Contemporary swing and jazz from artists, like Oscar Peterson, Barbara Morrison, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ernestine Anderson, and more!
* Toe Tapping Tuesdays
Swing with the big boys of big band and classic jazz, including Count Basie, Duke Elllington, Harry James and Buddy Johnson. Add a few contemporary artists, like George Gee, Bill Elliott and Dave Berger, and you’re in big band heaven!
* Jumpin’ Wednesdays
“It Rocks! It Rolls! It Swings! It Jumps! It puts you in the groove!” – The Treniers said it best. We’ve got a brand new format for hump-day. Tune into Yehoodi Radio on Wednesdays for the finest in jump blues, boogie woogie and early rhythm & blues. Catch the Kansas City flavah!
* Guest DJ Thursdays
Entire broadcasts of favorite tracks hand-picked by the local swing DJs you know and love. It’s like having your own personal DJ-ed event right on your desktop!
* Producer’s Picks:
Radio show producer, Jesse Miner, brings you a cool mix of his favorite tunes.
* Mixed Up Weekends
A weekend blend of everything.

Hey Mr Jesse!
Hey Mr Jesse is a talk show devoted to swing dancing music hosted by popular (and stunningly knowledgeable) American DJ Jesse Miner and Spuds (Manu Smith). The show discusses all types of swing dancing music, features interviews with big-name musicians and bands and an ‘8-count’ list of 8 top dancing songs. Show notes for each of the monthly shows are also available. Jesse and Manu are enthusiastic about audience-responses and welcome emails from listeners
Discussion Boards
SwingDJs
An American-based (but internationally focussed) discussion board for swing dance DJs. Covers a wide range of musical styles (from old school scratchies, through groove, hi-fi and so on…) and is effectively moderated to keep threads on track. Posters are friendly and helpful, and the board encourages members to use their real names. An excellent resource for DJing technique, but also for swing dance music.
BluesPulse
A discussion board related to blues dancing and music. Perhaps not as comprehensive as SwingDJs for music, but one of the few boards which is exclusively devoted to blues music and dancing. The posters are friendly and good contacts for plugging into blues dancing culture.
Swing Talk Threads
There are many useful and interesting discussions here on Swing Talk about DJing for swing dancers and about swing music. The best place to start is in the Big Beat a Rockin’ forum. Here are some that seem to have the most useful and on-track discussions:
Cheap CDs
Swing Talk thread listing the cheapest sources for CDs (for swing dance music).
DJ Bubs
Swing Talk thread where new (and experienced) DJs can ask questions about DJing – music, technique, theory, networking, etc
Online Requests box
Swing Talk thread where dancers can request songs they’d like to hear on the dance floor.
Bluesybluesblues
Swing Talk thread discussing blues music.
Previewing Music Online
Amazon
CDUniverse
Useful sites not only for buying music, but also for listening to clips from albums.
Buying music online
JB online
Cheap Australian online ordering.
Caiman.com
amazon.com
Jazz by mail
Barnes and Nobles
Gemm Records
Record Labels
Mosaic
Stomp off Records
Verve
JSP Records
Proper Records

DJing hubris, heirarchy and hokum

And so I return to the issue of how a DJ should regard their role, prompted in part by this discussion on SwingDJs.
Before I start in, I suggest you take a peak at that thread, not only for the content, but to see how posters use photos and their real names on this discussion board. That’s kind of unusual for discussion boards, though less so for swing dancers, who ultimately realise that being ‘honest’ or not using aliases online is relevent to a community which is ultimately embodied. Membership of this community is also heavily dependent on reputation and regard for etiquette (both online and embodied).
This is stuff that I write about in my thesis in great detail – the uses of online media by an embodied community, and the ways this online participation is informed by embodied practice and relationships.
But to be on-topic, and address the issue of DJs and their role…
Firstly, I should point out (again, in thesis mode) that I’m fascinated by the tension between ‘communitas’ or community responsibility and the DJ as ‘artist’. The two positions often seem at odds, though they are occasionally combined in the notion that a DJ should be in some way an educator (a role of great status in a such a pedagogically centred community), ‘exposing’ dancers to new and ‘historically accurate’ music.
As you might expect, these sorts of arguments are tied up with conflicting notions of aesthetics or cultural ‘appropriateness’, the relationships between music and dance, the power and status of a DJ in a particular local community, the way these DJs participating in a globalised community of interest (SwingDJs itself) bring concepts of ‘DJ’ and ‘DJing’ to their local discourses, etc etc etc. It’s all very complicated and interesting, which is why I wrote a chapter on it. But more on that later. Let’s look at the specific arguments raised on SwingDJs.
Here’s an interesting comment from one of the posters in that thread:

As a DJ, isn’t our responsibility to the dancers, not to an aesthetic about artistic expressively? In my role as an event producer -or as a DJ for an hour- I am indeed being trusted to “choose for everyone”. … I’m not saying that I’m even 1% of the artist whose music I’m playing, but I am the one who gets to decide what song, when it’s played and in some cases, how it’s played. My job is to watch the room and please the dancers …

(Greg Avakian Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 07:51)
And in response:

…As a DJ, isn’t our responsibility to the dancers…
…My job is to watch the room and please the dancers…

This is pretty much my approach, at least to the extent I’m running the event. I consider it a specific kind of party, rather than just a time for swing dancing. I work very hard to play music that people enjoy, and to play it in a way that helps them achieve an emotional- and social freedom that encourages them to dance. That’s my focus. To that end, I sometimes edit songs, or change the pitch/tempo, and I do it with the dancers – not the musicians – in mind.

