Category Archives: djing

Goats: THROWN!

Imperial Swing from dogpossum on 8tracks Radio.

Last weekend I DJed my first proper lindy hop set since November, and it was super fine. It was the first set of the night at Imperial Swing, a social gig put on by Swing Out Sydney. TOTAL FUN. It’s a great venue, and the sound system is pretty damn special. The DJ after me – Kat – is now my new favourite DJ. She was ON FIRE. Here’s the set list, because a friend asked for it. I aim to please.

Anyways, this set is pretty much what I think of as a ‘potato chip’ set: these are the sorts of songs you can just eat down by the handful. Nothing too crazy or confronting, lots of familiar stuff (C Jam Blues!), lots of energy. I was aiming for a high-energy party feel, and wanted to keep the tempos kind of reasonable as the crowd included some very new dancers. I figured familiar was also good, as many of the regular dancers who’d arrived were feeling a bit unsure of themselves in a queer space, so I wanted to help them find their feet. And, you know, we overplay C Jam Blues because IT’S A GREAT SONG.

title year artist album name song length (links -> where you can buy the album direct from the artist)

Blue Monday 1957 Jay McShann and his Band (Jimmy Witherspoon) 125 Goin’ To Kansas City Blues 3:40

Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop 1945 Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra 135 Hamp: The Legendary Decca Recordings 3:21

C-Jam Blues 1999 Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis 143 Live In Swing City: Swingin’ With Duke 3:34

Blues In Hoss’s Flat 1958 Count Basie and his Orchestra 144 Chairman Of The Board [Bonus Tracks] 3:13

The Spinach Song 2004 Terra Hazelton (feat. Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards) 165 Anybody’s Baby 4:57

Percolatin’ Blues 2011 Smoking Time Jazz Club 135 Lina’s Blues 4:14

I Like Pie 2012 Gordon Webster (with Aurora Nealand, Jesse Selengut, Gordon Au, Dan Levinson, Matt Musselman, Cassidy Holden, Rob Adkins, Jeremy Noller, Steven Mitchell) 162 Live In Rochester 5:38

Sales Tax 2012 Leigh Barker and the New Sheiks (Matt Boden, Don Stewart, Alastair McGrath-Kerr, Eamon McNelis, Heather Stewart) 132 The Sales Tax 3:43

Good Rockin’ Tonight 1959 Jimmy Witherspoon with Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Vernon Alley, Mel Lewis 160 The ‘Spoon Concerts 2:27

Don’t You Miss Your Baby 1980 Jimmy Witherspoon and Panama Francis’ Savoy Sutans 145 Jimmy Witherspoon and Panama Francis’ Savoy Sultans 3:56

Milenberg Joys 2010 Gordon Webster (with Jesse Selengut, Matt Musselman, Cassidy Holden, Rob Adkins, Jeremy Noller, Adrian Cunningham) 194 Live In Philadelphia 3:45

It’s Your Last Chance To Dance 2007 Preservation Hall 179 The Hurricane Sessions 4:31

Mr Gentle and Mr Cool 2005 John Hallam and Jeff Barnhart 173 Mr. Gentle and Mr. Hot 3:23

Tempo de Luxe 1940 Harry James 130 New York World’s Fair, 1940 – The Blue Room, Hotel Lincoln, 3:19
Savoy 1942 Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra (Trevor Bacon) 166 Anthology Of Big Band Swing (Disc 2) 3:05

St. Louis Blues 1939 Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra 183 Ella Fitzgerald In The Groove 4:46

Keep On Churnin’ 1952 Wynonie Harris 146 Wynonie Harris: Complete Jazz Series 1950 – 1952 2:56

I Ain’t Mad At You 1960 Mildred Anderson 158 No More In Life 3:04

Here’s what I was thinking as I was DJing:

‘Blue Monday’ is a song I often start sets with. It’s an easy tempo, has lots of energy, and a very simple structure. It worked well for me here as the music in the free lesson before the dance was mostly neo, and I needed a good transition to my more old-schooly music. Also: shouting.

‘Hey! Ba-ba-re-bop’. You know why I played this.

‘C Jam Blues’. By this point I had a lot of energy happening, and the room had settled into proper social dancing after the class. I decided I wanted to come in pretty hard with the energy (rather than easing into things), as I only had an hour. There were enough people in the room who could dance comfortably, so I figured I’d ring Pavlov’s Bell and get the kids jumping about a bit.

‘Blues In Hoss’ Flat’. I love following C Jam Blues with this. It’s the perfect Ellington-Basie one-two punch. BAM! Things were cooking at this point. A mass of people arrived in a big flow, so I needed to get really serious.

‘The Spinach Song’. Enough of that big band wall of sound! I wanted to get to some NOLA action eventually, so I needed a good transition. This song is a brilliant transition from that Kansas city blues shouter sort of vibe that ‘Blues in Hoss’s Flat’ sets up. It also echoed the Witherspoon song. But the instrumentation leans a bit more towards old school.

