Honeysuckle Rose

‘Honeysuckle Rose’ is one of my absolute favourite songs. It shouldn’t surprise you that it was composed by Fats Waller, with lyrics by Andy Razaf. Waller was super talented. Duh.
There are sixty billion different versions of Honeysuckle Rose. Sixty billion.

This is one of Waller’s:

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But I want to look at this one, by Basie’s band in 1937:

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I love love love love it. There’s something about that bigger band, and Basie’s different piano style that adds to the song.

I was just listening to this version by Jonathon Stout and Glen Crytzer’s bands battling together with this song as the framework:

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I’m not an expert, but this sounds like an adaption of the Basie arrangement. And then they add a bunch more layers to the song. The dixie ‘joke’ in the middle is gold, and a really good example of the difference between swing era swing and that earlier moment in jazz, before swing stormed the world. I’ve written about this performance a bunch of times, and you can follow up some links to the musicians’ own ideas about the song via links in my post bands for dancing.

hot as fuck: bands

It’s 45*C in Sydney.

Things that dancers just need to get over wrt live bands:

  • Long songs. Just deal, yo. You don’t have to dance the whole thing. And you don’t have to dance two songs with each partner.
  • Songs that start slow, then get faster after the intro. It’s not that big a deal.
  • Fast songs. You don’t have to dance the whole thing, and you don’t have to dance every song. Get some fitness, get some small dancing happening, get over yourselves.
  • A band’s songs all ‘sounding the same’. Geezus. They’re a BAND not a DJ. They got a thing going on: get used to it.

Things that bands need to figure out if they want to play gigs organised by and for dancers:

  • Dancers like songs that are about 3 minutes long. This is because they’re usually used to dancing to CDs. Technology enforced this 3 minute rule. Suck it up. You can play your long songs, yo, but if you play lots of really long, really fast songs, the dancers will eventually all sit down. SCIENCE, BRO.
  • Not everyone in the band needs a solo. Unless your band is made up of the Esquire All Stars, you’re probably not that good. Sorry, mates, but that’s how it is. This isn’t a democracy: it’s jazz. Even if you are that good, I’m not convinced you’ve always got something to say.
  • Dancers aren’t seated audiences. They’re not listening to the music the way seated audiences are. They’re riding their adrenaline, and their appreciation for your art is going to be tempered by their physical abilities. This means:
    • If you play all super fast songs, and all super long songs, your dancing crowd is going to die. Work the tempo wave, yo.
    • Dancers are jocks, pretty much. They’re not going to appreciate that complicated, noodly bit of low-energy, finger-fiddling bit of solo that goes on for four phrases. Stop that. It’s wankery. Get your head up, look at the room and not at your fingers. Work the crowd.
    • Engage the crowd. Yeah, you’re an artist. But right now you’re playing for dancers. Make some eye contact. Pay attention to what you see, and learn to understand what you see. The communication between dancers and audiences isn’t verbal. It’s non-verbal. Dancers learn to dig what you’re doing, so you learn to dig what they’re doing. Then we can all be a TEAM.
    • Long bass solos are boring. Sorry, Ray Brown, but four phrases of subsonic twiddling = dull dancing. Stop it.
    • Dancers are unlikely to clap your solo. Sorry mates. But they’ll let you know they’re listening with the way they move.

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!

Dry Throat Fellows

aka ‘Dry Throat Five’.


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I’m chasing their CDs because #want

Listening to them, I’d give you a dollar if they didn’t feature musicians from Les Red Hot Reedwarmers, most probably the clarinet player.

NB You can buy their CD through Stomp Off Records, or get downloads through itunes. You know I recommend buying direct from the band or label when you can. Especially because downloads can be such shitty quality these days.

