Category Archives: music

Despite my better instincts, I’m going to do another post about ‘assessing quality’ in music.
I did the first one under the title Assessing quality in music for DJing part 1: the good song and that was such a long, tedious post even I can’t bear to re-read it.

With that post I’d intended to kick off a series of three addressing three points:

• Is it good for dancing?
• Is the song (or ‘text’ as we cultural studies types like to think of them) of high quality in a technological sense – was it recorded and mastered well? Was it remastered well?
• Is the digital file of high quality?

I can’t quite bring myself to write two more posts. So I’m going to squash it all together and write just one. I’m trying to write more concisely, mostly because it’s good craftswomanship. Also because who the fuck wants to read a long long dull post that’s poorly written?

When I first listen to new music, I assess it in a few ways. I’m usually thinking of playing this music for dancers, or I’m thinking of this as music-for-dancing. So I don’t have all these thoughts about the latest Uncle Earl album. Music for DJing – for my type of DJing – needs to do a few things:

• It needs to make me (and other people want to dance).
• It needs to be of a reasonable musical standard and to fulfill a few criteria (does it swing, is the band capable, is the arrangement decent, etc).
• It has to be a decent digital file. This one isn’t a problem when I’m ripping my own CDs, or if I’m downloading from a reputable online provider. But it can be a massive problem for people who share files, or who download torrents, simply because you can’t control the quality in those settings.
• It has to be of a reasonable standard in terms of recording and mastering.

I’ll address the last point here. Mastering and recording.
I don’t know much about this stuff, and I’m usually just going by my own ear. Which is a bit of a problem as my hearing is steadily degrading. So I’m going to talk about this issue using my own words and the way I think about the topic. I don’t have the language or knowledge to talk about it any other way. So please be warned: this could be a heap of bullshit.

Recording

Firstly, recording technology and reproduction of music media has changed steadily since the 1920s. I start with the 20s because that’s really where my interest begins.

(Image stoled from here where they write “The Columbia Orchestra in Columbia’s New York studio. Date is unknown, but the conductor is not Charles Prince, probably dating this photo to some time after his departure in 1921”. Image is originally from the Library of Congress).

Things about early recordings:

• the shape of the room was important as it funnelled the sound to the microphone(s)
• different instruments and musicians play with different pitches and loudness, so where you place them in the room is important;
• recording was expensive and there were very rarely more than one or two takes of a song until a) the later 30s, and b) the musician(s) became very famous.
• songs were recorded individually, as ‘singles’, rather than as part of an album;
• musicians did not always (if ever in many cases) choose which songs they recorded – their label or the recording studio chose their songs to reflect market forces, ideas about racially appropriate music and so on;
• once a song was recorded, that was it; there was rarely any postproduction fiddling.

Here’s a fun little video about making records in 1937:

(Direct link here).

All this means that when you listen to an early recording in particular, you hear a very well rehearsed performance (if these guys were professionals). You don’t get stereo. You often hear instruments in a frustratingly flat way – trebles are often too shrill, mids are muddy. You might be listening to the product of cutting edge technology of that time, but it will not compare to today’s technology.

Remastering

Many cheap CD versions of old recordings (ie from the 20s and 30s) are simply recordings of a record being played, often presented as poopy quality digital files. This means that you not only get the mess of an old recording, you also get the staticy, crackly, scratchy mess of a record and a shithouse digital file.
It’s better if a CD or digital version is taken from a master take – the original ‘master’ recording from which copies are made. It’s even better if that master has been carefully restored. Jazz nerds can crap on and on about remastering ad naaaauseum. Mosaic records have a nice example of that here.

As a DJ, I might purchase a cheaper version of a song (usually by digital download) with dodgy recording quality if I don’t have access to previewing. I might risk it on a new artist if I just want to hear what they did. But these days I tend to have a more general idea of what’s about – I don’t need to take a punt on Ellington; I know what he did. So I don’t often buy those very cheap, bottom end CDs with shitty quality digital files. In fact, I’m now regularly going back through my collection to replace shitty quality files.

So when I look for ‘sound quality’ in digital files, I want:

• None of that staticy ‘record’ sound. Unless it’s a very hard-to-find song.
• As clear a sound as possible – I want to hear every instrument, properly balanced. This can be compromised by the fragility of the original tape or record used to create this digital file. It can also be compromised by a shit remastering job, where someone’s done something like just dampen down all the highs to ‘remove’ the static, etc.
• A nice, clear digital file. In simple terms, I don’t want to hear that swishy, washingmachine sound of a very small digital file that hasn’t translated all the complex levels of a song (or the entirety of the soundwave action), or has translated things poorly. Songs that are torrented or shared in huge hard drive dumps are often compressed (made smaller), and this usually stuffs up the sound quality. I also really hate a digital file that’s got a nasty squawk or distortion when the volume gets high. I find that inexperienced DJs, DJs with dodgy hearing or DJs with a lack of care tend to use these sorts of songs without noticing. Something that can mark your set as pirate-central if you’re not careful.