‘Percolatin’ Blues’. I felt as though the previous song was the crest of the first energy hill, so I needed a chillout song. Those previous songs had kind of battered people emotionally with their big, intense feelings, and I needed to give people an in to the dance floor if they’d not gotten up yet. So I dropped the tempos and the intensity so peeps could dip their toes in if they’d just arrived or finally recovered from the class and felt ready to try again. This was about twenty minutes into the set, which is the end of the first third, where I’m usually thinking we’re cresting.

Ok, enough with the molly coddling. Time to pump the energy up again. I’d said I’d play this in talk on FB, and it’s still massively popular. Personally, I’m totally over this version of ‘I Like Pie’. I’m tired of the mugging lyrics, and I’m tired of the fairly boring chorus. But each time I listen to it, I fall in love with Gordon’s piano. That shit is hot. Anyways, this was a crowd-pleaser.

But things were kind of loud and intense, and I saw quite a few tired people looking for a break after two longer songs. So I did ‘Sales Tax’. I think I made a slight misjudgement with this one. I needed to keep the energy up, but with a slightly different sound. Anyways, it wasn’t quite right. It was around this point that I realised there was some serious problem happening with the sound system. The sound was too loud at the front and not loud enough at the back. The sound guy had disappeared, so I couldn’t ask him.

‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’ – a live version. I went with more Witherspoon because I wanted to kick things up with some higher tempo shouting live fun. But I was quite distracted by the technical problem, so I’m not sure it was the perfect choice (though as the song progressed it turned out to be the perfect choice). But about 30 seconds in, a seriously loud alarm started beeping in the DJ booth. The dancers couldn’t hear it, but it was LOUD. The sound guy came running down and tried to fix things. Apparently someone had turned off all the music in the pub. On Saturday night in an inner city queer pub. Nice one. It WASN’T ME.

Anyways, I was kind of shaken by that, so I just lined up the next song I had in mind, and had to physically move myself out of the way, away from my laptop and the sound gear. So the next Witherspoon – another Witherspoon – was a random choice. I’d almost played it instead of ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’, but didn’t. It turned out to be a really good choice, but I felt as though I’d lost control of things for a second there. Anyways, by the end of the song, the alarm was off, I was back at the laptop and it was time to get into things again.

By the end of that song, it was time to hit that crest again. The energy really chugs along in that Panama Francis band’s version of a standard, but Witherspoon adds a really interesting alternative to the Jimmy Rushing version we hear all the time. And I was feeling a bit smarty pants, referring back to that Basie song with Witherspoon again.

‘Milenberg Joys’. I much prefer this to the Pie and Cake song. It rocks. It pulled the energy (and tempos) up. I’d have gone faster again, but the crowd wasn’t quite up to it. There were still a lot of new dancers, and the dancers who’d been around for a while didn’t really have the skills to tackle the massively higher tempos. The room felt hot, though, and people were kind of going crazy. There were quite a few glazed crazy-eyes in the room, which was pleasing.

So I did the obvious thing after this with Preservation Hall. I’m kind of over this song. I think it’s overplayed, and unlike C Jam Blues, I don’t think it’s quite versatile enough to warrant the overplaying. But it provided a nice climax to the energy in the room. And, long song. is long.

‘Mr Gentle and Mr Cool’ is a lovely, lovely song that an Adelaidean DJ, Jarryd, put me onto. I’m obsessed with it. It actually reminds me of the Preservation Hall Hot 4 album in the piano, so in my mind it was a lovely match to the song before. I’m not sure peeps who don’t know that Pres Hall small group album would have caught the connection, but, who cares! Anyways, it’s a chillaxed, more complex song, but it still has some tempo on it, so it doesn’t let things die.

By this point I was done with that modern NOLA sound. I needed something older and funner. I’m a bit nuts about this Harry James song. It was recorded live at the World’s Fair in 1940. It starts really mellow and kind of sweet. But mid-way it picks up with a bang! and becomes a fucking brilliant dance song.
I’m interested in the World Fair from that year for a few reasons. Firstly, there’s footage of people dancing together at the Fair. And they’re all women. WIN!

The Fair did, of course, feature lindy hoppers from the Savoy doing performances, but apparently this was a pretty shitty gig. Reading through my copy of The Man Who Recorded the World, a book about Alan Lomax, I discovered that he’d designed the music bits of that World Fair as a series of ‘everyday’ music spaces – jook joints featuring blues music, town halls playing bluegrass, etc etc etc. He’d wanted to recreate the contexts he’d recorded music in during his ethnographic work. But the Fair organisers reneged on his plans and forced the ‘mock Savoy’ into the plan, and abandoned Lomax’s much more interesting ideas. I suspect this shift was partly to blame for the shitty time the Savoy dancers had at the Fair (I have, incidentally, written a bit about this stuff in the post a snot-addled, animated wander through san francisco).

More usefully to dancers on the night, ‘Tempo deLuxe’ is what I think of as a ‘builder’ – it starts mellow and gets crazy. A good transition from the mellower song before to the fun I wanted to do next.