(Matthew, quoting Greg Avakian, Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 15:16)
These discussions fascinate me. We have much the same talk going on on Swing Talk, the Australian discussion board, but on SwingTalk the participants are DJs and dancers, rather than DJs (who are also dancers), as on SwingDJs. The discussion on SwingDJs is also informed by a wider national swing dance discourse which is older, more complex, and far more sercurely focussed on social dancing than in Australia, particularly Melbourne. Here, we are continually working to ‘convince’ people that social dancing is essential to ‘good dancing’ and far more important than classes or competitions, let alone that DJing is actually a fairly demanding craft, requiring specific skills and resources.
…I should note here that I’m well aware of the fact that the latter argument is in fact self-serving, as well as contributing to the development of heirarchies of knowledge and cultural practice (very much as Matt Hills describes heirarchies of knowledge in fan communities…). And this of course begs the question, do DJs have delusions of grandeur?
Matthew’s point that he considers a DJed dance as a ‘special kind of party’ rather than ‘just a time for swing dancing’ echoes this.
Sooooo…..
How does all this fit in with how I regard my own role as a DJ in that community, and as a dancer?
I’d like to address that second point, as I’m fascinated by the way my attitude to dancing has changed since I started DJing, but I doubt I’ll have time for it here.
So how do I regard my role as a DJ in this community, considering the fact that I’m also reading criticallly, as a feminist with decidely Red interests?
Status and power
First, I’m well aware of the way being a DJ accrues status. It’s not a financially driven status (though I appreciate the $30/$25 deals, they’re certainly not enough to live on…though it does fund my yoga and (comparatively) modest cd purchasing). But it is certainly a social status which is quite interesting.
In Melbourne, status in the swing dance scene is largely determined by one’s standing within the largest dance school (things used to be different, but this school now dominates all embodied dance and online discourse, so…). If one is the school’s principal, one has highest status. Then come visiting teachers. Then come local teachers, then teaching cadets. Within the general body of the school (ie not within the rarified circles of teachers), being a member of the elite troop is the next level of cred, followed by being a member of the lower level troop. Now, if one does not have institutional affiliation, one’s staus is kind of amorphous. Because the school does not teach or endorse alternative dance styles (why promote another company’s product?), many students simply don’t recognise other lindy styles as lindy. Which is ironic, considering the oldest old school styles are in this ‘unrecognisable’ basket.
So if you want some status, outside this formal heirarchy, but through your dance ability, you have to be able to contribute to this embodied discourse in the appropriate ‘language’ (and now I’m thinking of Nancy Fraser and women’s participation in the ‘official’ public sphere). In other words you gotta dance ‘right’.
DJing, status and power
So where does DJing fit into all this? There are other roles which accrue status – being an MLX organiser is one (though probably not the way I do it – I need to cultivate an air of inaccessability, as per the school’s relativley inaccessible heirarhcy. Not sweat all over people, demanding a dance and throwing myself down stairs). But DJing is another.
Why? Well, for a start, and perhaps most imporantly, you’re ‘in’ with those who organise the events – teachers. So you got institutional affiliation. Secondly, you got distance – you’re up there on the DJ podium and relatively physically inacessible, but certainly socially distant (you’re literally not on the same level as the dancers).
Beyond that, you certainly gain status if you’re a ‘good’ DJ. Being a good DJ, however, is a matter of opinion and observance of fashion. Again, you have to speak the right ‘language’. One of the most fascinating things about learning to DJ has been figuring out how to affect linguistic drift on the local musical accent. In other words, convincing dancers that music other than hi-fi, groovey, funky late era jazz and soul is actually ‘good’ for dancing.
The most effective way of achieving this is to sneak alternative music song types into my play lists. Paving the way with hi-fi but ‘classic sounding’ recordings of new bands (thankyou Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra, Kansas City Band, late Count Basie and Mora’s Modern Rhythmists), you can prepare a crowd of dancers for earlier (and in my opinion, frequently superior) versions of these now-familiar songs.
Why DJ at all?
Can you hear the whole ‘educating dancers’ theme in there? I know I can. And it makes me uncomfortable. So why do it?

  • I like the music
  • I want more people to play that stuff so I can dance to it, so I need to contribute to a market demand for it (hey, go capitalism, go)
  • I really do feel that lindy hop works ‘betterer’ with this stuff from the 30s and 40s which prompted its development in the first place
  • there’s some bloody amazing stuff in those older recordings which people do like. Once they give it a go
  • diversity = good

So how do my goals as a DJ work in with the whole DJ status thing?