‘Quality’ in context

If I’m just listening to a song at home, I can hack poor quality recording and limited remastering (if they’ve done as much as they can). But when I DJ, I need more. Because DJing never ever happens on the perfect sound system. There are always challenges: room size and shape, sound equipment, crowd size (a large crowd absorbs sound and reduces echoes).
But each room and each sound system is different. So a song I mightn’t risk at one venue, I will play at another because it will sound fine. My very best DJing experience was at the Famous Spiegeltent, where I could play anything I wanted and it sounded great. That sound guy had mad skills – he perfectly balanced the oldest, scratchiest songs. Unlike other sound guys I’ve worked with. There’s one here in Sydney who tends to up the bass because (and I quote) “it gets them up and dancing.” I’m quite capable of getting them up dancing myself, thanks buddy. In his case I always try to do a thorough run through of all the types of songs I might play (30s small band, 30s big band, 50s hi fi big and small bands, contemporary small and big bands) just so he understands the difference, and so I can hear him balance each song.

‘Quality’ and the dancers

When I first began DJing in Melbourne in 2006 there was a marked resistance to ‘old scratchy’ songs at the main social dancing venue. The music at this event was usually a combination of neo, supergroove and shithouse modern reworkings of swing songs (crooners, mostly) by people like Michael Buble and that actor guy. It was utter rubbish. I still can’t listen to Van Morrison without feeling a bit nauseous. There were one or two (literally – one or two) DJs who played other things. But they were, for the most part, finding it a bit of an uphill battle.
So I couldn’t just come in with a set of solid, big band classic swing from the 30s and 40s. Not only was the style unfamiliar for most dancers (argh), but the quality was challenging. I solved the problem by playing a mix of musical ‘qualities’ – moving from hi fi to lo fi and back again – and a range of musical styles. I am forever indebted to bands like the Campus Five for their excellent reworkings of classic swinging jazz.

I could have just played what I wanted. But that would have alienated the dancers, shat off the event organisers and generally done terrible things for my DJing reputation, ensuring no more sets for me. Ever. So I was sneaky instead.

Today, six years later, music in Australia has really changed. Most scenes see a lot of classic swing, in fact, the ‘chic’ music is more pared-down NOLA or hot jazz combos. Every now and then I get a ‘why can’t you play some RCR/Buble/whatevs’ and I have to stifle irrational rage. Eight years of dancing to that rubbish before DJing has fostered a deep and abiding hatred for dancing to it.

But when I do a set, I still pay attention to the dancers. I find that a set of solidly lofi stuff in a mixed room can be a bit challenging. It does sound dynamically a bit flat if you’re used to modern bands and hifi recordings. So I will drop in something hifi every now and then to change things up a bit. It’s a very useful tool – a bit of hifi to shift the mood. But I still won’t play neo/crooner/rubbish.

I have also heard the argument that new dancers find it difficult to ‘find the beat’ in older lofi music. I think this is partly bullshit. Old school swing often has solid, driving rhythm that’s impossible to miss. But the band as a whole swings, and this is more challenging for dancers who’re familiar with neo or modern music which might accent the back beat or not swing at all. If a DJ only uses poor quality lofi recordings, then they are going to be difficult to dance to. But that’s the DJ’s problem, not the actual song’s.

Summing up…

So, in summary, once again, this is a fairly in-depth issue, one I’m not really able to address concisely as there are so many factors at play, most determined by my own personal ideas and preferences for DJing and dancing.
But I will say, clearly, that a DJ who’s playing for lindy hop should definitely and without a doubt have a thorough understanding of classic swing. Swing music from the 30s and 40s. Because that’s when this dance really got cooking. And also when the musicians were fucking HOT.

If I’m preaching, I’d say that DJs should have a solid collection of this stuff as well – they should DJ it and listen to it regularly. Keen lindy hoppers should do likewise, simply to better understand the musical structures and rhythms that developed with lindy hop. You can’t know lindy hop without knowing the music it was danced to in The Day. Modern bands are great, but they’re recreating music of a particular style and period. And you’re doing yourself a massive favour by checking out the Original And Best.
Having said that, I am eternally grateful for modern bands creating classic swing and other hot jazz styles. These guys are so useful in a set, and they’re the guys we dance to when we go to see live bands. And at the end of the day, live music is the reason for dancing.