‘Savoy’ is, of course, a song about the Savoy Ballroom. See what I did there? It’s also a stock standard. And a jolly good song with lots of fun in it.

I’ve been playing that version of ‘St Louis Blues’ for years and years and years. It’s truly fabulous, AND it was recorded live at the Savoy ballroom. See?

Ok, so things feel exciting in the room. I was building energy for the dancers, but also because we were about to have a performance by Pretty Strong Woman, who does weight-lifting burlesque stuff. And I like to set up the energy for performers.

After all that Savoy stuff I went with Wyonie Harris because the crowd had quite a few rock n rollers, and I wanted to at least throw them part of a bone. Not much of a bone, though. Mildred Anderson was a similar token effort. Both of these are great songs, but they lean towards jump blues, and I find them great cross-over songs when I’m playing a mixed lindy hop/rock n roll crowd. These two are a bit slower, too, so they’re more accessible.

And then I was done!

Fun times! And as I said, Kat played a cracker of a set after me. She really did brilliant work. And I danced like a fool til the rock n roll/neo DJs came on at midnight, and then I went home. After I saw Kira Hu-la-la do a brilliant motorhead type burlesque show. Oh, how I LOLed at her clever jokes. GOATS: THROWN!

Busy Hamface, busies herself

You’d think nothing had been happening round here.
But everything has been happening.

Firstly, we had to finish off classes for the year. We were so tired out, it was a relief, and yet it’s a poo to interrupt the learnz. But knowing when to rest is important.

Secondly, we had MLX. The biggest event in Australia. I was coordinating the DJs. I got into bed at 6am on Saturday and Sunday because I was having so much fun DANCING. Pilates has made masses of difference to my stamina – dancing is just so much less work because I use my body more efficiently. The music – live and DJed – was beyond compare. It was a massive weekend, and all the organisers and DJs should be very, very proud of themselves.

Thirdly, I arrived home on Monday, utterly shagged, my knees destroyed, and had to get shit together for the Little Big Weekend with Ramona, which started that Thursday. I was running this one on my own, and it was pretty much 100% sorted. Except for those little things I discovered on about, oh SUNDAY. But that’s how running events works – you discover little errors or mistakes or problems, you solve them, you rock.
I have to say, this was a seriously successful weekend.
Ramona did the Ramona thing: she was ridiculously professional and excellent company. Being in a range of classes with her, it was made very clear that there’s a real difference between being a regular teacher and being a world class teacher with ten years of teaching under your belt. The classes were fantastically structured and executed, and Ramona’s physical abilities were so far beyond what I’ve seen in workshops with other international teachers this year, I was blown away. And then, the class content!
I asked Ramona to teach things that I was really interested in, and then she DID. A class in soft shoe, a class in blackbottom, a class focussing on three different character dancers (Snake Hips, Josephine Baker and… mental blank). It was a solo weekend (!!), and the material was really quite eccentric. The classes sold out in 48 hours, we opened new spaces, the classes sold out again. And then to see a large group of people just lapping up this strange, bizarro wonderment, working hard, laughing and just relishing the Ramonaness…. it was a real delight.
After the workshop day, we had a christmas party (I didn’t run that one), then a late night party (I didn’t run that one either), and the late night party was A M A Z I N G. My standards were high after MLX. But I would even say that this was better than the late nights there. That could just be local pride. But, seriously, it was just fabulous.
There were a few other sessions on the weekend – a training session for a performance troupe, a ‘masters’ private class (masters = hardcore solo jazz nerds) and a small teacher training session – and Ramona was a real trooper. The work load must have been so tiring, but she kept rocking. And I’ve heard report after report from attendees gushing about the classes. I myself feel so inspired and invigorated. We taught on the Monday immediately after the weekend and got to test some things from the teacher training. It was exciting and inspiring and satisfying!

So, the Little Big Weekend with Ramona: wonderful.

Thirdly, Alice and I had two classes to teach on the Monday after the weekend, as part one of a three night block at a larger venue. We did a 1920s partner session (boy we wanted to do blackbottom!), then the first in a series we’re calling ‘beautiful basics’. This first basics class was looking at rhythm in lindy hop. It was a really nice coincidence to see Ramona emphasising rhythm so fiercely in her classes. We’d planned this class ages ago because we’re really into rhythm in our solo and lindy hop dancing, so Ramona’s approach helped confirm our feelings.