  • I gotta get the dancers recognising ‘my’ music as ‘good’ if I want to be able to play it. If they don’t like it, they won’t dance. If no one dances, I don’t get gigs
  • If I have a reputation as a ‘good’ DJ, then people are more likely to accept my choices in music

All this, as I’ve said, makes me uncomfortable. I do, really, want to make the dancers happy.
It’s like a drug – a room full of dancers totally going nuts on endorphines and adrenaline – you breathe it in from the DJ stand. And while it SUCKS to have have to stand there and watch, rather getting in amongst it, it’s still wonderful. I always have a moment of ‘I guess this is what it’s like to be in a cult’ when I’m DJing well and the room is really pumping. Talk about group emotional experiences and so on. There’s no more powerful a drug than a room full of people all feeling the same thing at the same time. And music is a wonderful tool for achieving that state.
So when I do a good job as a DJ, I not only get off on the vibe, but I also really enjoy seeing people having a great time.
How do I balance this ‘me’ stuff with my feminist politics… or how does a feminist swing dance DJ do ‘communitas’ in this environment?
Argh. That’s hard. But there are things that I try to do:

  • encourage women DJs or women interested in DJing. Heck, encourage anyone interested in DJing
  • share. Share knowledge, share resources, share networks. I don’t share copies of music, but I certainly share names of artists and songs. Not only because I’m a born tutor, but also because I want to share the love. And what could be wrong with hundreds of other people loving Benny Goodman as much as I do? And there’s certainly nothing wrong with giving names to other DJs so that they can thenplay the songs so I can dance to them!!. What a total score!
  • question inequity in the DJing culture. Not that there’s much I can do about it – it’s naturally an exclusive space (what with the money, technological and time resources it demands) – but I can try. And I can think about ways to improve things
  • be accessible to dancers I don’t know or who feel intimidated when I’m DJing. Be receptive to feedback, requests and comments. Juggling this with the demands of actually DJing on the night can be hard, but… It feels the same as seeking out new dancers to dance with, or always saying yes to new dancers who ask me. If you give now, you get. It’s a win-win situation, and you’re contibuting to a more inclusive, friendly, healthy community. Perhaps undoing some of that heirarchy bullshit
  • encourage people asking about song names to buy the whole album

This last point is becoming more and more important to me. Because it’s so easy to download songs (though I challenge most people to find half – or even a tenth – of the music we play on torrents or other illegal sources), people tend not to look for the whole album to buy. This sucks because:

  • you’re fucking over a whole bunch of artists and technicians in the music industry. Even if an artist is dead, their family isn’t. And the American jazz industry has a long, long, long history of fucking over black artists. Don’t be a part of that.
  • you’re not learning. When you buy a whole album, you’re learning about an artist and band and period in history that helps you understand who that one song fits in. It helps you find new songs. And because of the cross-pollitationy nature of jazz in the 30s and 40s, you’ll find new artists you love. And you’ll learn new stuff about the relationship between music and dance in that historical moment, your dancing will improve, and your DJing will improve!
  • I had to buy it, and I’m poor. So why should I subsidise your music collection? I’m giving the song to you free when I DJ.
  • when you download or copy or ‘steal’ a song from my collection, you’re screwing me over. Particularly when you DJ it at a gig later or (even worse), then trade it with your mates or sell it to your mates or students! Bad, naughty, wrong!
  • you can’t be a good DJ if you don’t love the music. If you love an artist or band or song, you seek out more of it. I believe that the best DJs are those with a passion for their music, and a thorough knowledge of an artist’s career, or a style or genre. And what could be wrong with learning shit?

I know that a lot of these arguments also justify not sharing playlists or song titles or artists. I imagine that as I get more experience and develop a larger (and more esoteric) collection, I may become more reluctant to share knowledge. But it’ll be interesting to see…
DJing as art
And while I feel uncomfortable with the idea of a DJ as art (is this some sort of Australian tall poppy cultural cringe hangover from high school thing – should I be over feeling self conscious about wanting to be artistic and creative in a public context?), sometimes it feels like art. Or at least creativity. It feels like the natural partner to dancing. As a dancer, you feel the way the music affects mood in the room. The longer you’ve been dancing, the greater your dancing stamina, the more you learn about musical structures, the more susceptible to this you, and also the more aware of it you are. But as a DJ, as I’ve said elsewhere, you have to step outside a little, to understand with your conscious brain, how it all works.
Ironically, the incontrovertible rule is that you cannot be a decent DJ if you are not also a dancer. And you cannot, possibly, ever, do a decent DJing job if you don’t also have ‘one foot on the dance floor’, keeping an eye (and your emotions?) on the mood of the dancers.
I also wonder if you can be a half-decent DJ if you don’t have empathy going on. I’m beginning to wonder if being a good DJ is like being a good dancer – you gotta have good social skills. You’ve gotta be a good observer, to be know how to make people feel good about themselves, and to find pleasure in making people happy.
SO,
Can you be a crap person and a good DJ?
Or is that just another example of DJ hubris – implying that all (good) DJs are good people?