NB: When I DJ, I don’t think about all this shit. I just do it.

A little while ago someone on teh twittz was talking about song quality, and I didn’t quite get the chance to write about it then. But I’d like to now, because it’s interesting. It’s also a massively controversial topic, or at least a topic that every single DJ and every single dancer has an opinion about. If you’ve ever been with a group of dancers trying to decide where to go and eat, you’ll understand…

I had intended to cover all aspects of this topic in one post, but I’m rubbish at doing things succinctly. So I’m going to have to do it in parts. I’m not sure I’ll get to them all, but I’d like to talk about song quality in terms of :

• Is it good for dancing?
• Is the song (or ‘text’ as we cultural studies types like to think of them) of high quality in a technological sense – was it recorded and mastered well? Was it remastered well?
• Is the digital file of high quality?

I’m going to talk about first one here in this post, because it’s the biggest one, and it’s the most controversial and also the most subjective. I talk about the second one in the post Assessing ‘quality’ in music for DJing part 2: scratchy.

Firstly, a sort of get-out clause: when I say ‘quality’, I’m usually using the term fairly loosely, and with plenty of provisions. It’s quite a subjective word, and is used in lots of different ways by lots of different dancers and DJs. I use it in different ways myself.

I’m going to talk about how I think about quality of a particular song in terms of DJing for dancers live, while you’re there with them on the dance floor. Not DJing over the radio or by other broadcast. I also want to note that when I’m just sitting around the house listening to the stereo or playing songs on my ipod, the ‘quality’ of the song isn’t at all important.

When I first add a song to my laptop’s music library, I consider a few key elements when I’m assessing ‘quality’. The most important one is Is it ‘good for dancing?’

Most importantly, the song must make me want to dance. Not every song I love makes me want to dance. This usually means that they don’t swing (in a rhythmic sense). Or that they’re not a style appropriate for dancing.

I love 50s southern gospel, but it’s often not great for dancing, particularly if it is intended as religious or sacred music. I have a category in my music library called ‘kissing songs’, which are songs that are between about 90 and 120bpm, often have vocals, have quite romantic lyrics, can be very beautiful, wonderful songs, but do not make me want to dance. Unless that dance is with The Squeeze and we literally have our cheeks squeezed together while we cuddle. I don’t DJs those songs for dancers. There was discussion on SwingDJs recently about ‘beautiful swing ballads for dancing’ which I read as a discussion about these ‘kissing songs’ which has made me rethink my position. A little bit.

I think this definition of quality is perhaps the most personal or specific to each DJ. We each have different ideas of what constitutes ‘good dancing’, and a large part of this definition is determined by our own experiences as dancers. So our own individual ideas of what constitutes a ‘good dance’ or ‘fun’ or whatever it is we look for in a dance, as dancers shapes the way we assess a song as a DJ.

I also feel that this is why it’s really important to dance as much as you can when you start DJing. But also to continue to dance as much as you can once you’ve been DJing for a while. That last one can be tricky, as sitting on your clack DJing makes it a little difficult to dance.

Not only will you see musical trends in the contemporary scene come and go, but your understanding of music as a dancer will change as your dancing changes, and as you experience dancing to more DJs and bands and with more and more people. Your experience of different dances and dance traditions will also shape your experiences of music on the dance floor. I do feel (and this is a fairly contentious point, and one I almost hesitate to write) that a very new lindy hopper – someone with only one or two years dancing – really isn’t going to do the best job as a DJ. They simply haven’t experienced the rhythms and structures of swing music in their bodies, as a jazz dancer. So they don’t really understand why a particular song might be a bit shit for dancing.

The follow up point to this is, of course, that there is no point at which you can say – as a dancer and as a DJ – that you have ‘learnt everything’ or ‘know everything you need to know’ about music. Most of us dancing lindy hop today do not come from a culture where dance is a part of everyday life. I don’t mean something that you do ‘every day’ in a distinct block of time, but something that permeates your everyday life – from skipping rope as a child to singing in church telling stories in a particular way.

This means that most of us will never quite catch up, musically. DJs and dancers should be always looking for the next learning experience, and always open to new things. As The Squeeze says, “Don’t deny knowledge!”

This is why I’m always very sceptical of dancers who think they’re too good or know too much to attend a particular dance class, or who think they’re too good a dancer to participate in a level assessment exercise at a dance camp. Not only is it an arrogant declaration (which everyone present sees) that they are ‘the best’ and ‘know everything’, but it’s also declaring that ‘learning is done’, or that that person can only learn in particular circumstances, which they control.