Swing Session from Switzerland Belgium Europe

I bought Leapfrog by the band ‘Swing Session’ a little while ago, and it’s great. No, not this Swing Session, though that’s fun too. The Swing Session I’m talking about is Swiss, and I found them via the Red Hot Reedwarmers‘ site…. actually, I’m not sure where I found them. Looking at their site, I can’t make the French translate (because FRAMES! ARGH!), but the .ch suffix makes me think Switzerland. I recognise some of the band names in the musicians’ bios, but that’s not enough. In fact, if you scour the internet for the bands listed in these guys’ bios, you’ll find some really nice stuff.

It was a bit tricky getting hold of this CD. I had to send an email to someone or I had to use paypal on a French language site or something. It was all a bit complicated. But If you want a copy, you should send an email to Manu Hagman, who is a top bloke, and was very helpful. His details: Emmanuel Hagmann ehagmann at manusound dot net Or you can go to his site and buy directly from him.

So, anyway, this is a good band. I like this CD a lot.

What does it sound like? Well, firstly, you can tell some of the blokes in the band are Benny Goodman fans. There’s some spanking vibraphone in there. You’ll recognise songs like ‘Flying Home’, but the treatment is quite different. If you pushed me, I’d call this chamber jazz meets power groove. But that’s not a very helpful description. It doesn’t really explain the way the piano works in this album. You can listen to audio clips from the band on their site.
If I was to DJ from this CD, I’d play the really good version of ‘Bag’s Groove’, which is definitely powergroove, and has some really neat nonsense-mumbly scatting, a la ‘Incoherent Blues’ and ‘Mumbles’ by the Oscar Peterson small group. In fact, listening to it now, I don’t know why I don’t play it more often. It’s really, really good. Sometimes you just want to get down into your hips and pretend you’re Virginie Jensen.

The nice version of ‘Leap Frog’ on there is slower, and again it’s getting towards power groove. But I don’t think ‘power groove’ is actually a very useful or accurate description – there’s enough get-up-and-go in that track to make it a bit more exciting than your average power groove.
They do a version of ‘Yacht Club Swing’ which is really nice. These doods are super talented. But this treatment is a little more in the pocket than Fats’. In fact, the whole album tends to ease off the beat a bit. But it still has a really driving beat that makes you want to get up and dance. And I really like the vibes in this version of the song. It’s a really nice approach to what we tend to think of as a ‘piano song’. It’s as though Benny Goodman’s small group decided to do some Fats Waller.

So, if you like the sound of this, and can handle the convoluted ordering process, get ordering.

Listening to Louis Armstrong

I’m currently working my way through my massive collection of Louis Armstrong music using Jos Willems discography All of Me: the complete discography of Louis Armstrong. My goal is to get rid of all the copies of songs which I’ve managed to buy (usually when getting big multi-CD box sets, or when I upgrade from shitty quality chronological recordings or other cheaper sets), and to listen to and organise everything that’s left. The problem is that I was starting with about 1200 songs and Armstrong recorded for about fifty years, for most of which he was insanely popular. It’s slow progress.

I try to do this with all my music, but I just don’t have the time. Or, to be honest, inclination. So I’ll end up doing this sort of thing when I have time or feel pushed to ‘get it together’ for DJing, when I should be practicing instead :D.

But I love discographies. I love following a musician through all those recording sessions, all those different bands and cities and studios. Modern day musicians just don’t do the sort of studio work these guys did. They’d be in the studio in a different city every other week as they traveled across the country playing live gigs pretty much every night. Each session is about three songs long, and they’re almost always just one take. Until the technology got cheaper. And they’re all one track – everyone squeezed into one room and just played. Most modern musicians aren’t anywhere near good enough to pull that off. But these guys were playing for crowds every night, and they were traveling and practicing together every day. That was one hard core life.
To be blunt, some of these sessions are rubbish. You stumble over quite a few wrong notes, shitty musicians and combos who are really just not feeling it. But then you also find little blocks of songs that are amazing. Amazing. There’s a Mills Blue Rhythm Band session from 20th Nov 1936 where they record ‘Algiers Stomp’, ‘Big John’s Special’ and ‘Mr Ghost Goes to Town’ (I think it’s that collection of songs – I don’t have the dates in front of me) all in one day, and it’s just astounding. They were all obviously totally together as a group, really feeling it, and the compositions and arrangements were right on.