We worked very carefully on a class that began with a strong solo component (looking at the ‘step step triple step, step step triple step’ lindy hop rhythm, gradually adding in new fundamental rhythms – stomp off, kick ball change, hold), getting the students to dance out those rhythms in combinations. The goals were to work on bounce, on timing (syncopation, swing, etc) and on combining and changing rhythms.
We spent about three quarters of the class on that, and the students worked very hard – we were so impressed. Then we had them partner up, and we worked on putting those rhythms into swing outs. Swing out after swing out. The goal was to show how rhythms can be the core part of a swing out, and that shapes or ‘moves’ aren’t necessarily the most important part (though of course that’s fun stuff too).
It was really thrilling to see them suddenly go “Ah-ha!” when they understood how working on the rhythms on their own were an essential part of rocking their partner stuff. And their swing outs! It was really inspiring. So that class was a lot of work, but a lot of fun.
Next week we’re expanding that concept of ‘beautiful basics’ with a class looking at ‘making space for rhythm in lindy hop’. In that class we’ll take some basic steps or shapes (swing outs, under arm turns, etc) in a very basic ‘routine’, and then look at how we can make those basic steps a framework for rhythm or jazz steps. So the goal is to create swing outs or shapes that are flexible and relaxed, and to help students figure out how their connection with their partner can be open to improvisation.
I was quite struck by how this week’s class, which was quite simple in concept (make your swing out a jazz step and dance on your own, then rhythm-it-up, then make it into partner work again) could be so useful. The key was the practice and experimentation. And it was really nice to see the students then taking each of those rhythms and varying their shapes or emphases. Hopefully this next class will be just as useful. The goal with this one is to help students see how the most basic lindy hop ‘moves’ can be frameworks or outlines for more complex, textured dancing. The key is to be relaxed and self-reflexive, understanding how your own movements affect your partner’s, and how to be open to invention and improvisation.

Fourthly, I had pilates last night, after a day of busy appointments. I love pilates. It feels like a nice, gentle, low-impact, relaxing workout. My knees don’t hurt, I don’t sweat that much, I can be calm and properly mindful and in my body. And by GEEZ the work has improved my lindy hop.

And now it’s Wednesday, and I have no obligations! Well, I have stacks of post-event admin to do, but I’m giving myself a break, as I’m totally buggered. So of course I’m taking this time to write and write, rather than going out and doing something calming and non-dance related.

Tomorrow, of course, it’s on again. There’s a GREAT gig featuring three bands on tomorrow night at 505. The New Sheiks are from Melbourne (I squeed about their latest album here), and I’m really looking forward to hearing them. Then there are the Finer Cuts, who are from Sydney, and who played the christmas party. Most of their band members also played the late night Speakeasy party and were fabulous. And the final name on that bill is Pugsley Buzzard, who used to live in Sydney, but is now Melbourne based.
I’m really looking forward to the gig. I’m totally and completely over DJs (sorry, DJs) – live music is rocking my boat.

But, now, I have to add a caveat. The DJs at MLX made me realise that it’s really only ordinary DJs that I’m tired of. The quality of DJing at MLX was so vastly far beyond the ordinary DJs I hear, and have heard at other events during the year, it makes it clear that skillz are not universal. My own DJing, sadly, was not really up to snuff. I think I did an ok, job, but I definitely wasn’t up to my past standards. Assessing my own work, particularly on the Friday late night in the lindy hop room, I think I’d put me on the non-crucial sets next year.
In retrospect… heck, thinking about my DJing now, the problems are: I don’t DJ hardcore events enough these days, so I’m out of practice; I spend more time thinking about dancing than DJing, and am not on top of my own music; I’m not inspired, and I’m not nerding up my way through vast quantities of music each week. Basically, teaching and my own dance work have pushed DJing to the back of my mind. For now. I think this is a good thing. I’d much rather use band than DJs, and I’d much rather be dancing than sitting on my clack watching other people dancing. I’m also 38 now, so I reckon I should do the hardcore dancing now before my body totally asplodes. Time enough for DJing later.

So I’ve had a crazy couple of weeks. It’s been really, really great. I had a massage when I got back from MLX, which really helped, but I do feel as though I’ve pushed my dodgy knees a bit further than I should have. Curse you genetics! Now I’m thinking about next year, and about events in the future. I have some schemes, and some ideas for other events. I’d like to do something completely different and unusual. Something that we don’t see in Australian jazz dance. Now I just need some funding (to the arts grants!), some business skills (to the TAFE!) and a crack team of people to help me pull these things off. I love having the chance to combine my academic experience with my dance love. I figure all that time applying for and getting grants and scholarships during my postgrad years is going to be very useful in the near future.

Dancing, you are the finest. Organising and planning, you are the equal-finest.

No news

[rage edit]HEY, if you’d like to give me a serve about being some sort of elitist, how’s about you a) read some of this blog, b) read my comment below. Because I am onto your shit, and I will NOT tolerate it. While I’m at it I DO HAVE A CLUE ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ETHNICITY, CLASS AND CULTURAL CAPITAL IN LINDY HOP, YOU IDIOTS.[/]

I’d write a post about gender and DJing, but nothing has changed since the last time I wrote about it. Women do most of the local DJing, men dominate the DJ line ups at big events. Women DJs problem solve collaboratively, male DJs don’t. Men mansplain technical problems to me when I’m DJing (even if they know nothing about sound gear). There are one or two exceptions.