I feel that even the most poorly taught dance class teaches you something. Not just how not to teach, but also real things about movement and dance. About understanding how your body works, and how variety and difference in types of movement affect dance.

As an example, I’ve always liked dance classes where you rotate partners because you can guarantee you’ll feel one version of the move that’s ‘wrong’ and that you can’t really recognise ‘right’ until you know what ‘wrong’ feels like. Dancing only with one or two other people in a learning environment (which can include the social dance floor as well as a class) will limit your understanding of how a movement works or feels.

I guess I can sum all that up by saying that my assessment of a song which is ‘good for dancing’ is the product of my experiences as a dancer. I am not trying to make authoritative rules about what constitutes a ‘good song’.

When I’m listening to new music, I look for these things in the song itself (ie not the recording quality or digital sound file quality, but the actual song):

• Does it make me want to dance?

  If I can find the beat quickly and easily, if it makes me want to tap my feet, if it makes it difficult to sit still, if I find myself imagining moving to the song, if I have that intensifying of emotion that is a bit like the music has gotten into my body and made me feel its rhythms emotionally, then it’s a good song.

• Can I imagine people dancing to it?

  This is one of those things that makes it useful to have a wider range of dancing experience. I have to be able to imagine dancers making use of what they hear in the song. Do the rhythms and timing and structure match up with how we move in lindy hop or balboa or blues or whatevs? Is it complex enough to keep more experienced dancers interested? Is it simple enough to make it easier for new dancers to join in?

  One song mightn’t contain both these qualities, but it should have something that makes it possible for me to imagine people dancing to it.

  This is a problematic definition. Because, of course, it depends on my own experience of other dancers. Who have I seen dance? Do I have the experience to understand what I’m seeing?

  As an aside, in a recent conversation with a friend I noted that there are some dancers who are so technically and rhythmically (and so on) beyond me, that I can’t see where there weaknesses are. So I can’t look at Frida Segardahl’s dancing and see the errors in her dancing that are beyond my own ability. I can only assess her dancing by what I know about dancing. Which of course means that I’m going to fall very short of really understanding what she’s doing. I’m probably going to be full of wrong.

  So when I choose songs that are suitable for more experienced dancers, I’m really only working from my experiences. As a DJ, you do get to know music and begin to understand what you see on a dance floor in a way you don’t if you’re just dancing, but I feel it as a definite limitation in my DJing. If I were a better dancer, I could be a better DJ.

  But let me be clear. I do not want to suggest that a terrible DJ is a terrible dancer. There are plenty of really awful DJs who are fabulous dancers, for all sorts of reasons. There are plenty of excellent DJs who are ordinary dancers. And of course excellent DJs who are also excellent dancers. I do, however, want to retain the idea that a DJ must have some level of dancing proficiency to really do a good DJing job. And that the more dancing experience and skill a DJ has, the more useful this will be in DJing.

  Hmm… as I write this, I’m finding it difficult to really figure out where I stand. So I’ll just say: my DJing gets shit when I don’t dance much; the more dancing I do, the dances I learn, the better my DJing becomes; the best thing I can do for my DJing is to pay really close attention to the dancers on the dance floor while I’m DJing, and to understand how what I see might feel if I was dancing.

• Is it a technically decent song?

  Basically, are the musicians skilled? Is the arrangement pretty good? Is the band actually working together as a team? These are the sorts of questions that have led to my preferring older bands to new. I know it’s a stupid old fuddy duddy point, but I do feel that the old school doods were better than most modern day musicians. Not all of them. There were some real duds getting about then. And there are some fabulous musicians around today. But the day to day realities of living in the 1930s and being a professional musician were quite different.

• Does the song have something that catches my attention?

  Having said that about technical ability, I will overlook some technical weaknesses if a song or a musician has a little something that overcomes their limitations. So I really like the Midnight Serenaders, even though there are some problems with their songs. But there’s something about the bouncing lightness of their delivery that makes me feel bouncy and light inside. The female vocalist isn’t really all that amazing, but she has a confidence and musical relationship with the rest of the band that I really like.

  I really like the Firecracker Jazz Band, even though they can be a bit rough and ready round the edges. They really feel like a bunch of firecrackers, all up in your face. Their songs are energetic, exciting, and each musician really feels as though they’re bringing everything. I don’t know I can know these things, or where I get this feeling from. It could be the way a guitarist touches and releases the strings, or the way a trumpeter sustains a note without the slightest tremor – or adds a quivering tremor to heighten emotion.

