happy day

LH.jpg This lovely thing just arrived! Sure, it was a little embarrassing opening the door to the post dood wearing only a (very) short, light cotton dress, but I like to think I made his afternoon a little more interesting. But it was just GREAT to see a giant Mosaic cardboard box under his arm.
I love Lionel Hampton very much. He’s one of those guys I got into when I was first interested in DJing. In fact, I think his album Tempo and Swing was one of the first I bought thinking ‘this is DJing music’. I’m still a massive fan. He made great dancing music – stuff that’s really stompy and makes you want to get up and stomp around. Probably has something to do with his being a percussionist.
Anyhoo, it was interesting to see Ziggy Elman‘s name on the first page of the first CD’s liner notes. Elman’s interesting, not just because he’s responsible for the freakin’ awesome solo at the beginning of Tommy Dorsey’s song ‘Well git it!’. He caught my interest initially because he was a Jewish musician ‘performing’ whiteness – he changed his name.
This is something that Dean Collins also did (Saul Cohen originally). And all of this rings a bell with me because I keep coming across articles about Jewish musicians and actors who performed ‘blackness’ in the early days of radio and vaudeville – putting on ‘black’ accents and black face paint. It’s something I’d like to follow up in greater depth at some point, not only because of the interesting Jewish history of American show business, but also because of the ideological ramifications of ‘performing’ ethnicity in swing culture generally.
Because, of course, when we lindy hop, we are dancing what was an African American dance. Dancers who are into historical recreationism are particularly keen on emulating ‘black’ ways of moving and movement aesthetics. Which is problematic, when you remember that these are predominantly white, middle class kids (especially in America). But all this gets even more interesting when you take into account the fact that lindy hop is getting very popular in places like Korea. A recent exchange guest was telling me that there are thousands of swing dancers in Seoul, and that he social dances every single night of the week – far more often than we can here in Melbourne. And then, remember that not all Australian dancers are white – we see an increasingly multicultural local swing community here in Melbourne (though still not entirely multicultural or diverse).
But back to Ziggy Elman. His solo in ‘Well Git it!’ has particular cultural resonances for contemporary lindy hoppers, as mediated by the internet. The Mad Dog people performed a routine in Danvers to this song in 2002 which proved very popular with Australian dancers, particularly in the then-very-introverted Melbourne scene. Here was a group of young people dancing crazy, wild lindy hop without rules or costumes! Suddenly, there was an alternative to the carefully ‘safe’ teaching of the larger school, dancers who weren’t the ‘old’ recreationists (‘old’ being over 30, mind you). Suddenly, lindy hop got cool. Coolness which seemed to manifest in dancers wearing jeans in performances. And, most refreshingly for olden days music nerds like me, an increased general interest in music from the 1930s rather than 50s and 60s.
The Mad Dog troupe featured a bunch of young dancers who’re now rock stars, some of whom learnt to dance in Ithaca with Bill Borghida (and other teachers), and some of whom were in the Minnie’s Moochers dance troupe (circa 1999, 2000), which I remember being very influential. In fact, I remember watching this 2000 comp performance in my first year in Melbourne. This is as white a lindy hop performance as you’re going to see, but holy smokes, it’s tight. And these guys were young teenagers. If you’re familiar with Borghida’s teaching, you can see his sound technical foundations in there, and you can’t help but envy those kiddies their early start on lindy hop.
This performance is an interesting contrast with the Mad Dog routine in part because it is so tight and carefully choreographed – each dancer is attempting to dance and move in exactly the same way (here‘s an interesting clip of the girls doing solo charleston). In the Mad Dog routine we see choreographed steps, but each couple (and dancer) is quite unique. And of course, if you watch this composite clip of old school lindy hoppers, you can see that though the routines are really tight, each dancer has a unique style. The Big Apple contest is probably the best example of this. So this representation or performance of ‘individuality’ through improvisation and ‘styling’ signalled a shift away from very white, studio ballroom/concert dance aesthetics and towards a more ‘vernacular’ dance ethos. Vernacular in that people were actually dancing how they felt, in clothes they wore every day, with their own particular ‘accents’. And of course, lindy is just made for young people – it’s fast music, it’s crazy dancing, it’s irreverent, it’s badass*.
It’s probably worth pointing out that the American lindy hop competition culture in 2000 was very strictly regimented. The scoring was complicated, there was a whole range of weird rules about what you could and couldn’t do or wear in the competitions, and the type of dancing produced by these competitions was kind of… well, boring.
Competitions were kind of the same in Australia at the time, though there were no competitions run by lindy hoppers with specific ‘lindy hop’ categories. The biggest Australian competition at the time was ‘Best of the Best’, run by the VRRDA (Victorian Rock and Roll Dance Association), similarly constrained and rules-bound. It was also very much a ‘rock and roll’ competition – it was unusual to see ‘real’ lindy hop performances until about 2002.
In 2002 the MLX hosted the first Hellzapoppin’ competition, a model borrowed from the American Hellza competition – no rules, an impetus towards historical ‘authenticity’, run as part of an African American cultural history festival in Harlem. Though the American Hellza comp has been largely superseded by the ULHS (Ultimate Lindy Hop Show Down) competition for wild, crazy, ‘authentic’ lindy hop – not to mention popularity – Hellza is the only competition in Australia which actually carries on this particular ethos. All other large competitions in Australia are run by one school, and this school’s teachers tend to dominate the field, with the general tone being a little… straight.
So the 2002 Mad Dog performance is important as it signaled a diversion from the rules-bound competitions of previous years. The Mad Dog routine is probably more significant in American lindy as it was a very public diversion from the supergroove style that was popular at the time. I recently heard one of those dancers make a general comment about how ‘we’ used to dance ‘groovier, smoother’ and are not into ‘rawer’ dancing. It struck me as an example of how American dancers often generalise their experiences to the international community. But this is important stuff because these dancers were very young (and still are – under 30) and have been very influential in Australia.
So Ziggy Elman’s name probably carries a little more interpretive weight for me than for most people, and one day I’m going to read up on all that stuff on Jewish showbiz history. I promise.
For now I’m busy filling up the last tiny bits of space left on my hard drive with Lionel Hampton goodness. Yeah!
* old people like it too. Frankie is 93 and he still likes it.