I’d write a post about labour and pay in the lindy hop world, but nothing has changed since the last time I wrote about it. Teachers, DJs and volunteers are overworked, underpaid and exploited. Dancers refuse to pay more than $40 for a big live band playing for four hours, even though they’re getting the best goddamn dancing of their lives in a restored ball room with the best musicians in the country. Fuckers still make volunteers work for hours and hours, and DJs still aren’t being paid properly by large events (if at all). No, comping entry is NOT THE SAME AS PAYING.

LINDY HOPPERS: stop being such bloody tight arses. Pay more money for live music. Pay more for events run by dancers, just so you can dance. $6 for a DJed gig? IT IS NOT ENOUGH. $20 for a live band in a large, clean space with a good dance floor? INSUFFICIENT. Refusing to pay more than $10 for a four or five hour late night party featuring two rooms of music, six DJs, free food and requiring about 25 people’s worth of labour? YOU ARE TOO TIGHT, DANCERS.

Just in case you thought things were totally fucked, they’re not. This past weekend I counted three or four women who only lead, who I had not seen out social dancing before. They were all wearing nice waistcoats and trousers and jackets and ties and were PWNING ALL. Male leads: you need to level up, because the sisters PWN YOU; your half-arsed leading, your lack of triple steps, your bullshit lazy arse lack of bounce is being shown up. It’s not too late: GO TO CLASS. LEARN ALL THE THINGS. GET GOOD. Male follows: GET ON THE GODDAMN FLOOR.

Preservation Hall Hot 4 with Duke DeJan

This is my favourite Preservation Hall Jazz Band album. It’s called Preservation Hall Hot 4
“with Duke DeJan” and I like it because it’s a smaller group, and while they’re definitely trucking along, it’s a calmer, quieter album. Their version of ‘Dinah’ is my most favourite, probably because I used to run to it every morning, back in the olden days, when my knees could hack both lindy hop and running. Ah running, I miss you so :(:::

I should write a post about Pres Hall at some stage, but for now, the basics are: this is a band that’s been around for squillions of years, and is really the ‘house band’ for the Preservation Hall in New Orleans. The personnel have changed over the years, but the core ethos – play good music – has not. They have a jillion albums, and if you like jazz, you really should buy them all. I especially like the album with Del McCoury’s band, but you mightn’t – there’s a lot of stringy old timey action there. I also like the Preservation: An album benefitting Preservation Hall and the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program album, but the Hurricane Sessions one is good too.

Dancers tend to favour their version of ‘Shake That Thing’ (from the album Shake that thing), ‘Last Chance to Dance’ and ‘Sugar Blues’ (from the Hurricane Sessions album). But I prefer this quieter, gentler album. It’s really quite a different type of jazz – less of that raucous collective improvisation. More of that quieter, listening-to-each-other stuff.

More thoughts, also illness-addled and pseudoephedrine-fuelled.

Reflections on Anthologized Recordings: The Alan Lomax Collection on Rounder Records and the John A. and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip on the Library of Congress American Memory Website (vol 4, issue 2, 2002 of Echo) by Anthony Seeger

I’ve been doing a bit of writing and thinking about ethnographic music research (mostly because I’ve never quite resolved my own qualms about ethnographic research practice from my own work), and have come across this interesting article about the Lomax anthologised collections. I was especially interested in the comments about how anthologies might work in a digital environment.

I’m a big fan of the work by editors, librarians, DJs and other folk who develop curated collections of works. I like exploring the connections someone else has made between individual items. I don’t think ‘the album is dead’, but I do think we’re living in a time when strategic organisation and curatorship of art (especially music) can be quite exiting.

But then, I’m a DJ, so I would say that.

I don’t buy the argument that DJing isn’t as creatively worthy as recording or playing music yourself. I just think that DJing – as with other forms of thoughtful curatorship – is a different type of creativity.

This is probably why I’m fascinated by that picture of Slim Gaillard DJing. He was such an unusual person, was as likely to tell you a completely made up story about his life as a ‘true’ one, I reckon his DJing would have been great. And I bet he did things like talk over tracks, interrupt songs and other DJing badnaughtywrongs.

Mosaic sets

The big news here in DJ supernerd land, is that my new Mosaic Coleman Hawkins collection has arrived. Yep, it’s great. There’s some Fletcher Henderson stuff in there that’ll blow your brains with the quality: you really feel as though your guts want to asplode with excitement. And there are some Metronome All-Star sessions from the 40s which really rock my boat. Especially the Frank Sinatra stuff – I love it when he plays with a real jazz band, as they stop him bullshitting on with his show pony act.

So what’s the big deal with these Mosaic sets? DJ nerds tend to get a bit squee about these sets. I admit, this is, for the most part, a fanboy thing, and I use the ‘boy’ quite deliberately – jazz fandom is totally boy dominated. Except for the bits I pwn.