  Again, these are all quite subjective readings of the band and the recording. They probably tell you more about me than about them. I guess this is why DJs develop a particular style, that you can pick from a mile off. I tend to favour high energy songs – songs that really kick me in the guts. This is because I’m DJing for lindy hoppers most of the time, and my favourite type of lindy hop has lots of energy and fun. I find it really difficult to adjust my sets to include less upenergy songs, even though I have masses of them in my collection. I like a sense of humour, I like a song (and a dance) to have a joke at the ready, a bit of sarcasm and irreverence.

  My favourite sets are to loud, shouting rooms full of adrenaline-crazed fools. I wonder if it’s because DJing is a bit like getting a bit emotional hit yourself. You sort of feed on or absorb what the dancers give off. When you stand in a room full of dancers, if you’re engaged with what they’re feeling, you feel that way too. It’s just how crowds work. So perhaps I DJ this way because I want to feel that way? Who knows. And I’m not sure I want to think about that :D

All this assessment of songs when I first buy them or add them to my collection is really just a preparatory step. I have so many zillions of songs, I really have to sort them in some way before I begin DJing. Not all DJs do this. But I don’t listen to music often enough when I’m not DJing to keep all the relevant information in my head.

I do have some fundamental facts glued into my brain: I know what to expect of Count Basie’s big band in 1939. Or of Benny Goodman’s sextet in 1939. And so on. I also have an idea of how a song will work because I’ve played it for dancers before in lots of different circumstances. Or because I’ve DJed similar songs before, or seen how a particular type of room responds to certain songs in other circumstances.

But I like to sort my music a bit before I DJ, so that I don’t have to clutter my brain with yet another shitty version of Honeysuckle Rose. And as I collect more and more music, I like to be able to get rid of lower quality recordings or remasterings of familiar songs. Or to make sensible decisions when purchasing new versions of songs.

So, to sum up, assessing the ‘good’ of a song is entirely subjective. This is why when I’m booking DJs for gigs, I don’t bother to think about whether they play songs that I would consider ‘good’. I look for DJs who can work the crowd, filling the dance floor and making them crazy. I look for DJs who are professional and easy to work with. And I do look for DJs who use sound files of a high quality and understand the importance of a good quality recording. Or of juggling sound equipment and the acoustics and mood of a room to make lower quality recordings work.

At the end of the day, a good DJ has a playlist full of good songs. But a brilliant DJ makes a crowd crazy with the way they observe the crowd.

I am full of hayfever and premenstrual rage. I am, of course, excellent company. The Squeeze is in the garage with his earplugs in, podcasts a-blasting as he rebuilds his bike.

Thinking more about music I might play for the Gangbusters set.
Brief: > 180bpm, high energy music that gets people dancing like crazy fools.

Classic big band swing rock stars
These guys are the top ten, Christina Aguileras of the swing era. It sounds a bit same, but that’s because you’re listening to the popular music of one very specific period, music whose primary purpose was dancing. The large bands are firmly managed by serious, competent (and often quite gifted) arrangements. The musicians are highly skilled, and the bands themselves were playing to live audiences, on the radio and in recordings every week, travelling all the time. These are professional musicians with serious skills. Solos are usually pre-planned, if not scored ahead of time.

Musicians are grouped by section (eg ‘brass’, ‘rhythm’, etc) and you often get a number of people playing the same instrument – a couple of trumpeters, a couple of clarinetists. This grouping and concentration of instrumentation allows the bands to bring a solid wall of sound. I like this stuff as a dancer because there are layers of sound – different parts, multiple parts to the melody happening at any one time. Beyond notes, there are layers of rhythms which can be very simple (the chunk chunk chunk of a walking bass line) or very complex (the brass, rhythm section and woodwinds all playing contrasting and complementary rhythms as well as notes). Solos are often contrasted against a ‘background’ of supporting instruments. There’s lots to hear, and lots to work with in my body.