Anyways, the point of this story is that I’d like to keep track of some of the sessions I come across when I’m doing this stuff. Just so’s I can remember.

So here’s one from this Armstrong stuff.

The other week I was reading a section of Red Mars, the massive Kim Stanley Robinson SF classic about terraforming Mars, and one of the characters is thinking about Louis Armstrong. This woman is a Russian engineer working on building structures on the planet as the group set up a new colony. She’s an inspired engineer, a brilliant problem solver, and quite pragmatic, stolid sort of person. She likes listening to jazz while she works. There’s this one section where she’s thinking about Armstrong and the work he did with his small groups in the 50s or 40s (I can’t remember when – probably with the All Stars in the 50s), and she notes how in this period he’s full of joy. It’s a return to the creative, exciting and satisfying work he did with the Hot Fives and Sevens in the 20s, after decades of tedious (and often quite ordinary) big band work. It’s as though the light comes back into his playing, and he does the sort of improvised work that shines in a small group setting. He’s managed to get away from the overly structured, show-casing-the-celebrity model of his big band.

Anyways, you can argue about that opinion. I think there’s some really brilliant work with ‘the Louis Armstrong Orchestra’, particularly in about 1930, 31 and 32. But there are definitely times, especially later in the 30s, when those big band recordings really drag. Booooring.

So I’m listening through my Armstrong stuff, and get to a little clump in 1946. On the 6th September in Los Angeles, Louis Armstrong, Vic Dickenson, Barney Bigard, Charlie Beale, Leonard Feather, Allan Reuss, Red Callender, and Zutty Singleton recorded four blues standards as ‘Louis Armstrong’s Hot Seven’: I Want a Little Girl, Sugar, Blues For Yesterday and Blues In The South. Yeah, that band is hot. That version of ‘Sugar’ is just gorgeous. There’s a laid back, gentler feel to these four recordings. You can hear these pros just rolling it out. The tempos are slower, but the mood has that relaxed edge that only really experienced musicians can pull out. They know their shit, and they trust each other. I’d DJ each of these songs, but I listen to them at home as well, over and over.
The songs are overplayed, overdone standards. The sort of things that are at once absolutely essential to a jazz musician’s repertoire, but difficult to play in a new and interesting way. But there’s something really nice and relaxed about these versions.

…sorry, I’m getting a bit confuzzled here. A sudden dose of allergies have me all snotty and sneezy and confused.

But the point I want to make, is that these recordings precede some All Star work from 1947, which is what I think Kim Stanley Robinson was talking about (though he’s probably banging on about the 50s stuff, as that’s more high profile). In ’47 the personnel change again. Louis Armstrong and his All Stars feature Bobby Hackett, Jack Teagarden, Peanuts Hucko, Dick Cary, Bob Haggart, Sid Catlett and George Wettling did a live gig in New York. It’s the Teagarden factor that catches my ear. Those two are gorgeous together. But it’s a bit easy for things to slip over into cliched clowning, so these tight, exciting sessions are great.
I’m especially keen on on a session they did on the 10th June 1947 in New York, in yet another combination: Louis Armstrong and his All Stars (Bobby Hackett, Jack Teagarden, Peanuts Hucko, Ernie Caceres, Johnny Guarnieri, Al Casey, Al Hall, Cozy Cole). Look at those names! No wonder this is a great little set of songs. There’s a great version of ‘Jack-Armstrong Blues’ which is just beautiful.

Ok, I’m dying of snot, so I have to stop here. I have to talk about that Carnegie Hall gig, but I can’t concentrate, sorry. But I’ll try to update this post or add new posts as I come across sessions I especially like.

Bits and pieces

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.