The Mosaic sets are built for fans, for collectors:

  • They come in nice, LP record-sized boxes;
  • The ‘liner notes’ are record-sized, and full of gorgeous photos, full discographical details and lots of nerdy detail;
  • They’re limited edition sets, so if you miss out on a particularly popular set, you MISS OUT and this is OMG ORFUL;
  • They’re carefully remastered, which is important when you’re talking about 1920s, 30s and 40s jazz – the quality is almost always better than anything else you’ll find (though I actually think the Bear Family stuff comes in a little before Mosaic on that score, and I do prefer the Bear Family liner notes because they’re glossier and often use more colour!);
  • They make it possible to ‘go complete’ on a particular artist because they include ALL THE RECORDINGS, including outtakes, in-studio chatter and general rubbish NO HOOMAN REALLY NEEDS;
  • Mosaic do some very clever promotion when they discuss the remastering process as it happens, in particular noting the difficulties they have with copyright or finding lost masters, and this makes you feel as though you cannot miss out because this is an essential set.

I have some Mosaic sets. They are totally GREAT. They are almost all of far better quality than any other recordings I own (though I’m still not convinced about the Duke Ellington small group set – I think my RCA/Bluebird ‘Duke’s Men’ CD sets are pretty good). There’s very little doubling up between sets (so even the Chu Berry, Lionel Hampton and Coleman Hawkins sets don’t give me much double up). Sets like the Count Basie Verve set are an absolute delight: brilliant quality, some fabulous 1950s stuff which really shines in these remastered recordings.
If you do want the definitive collection of works by an artist you’re going to eventually collect anyway (the Ellington set, the Basie/Lester young set, the Lionel Hampton set, maybe the Goodman set spring to mind), then the Mosaic box sets are perfect.
And there are plenty of sets which are full of great stuff for DJing: the Django Reinhardt set is brilliant (but, honestly, of limited use for DJing), the Lunceford set is no doubt a winner, the Louis Armstrong set looks fab, but could get a bit samey, there’s a great Okeh and Brunswick Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer and Jack Teagarden set (1924-1936). There are plenty of brilliants Mosaic sets (many of which are out of print but can be found on ebay or amazon), but that’s a lot music. You’d want to be very sure you could use it.

But you know what? Nobody really needs all those bloody outtakes. Even if you’re going complete on someone like Stuff Smith, do you really want eighteen discs of Nat King Cole crooning his way through low-impact mellow? There’s no way you’re ever going to DJ even all the ‘danceable’ stuff (however you define that). And buying all the ‘cool’ Mosaic sets will not make you a better DJ. To be honest, even ripping all the music into your laptop for DJing is a bit of a waste of time – you’re only going to need to re-rip them all again in ten years time when technology moves on. And then you’re going to need to re-enter all that bpm, personnel and danceability information again. AGAIN. Mosaic sets are great, but their greatest value is as an item to display and to remember you own. They are fansquee.

I wouldn’t recommend a Mosaic set to a new DJ. I certainly wouldn’t recommend them to a new dancer. They range from $120 to $180 a set, and while you are getting between five and eight CDs of the best-quality sound and all those liner notes, that’s still a big chunk of cash. And even just five CDs by one band can wear on a listener’s ear. It’s almost certainly too much for a new dancer or DJ who really isn’t used to listening for a particular musician’s style or discerning sound quality. I’d probably even argue that an experienced DJ’s ear is so trashed by bullshit sound systems and overly mic-ed big bands they can’t discern those differences either.

But still.
I’m the type of person who adores outtakes. I love catching a moment in the studio with musicians I idolise. Just a minute of swearing and laughing. A drunken exclamation of frustration. The patience of a sound engineer requesting another take. I love all that. I love it. I love listening for the differences between takes, imagined or real. I love these massive sets. I love the way they arrive in the post, in that massive, robust cardboard box. I love peeling open the plastic. I even like swearing at the infamously crap Mosaic CD cases. Even when I crack a CD. Which I have. I especially the discographical detail. I love going through my collection and weeding out superseded duplicates. Can’t say I spend that much time with the liner notes, though. Once I’ve read (part of) them, I’m off. Mostly because there are few things I hate more than jazz journalism. It’s one of the last bastions of wanking boys club bullshit.

But I wouldn’t recommend these sets to every DJ or dancer.

I would, however, recommend the Mosaic singles or small packs.

I’d have bought the Sidney Bechet Select 3-CD set if I didn’t already have 90% of it on other quality recordings. Bechet is one of those artists who’s not only good sauce for lindy hop, he’s also often in bands with other quality folk, so you get even more bang for your buck.

The Mosaic Select: Boogie Woogie & Blues Piano a little while ago, and it’s fabulous. Again, I’m not entirely sure it’s for everyone, as boogie piano can get pretty samey if you’re not a big fan, but this set is particularly good. I am a bit disappointed by the lack of women pianists – there are fuckloads of high profile women boogie pianists, but this set only manages to squeeze in one Mary Lou Williams track. SHAME. But there are some great Kansas shouters in there (Big Joe Turner!) and some fabulously swinging tracks for dancing. Or listening.