Smaller groups of the same period
These are smaller groups, usually made up of smaller sections of a big band, of a group of like-minded musicians or of groups put together for promotional or creative purposes. The arrangements are sweet, but there’re usually more opportunities for improvisation. Each instrument is showcased in a way large bands don’t allow. There aren’t the same walls of sound or complex layers of melody and rhythm. Bands like Benny Goodman’s small groups often had quite sophisticated, complicated relationships between the instruments, but in his case in particular, they were also quite delicate rather than ear-shaking thumpers. I’m very fond of Ellington’s small groups for the way they show cased particular instrumentalists and matched chunky rhythms with interesting melodies and musicianship. I like the Chicago boys of the late 20s for their raucous exuberance. People like Joe Venuti and Django Reinhardt add a more string-driven sound that feels a little less chunky and a little more visually interesting. I’m also fond of bands like the blokes from Glenn Miller’s band working in France after his death, or Roy Eldridge’s smaller groups.
There are lots of smaller bands from this same 30s-40s period, and I tend to think of them as complements to larger projects (like Ellington’s smaller groups or Basie’s work with Benny Goodman’s small bands). There are also New Orleans revivalist projects, or, to put it another way, smaller or medium sized bands featuring New Orleans stars, but doing a more swinging version of New Orleans style hot jazz. Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory – all these guys were involved in projects like these. Sidney Bechet’s groups in this vein are massively popular with lindy hoppers, though they’re not quite the super-hot stuff they were five years ago. And then there are vocal groups and groups with a humorous or novelty twist. Slim and Slam. Cats and the Fiddle. Stuff Smith’s groups. Fats Waller. Teddy Wilson. And so on.

Working with all this stuff, I’ve certainly got plenty to get me through the set. But there are lots of less well-known musicians and groups to add. Western swing doods like Bob Wills. British acts like Danny Polo. The Harlem Hamfats (who have gotten quite popular lately, but who I’m not entirely sure are top shelf acts). European bands like the Harlem Kiddies and Leo Mathisen’s various bands. Smaller combos or bands led or fronted by vocalists like Una Mae Carlisle or Maxine Sullivan. Willie the Lion Smith’s bits and pieces.

…and so on and so on…

There’s so much to work with even before I get to contemporary bands. And I tend to feel there just aren’t modern bands who were as good as some of these bands when they were at the best. There are the odd contemporary bands who are really, really good. But the social and lifestyle factors which produced the musicians of the swing era just don’t exist today.
I know this makes me a bit of a boring old stick, but I guess I am quite conservative. But that doesn’t mean I will ignore or not play contemporary bands that are good. My sets are loaded with new bands. Loaded.

Who are my go-to guys for this set, then?

• Count Basie, 1930s-40s. Kind of a blunt object, but his rhythm section really pounds along. 1937-1949, for the most part. I don’t have anything between 1932 and 1936, which seems odd to me – I’ll check it out. But I like this late 30s/40s big band sound. Lots of musicians, thoroughly organised, pounding out solid, four-on-the-floor, commonest of common time swinging hits. Good fun for dancing, solid rhythms, catchy melodies. This Basie period is pretty much the archetypal swing era, and many of his band’s biggest hits are iconic songs in the contemporary swing world.
• Chick Webb, Ella Fitzgerald and the 1930s Webb’s band did some really amazing stuff without Ella, and then Ella did some really good stuff with the band after Webb died. I’m not talking about the cheesy novelty lyric stuff she sang, but the bits where she led the band in some really freaking amazing live recordings. This stuff is exactly what I’m talking about when I say ‘classic swinging big band for lindy hop’. There’s a reason they were the Savoy house band. And this stuff is built for excellent, up tempo lindy hop.
• Fletcher Henderson, early 1930s. Henderson’s early 30s band was super hot and super good. Lots of fast, hardcore songs which are just perfect for lindy hop. I think the band tailed off a little in the later 30s, but his arranging work with Benny Goodman during this moment demonstrates his badassery.
• Jimmie Lunceford, 1930s. This was one of those bands that is, in my mind, associated with the American (and mainstream Melbourne) lindy hop world shifting from groover to more old school music. I don’t have quite as much Lunceford as I’d like, but my preference is for the 30s stuff. Big, solid swinging orchestras kicking it extremely hardcore.
• Lionel Hampton Someone I used to play a lot, but really someone I’ll put in this basket, mostly because I tend to lump him in with the 40s guys. Which is a bit silly. There are great songs like ‘Gin For Christmas’, ‘Flying Home’, ‘Munson Street Breakdown’ and so on. But he’s not really my go-to guy for this sort of set.
• Duke Ellington, 1930s I have a lot of love for Ellington’s big band. At times he can be a bit too finicky or precise for dancing like a crazy fool. I find the discordant, experimental elements of his 40s and later stuff irritates me when I’m lindy hopping. But he wrote some amazing pieces of music, and I adore his 30s band. I actually prefer his late 20s big band stuff above all others, but it’s not quite swinging enough for what I’d think of as second wave lindy hop. There are a few songs I’d like to stuff into this set, though – ‘Stevedore Stomp’ (1929), ‘Hittin’ the Bottle’ (1930), ‘Jungle nights in Harlem’ (1930) and so on.
• Other people: Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Willie Bryant, Andy Kirk. I love these guys, but I don’t have a whole heap of them. Andy Kirk because his band didn’t do that much before they got too sweet and mainstream. Willie Bryant because… I just don’t. Artie Shaw I have quite a bit of, but most of it is not exactly where I’d like to go. Not counting, of course, songs like ‘Traffic Jam’, some of the Grammercy Five stuff and so on. I have masses and masses of Goodman small group stuff, but not quite enough of his big band to really work him properly. I have the hits, but I don’t really have a thorough understanding of his big band. Which is a shame, as songs like ‘Bugle Call Rag’, ‘Roll em’ and so on are great. I have quite a bit of his live stuff, but the quality is just too crap. Charlie Barnet, the Dorseys, etc. All good. Will play.
• Mills Blue Rhythm Band and related acts. ‘Big John’s Special’, ‘Algier’s Stomp’ and so on. All win. I tend to lump the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in with the MBRB. No real reason, other than I got into them at about the same time. Henry Red Allen. Joining many of these bands together. Luis Russell’s bands, for linking up Allen, Louis Armstrong and other folk. At this point I tend to follow artists and pick them up in various bands.