The Witherspoon/McShann ‘Goin to Kansas City’ Mosaic single is a must-have. I don’t think Mosaic sell it themselves any more, but you can buy it on amazon (bit exy if you’re not careful). You can buy it as a download, but I wouldn’t, as most of the commercial downloads are fucked up audio files. You really want that gorgeous Mosaic quality on CD. But that McShann/Witherspoon CD is solid gold. I DJ from it all the time, and I LOVE listening to it.

I also have my eye on this Bud Freeman/Jack Teagarden Mosaic single, but I’m not sure how great it’ll be for DJing.

So, to sumarise, the Mosaic sets are truly fabulous. They do tend towards the ‘top ten’ of jazz, so you don’t hear a lot of more unusual artists. But that’s ok, because most lindy hop DJing is about DJing the top ten of swing. If you’re a collector, or a DJ with a few years under your belt who just wants top shelf quality for DJing, then get into that action. If you’re new to DJing, go for the singles or 3-CD sets, just beware of the later stuff which is rubbish for DJing.
For my money, the best Mosaic sets are the ones following a particular musician through various bands, because you get a taste of a heap of bands:

The Chu Berry set will get you recordings from big bands led by Fletcher Henderson, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Cab Calloway, Wingy Manone, Lionel Hampton all from 1933-1941, prime lindy hopping territory.

The Coleman Hawkins set is also good, ranging from 1922 to 1947, with stuff by bands led by Fletcher Henderson, Lionel Hampton, smaller groups like the Chocolate Dandies and Mound City Blue Blowers, and later all-star recordings like the Metronome groups, and Hawkins’ and Cozy Cole’s own groups.

While there’s nothing as good as a well-mastered set of music by fabulous musicians, if you’re a newer DJ or dancer, you might be better off with the 2 or 3 CD sets by the big name labels for an introduction to key artists. And I do think the Ken Burns Jazz CDs are a brilliant place to begin collecting.

A-one, a-two, a-you know what to do!

A-one, a-two, a-you know what to do! from dogpossum on 8tracks.

linky

This month has been Frankie Manning month for me, teaching two Frankie themed classes a week (lindy hop and solo jazz), visiting Melbourne for the Shiny Stockings weekend with Chazz Young, Steven Mitchell and Ramona Staffeld (Ramona drove this excellent weekend) and generally doing quite a lot of research into Frankie Manning’s dancing and choreography.

It was, of course, Frankie’s birthday on the 26th May, and this has proven a nice focus for all this effort. I think it was a great idea to use the whole month to focus on Frankie’s work, and I’ve been feeling very inspired and challenged. I’ve also been struck by just how much joy this Frankie themed material has brought our students in class (it really does fill you up with happiness), and how important Frankie has been to the lindy hop revival. Yes, he was a brilliant dancer and choreographer, but he was also so important to the revival of lindy hop in the modern day, bringing not only his knowledge of dance, but his feeling for other people and for dancing. He would always begin his dances with the ideas that you ‘bow to the queen’ and ‘for the next three minutes you’re in love with this person’, and this seems like a pretty good way to dance – and live your life – to me. Respect your partner, love dance and dancing, let your partner be the centre of your world for the next little moment. I’m down with that.

So here is a little 8tracks devoted to Frankie Manning.

1. Jumpin’ At The Woodside – Count Basie and his Orchestra – 235 – The Complete Decca Recordings (disc 02) – 1939 – 3:10

2. “Big Apple Contest” – The Solomon Douglas Swingtet – 211 – Swingmatism – 2006 – 2:58

3. Hellzapoppin – George Gee – 356 – 2009 – 2:13

4. Cotton Tail – Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra – 236 – Big Ben – Disc 1 – Cotton Tail – 1940 – 4:49 PM

5. Flying Home – Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra – 197 – Lionel Hampton Story 2: Flying Home – 1942 – 3:11

6. Shiny Stockings – Count Basie and his Orchestra – 126 – Complete Clef/Verve Count Basie Fifties Studio Recordings [Disc 6] – 1956 – 5:17

7. Easy Does It – Big Eighteen (Billy Butterfield, Buck Clayton, Charlie Shavers, Rex Stewart, Lawrence Brown, Vic Dickenson, Lou McGarity, Dicky Wells, Walt Levinksy, Hymie Schertzer, Sam Donahue, Boomie Richman, Ernie Caceres, Johnny Guarnieri, Barry Galbraith, Milt ) – 129 – Echoes of the Swinging Bands – 1958 – 5:14

8. The Shim Sham Song – JW Swing Orchestra – 183 – Holdin’ You In My Holden – 2002 – 2:46

1. ‘Jumpin at the Woodside’.
This song is one of those Pavlov’s Lindy Hopper tracks that quite often provokes a jam circle. But it was the song to which the famous lindy hop routine in the 1941 film Hellzapoppin was originally choreographed (read more about that here). There are sixty million versions, but this one is my favourite.

(Whiteys Lindy Hoppers .. Helzapoppin)

Basie is a particularly important band leader when we’re talking Frankie.