I’m currently preparing for a set at the upcoming Melbourne Lindy Exchange, and figured I might annotate the process.

[Rereading, this has turned out to be a really boring post. I’ll post with interesting band names and song ideas later. Hopefully that’ll be more interesting.]

MLX is currently the largest event in Australian lindy hop, except perhaps for Camp Oz in Adelaide, which is a week of workshops. MLX is an all-social event. By ‘big’ I mean that it attracts more registrations from dancers than other events. Its program is also ‘big’, but there are bigger. Before 2005 it was a workshop weekend with some social bits. It was the first Australian camp or exchange. In 2005 it changed completely, coordinated by the non-profit Melbourne Jazz Dance Association. I was part of that group. We ran it as a social weekend partly because we didn’t have enough time or money to book international teachers, but mostly because we wanted to run the sort of event that we would really like to go to: good floors, good bands, good DJs, all at as low a price as possible. Everything else was secondary. That last point about money is important as the previous year MLX had cost $500 for a full pass (which did cover 8 days rather than 4). We were, basically, a bunch of hippies. Five years later, MLX is far bigger than it has ever been before, attracting dancers from all over the country and world. It is the premier social dancing event in the country.

It’s also the one event in the calendar where I feel I can really DJ to my limits. I feel as though the dancers are most willing to experiment with new songs, have the highest level of fitness and a real passion for exploring new music. I have to note, though, that I haven’t been to Hullabaloo in Perth for a while, and I remember that as a similarly quality weekend, but with workshops. The all-social program means that dancers will stay up all night, to the very end.

So, anyway, whatever, where am I going with this?
The point is that in 2006 we ran two rooms on the Thursday welcome night dance. Which was a first time thing. Downstairs was straight ahead lindy hop, upstairs was Gangbusters. This is what we wrote about it on the website:

Gangbusters
The Cats and Fiddle vocal group recorded Gangbusters in 1939, a song whose chorus – “bang bang bang!” – echoes the feel of this high-energy Hot Side. The MLX6 Gangbusters features superfast tracks for speedfreaks, balboan and lindy hopper alike.
The MLX6 Gangbusters features DJ Trev Hutchison (Perth).

It was immensely successful, which is in no small part due to the word of mouth promotion and general building of excitement carried out by dancers before the weekend. There was much mutual challenging and commitment to dance every song. Trev did a really, really good job.

This was in a year when Melbourne had only recently made a sort of transition from extremely slow music to something a little quicker. There was still quite a bit of resistance to older music from the 20s, 30s and 40s from most dancers. So we were taking a punt. But it came off. We could have run it again the next year, but I can’t remember.

So now, four years later, I’m not involved in running MLX and haven’t been since we moved to Sydney in 2008. And I’m DJing a set in the Gangbusters bracket!

This year MLX is also hosting the Hellzapoppin’ contest, which is really just a very fast lindy hop contest where dancers battle in a phrase by phrase format. I think it’s the most interesting competition in the country. The phrase battle format makes it interesting, the tempos make it exciting and the lack of fluffy rules makes it feel a bit real. There’s also a strong audience enthusiasm component – the audience’s response contributes to the competitors’ score.
What this means is that the competition will have people’s interest in fast music up. Hopefully it’ll also mean that there’ll be dancers there with better fitness and better dance skills who can hack those tempos. But I am actually following the comp night (admittedly with a two hour gap) at the late night, DJing first at the late night. I’m quite ok with a first set – I like setting up the room and I prefer to DJ first if I’m planning a big night of dancing. And I am.