2. ‘The ‘Big Apple Contest” from the Keep Punchin’ soundie.
Taken from a short film, the routine accompanying this song has proved particularly popular with lindy hoppers, especially in the last six years or so. It’s a high energy, challenging choreography, lots of fun to dance, lots of interesting shapes and steps.

The Big Apple contest from Keep Punchin’

This version of this song is important because it’s the most commonly used, and perhaps the best quality version we have available. It’s by Solomon Douglas’ Swingtet, and was transcribed by Solomon. Solomon is a DJ and dancer as well as a talented pianist who plays with lots of good bands, as well as with his own outfits. I think this recording could do with a bit more attention, really. It gets used an awful lot, and is the sort of recording only a band tightly connected with lindy hoppers would research and record. Musically speaking I’m not sure the actual song is all that awesome, but this is a great treatment, and the song itself is absolutely central to Frankie Manning’s history on film.

3. I don’t need to explain ‘Hellzapoppin” again. But I do need to point out that this version was transcribed and recorded by George Gee, a band leader with a long history of association and collaboration with lindy hoppers. He was right there in the early days of the revival, and he’s still right there, in the thick of it.

I can’t embed the video, but I can link you to this ‘Hellzapoppin, Then and Now’ video featuring this song played live.
I’m not sure where or if you can buy this song now, but I downloaded it from FB where George Gee was giving it away for free a while ago.

4. ‘Cottontail’ was featured in the 1941 soundie ‘Cottontail’ featuring Duke Ellington and his orchestra. This clip features the Hot Chocolates (aka the Harlem Congaroos), a group of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers from the Savoy Ballroom, and once again featuring Frankie Manning (read more about it here).

(linky)

5. ‘Flying Home’ by Lionel Hampton’s orchestra (1942).
This is one of the first songs associated with the lindy hop revival. Spike Lee’s 1992 film ‘Malcolm X’ is important in lindy hop history because Frankie Manning (and other old timer and modern day lindy hoppers with mad skills) were involved in its production, in no small part because of Lee’s fierce determination to highlight black American history. Manning appears in this sequence, but was also involved in the choreography.

lindy hop scene from Malcolm X

This song is another one that’ll start a jam if you’re not careful. I’m extra interested in this song because it was also famously recorded by Benny Goodman’s smaller groups, and those groups were really important because they were one of the earliest and most determinedly high profile swing bands featuring black and white performers. So I tend to think of this clip as a political comment on lindy hop history as well as a spankingly good dance track.

6. ‘Shiny Stockings’, Count Basie Orchestra in 1956.
This song is important because it was one of Frankie’s favourites, and he used it in classes and performances all the time in the revival period.

Frankie and Dawn Hampton performing in 2008

As a DJ and music nerd, I’m quite interested in the correlation between ‘new testatment Basie’ and ‘new testament Frankie’. This was the second half of these artists’ careers, quite different to their earlier work, and yet utterly dependent on that 1930s/40s history of hot and fast swing jazz. In these later periods of their careers, both Basie and Frankie explored subtler, more nuanced work (Frankie of course responding to what he heard in Basie’s music), both working with slower tempos and greater subtlety.

Teaching this past month I’ve realised that though you might see a subtler dancing at work in Frankie’s post-revival lindy hop, his movements are still those of a dancer who spent most of their time running about at high tempos in massively athletic displays of skill. So though his joints were older and stiffer, his body (and brain) still remembered how to move like an athlete, and to really recreate this (as if you really could!), you need to start big and athletic, then pare it back to the more nuanced essence. It’s the same with Basie’s music. His playing in the 50s is pared back from the stomping stride playing of his early days in Kansas to just a few careful notes accenting rhythm and melody in the 50s.

7. ‘Easy Does It’, by the Big Eighteen in 1958.

Another of Frankie’s teaching and performing favourites from the revival period:

(with Sylvia Sykes in 2006)

This version of ‘Easy Does It’ is a good one because it’s by the Big Eighteen – a celebrity all-star band mashed together for a few studio recordings. There’s a bit of grandstanding in there, but really, if that crowd got together, you’d expect nothing less. ‘Easy Does It’ was recorded by heaps of people, including Basie’s band in 1940.

8. ‘The Shim Sham Song’ – JW Swing Orchestra.
Another key song for the lindy hop revival, Frankie taught and performed the shim sham all over the world using this song. There’s a far more famous version by George Gee’s band, featuring Frankie calling the steps, but the JW Swing Orchestra was important in the Melbourne lindy hop scene in the earlier days. They recorded this quite good version in 2002, and though I don’t especially like this song, it’s absolutely central to lindy hop history and to Frankie Manning’s importance.

Though it’s not using that ‘Shim Sham song’, this ‘global shim sham’ tribute video put together for Frankie 95 gives you an idea of both the dance’s importance, and the great love felt for Frankie Manning by lindy hoppers all over the world.


(linky)

Happy Birthday Frankie, and thanks for all the lols!