Here’s how I’m approaching the set:

• Warm the room from nothing to a set where the tempos don’t go below 180bpm. This is tricky if the room is empty. I’m probably going to start lower (no lower than 140, probably at about 160) and when I reach critical mass, I’m going to chunk it up. But it’s going to be something I do very carefully. In fact, it’s a bad idea to plan how I’ll handle this part of the night – you really have to pay attention to the people in the room, figure out how they’re feeling, and then respond to that. In this setting, as the first DJ, I tend to avoid coming in with a wall of massive energy sound because it just feels too aggressive. But if I start too chilled, I’ll never get up where I need to be. So I’m thinking higher tempos with a mellower sound or energy. Light, fun, but not too massive.
• Set up the room for the next DJ. This means that I need to get the room ‘warm’ before the next DJ starts. She’s expecting hot, fast tempos, so she’ll be a bit shitty if I’m grooving along at 120bpm when she arrives. It also means that I can’t totally kill the dancers before she gets there – I have to work the energy so they have little emotional and physical breaks. And yet still keep the energy, enthusiasm and excitement up. I predict the Gangbusters will peak about midway through the second DJ’s set, if she keeps the energy building. I think it’ll stay hot for an hour, and then mellow a bit by the middle of the last DJ’s set. Over all, that’s about four or five hours of very fast music. If you assume most people jog at about 150bpm, then a tempo range of 180-350 is kind of serious. Other things will affect the session though – the aircon (or lack of), availability of water, what’s happening in the other room at the same time, the social make up of the room and so on. When I’m warming a room, I often like to check with the following DJ where they’d like to start, so I can kind of move things that way.
• Keep it old school – in style at least. I’m going to aim for recordings from the 1920s-1950s, but I have a few modern bands I like who do some seriously hot stuff. So I’ll just see how things go. The newer stuff might be a good starting point.
• Favour the big bands and classic swing. There’s a lot of smaller New Orleans band action getting about at the moment, and while I do like that stuff, I think that the big, solidly swinging powerhouses of the 30s and 40s are where it’s at for massive energy lindy hop. I’m going to try to play like the Savoy in the 30s. I’m into bigger bands from the 30s for my own dancing at the moment because they’re BIG and that means they have to have some serious arrangements – the band has to be organised. And organised well. And that means they’ll actually be putting down some pretty bad arse songs. I also l like the depth of sound and rhythm and melody in a big band – there’s lots there for me to work with. I’m into a few smaller bands as well, but I’m going to avoid vocal groups like Slim and Slam and the Cats and the Fiddle, because I want to build sound and energy, and those guys often drop the energy. However, there are a few of these types of songs which are very chic with dancers at the moment, so I’m going to use those judiciously. Which leads me to…
• I’m going to work the wave. Which means that I’m going to work up and down the tempos, from 180-350. It also means I’m going to work up and down the emotional scale – from massive, full on excitement to more relaxed, lighter feelings. Just because the room is ‘fast’ doesn’t mean it has to be dull. I find that sitting on one tempo is boring, no matter what the speed. And using just one mood or energy level can be equally dull. In a room like this I will need to be sure I keep the energy up, though, so I won’t sit on the mellow stuff much. I’ll use it to offer dancers an emotional break. I think of this as starting at a base, calm level, then working dancers up to a climax, then backing off (but not back to where we started), then building them up, then backing off, then building up. The trick is figuring out where the final climax is, and just how much people have left in them after that. There’s nothing as horrible as a DJ who just keeps pounding away.*

Well, that’s my list of ‘rules’. The first rule of DJing, of course, is there are no rules. And as soon as you play to an agenda or try to work a plan, you fail to work the room, you fail to connect with the dancers, and you fuck up. Badly.
So my real preparation for this set involves my listening to all my fast music (which is quite a big task), weeding out anything that’s not totally top shelf. I’m looking at a range of tempos and styles and energy levels, so I have a little of everything on hand. And I’ll be able to respond to whatever I see.

*Which reminds me. At both exchanges lately I’ve seen DJs with their heads down in their laptops, headphones on, the volume up really high in the room, playing some loud song, and the floor empty because people have literally gone home. Meanwhile the poor volunteers who have to clean up and close up after the gig are exhausted and/or asleep in a huddle. This is not a cool thing. My rule for the last set of the night: there has to be 2 or more couples on the floor at all times. If I get 2 songs in a row with less, I end the set.