i like to move it move it

I did a late night gig last night that was very excellent fun. Starting at 2am and finishing at 4, I had to follow 15 minutes of heel slide competition (if ever there was a showing of hegemonic masculinity, that’d be it) to the Rocky theme, so it was a bit tricky starting out. But who does a better job representing The Man than Jimmy Witherspoon?
It was really nice to play a large crowd of dancers from all over Australia (and some overseas places) who were keen to dance hard and fast. Even after a long day of workshops, on the fourth day of an exchange, they were ready to lindy hop like it was 1937. Actually, it’s nice to play a set later in the weekend as the dancers are kind of relaxed and warmed up. The DJ before me had set up a high energy vibe which was really nice to step into – it spoils me to have a DJ do all that work to establish a crazy, fun dancing energy in the room, and to be able to just step on in (or sit right down, rather) and take advantage of that.
It’s a large room, and I’m not all that fond of the sound in there (the speakers are at one end of the room, so that end gets really crowded, really hot as the dancers squeeze up against the speakers). I think I should have gotten up and walked about the room a bit more to check the sound more often, but I was tired and I my buddies were mostly clustered towards the back (where it was cooler and there was more room for stunts). They’re not shy of letting me know if the sound is bodgy, either.
Half way through, though, I had to sprint off for a wee break. Took me literally 45 seconds, even having to squeeze through a crowd. I guess I shouldn’t have drunk all that water while I was DJing. But it was so hot up there at the front of the room I felt a bit dehydrated (didn’t help that I’d been up til 4 dancing like a freak the night before, then ridden up for lunch during a hot afternoon).
The weekend isn’t over yet, though. I have a set on tomorrow night (lindy hop from 12 – 1.30am) and there’s blooz dancing tonight (though I’ve just checked the roster and there’s apparently lindy on tonight as well – YAY!). A female friend asked me to dance the night before and mid-way through I was reminded of how great leading is. So I led most of that night. There are just so many fabulous follows in town – so many great chicks who’re totally fun to dance with. And there’s a bit of a shortage of leads (of course), so I’m laughing. I am still working up the guts to dance with Hanna. Maybe tonight. Or tomorrow.
Froggy Bottom Jimmy Witherspoon With Jay McShann And His Band 155 1957 2:37 Goin’ To Kansas City Blues 9/03/08 2:08 AM
Jump Through The Window Roy Eldridge and his Orchestra 154 1943 2:42 After You’ve Gone 9/03/08 2:11 AM
Lopin’ Count Basie, his instrumentalists and Rhythm 190 1947 2:29 Kansas City Powerhouse 9/03/08 2:13 AM
For Dancers Only Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra 148 1937 2:41 Swingsation – Jimmie Lunceford 9/03/08 2:16 AM
Moppin’ And Boppin’ Fats Waller & His Rhythm 173 1943 4:29 Last Years (1940-1943) (Disc 3) 9/03/08 2:20 AM
I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate Muggsy Spanier and his Ragtime Band 155 1939 2:56 Great Original Performances 1931 & 1939 9/03/08 2:23 AM
Joshua Fit De Battle Of Jericho Kid Ory And His Creole Jazz Band 160 1946 3:13 Kid Ory and his Creole Jazz Band 1944-46 9/03/08 2:27 AM
All Star Strut Metronome All Star Nine 176 3:12 Charlie Christian: The Genius of The Electric Guitar (disc 4) 9/03/08 2:30 AM
The Back Room Romp Rex Stewart and His 52nd Street Stompers 152 1937 2:49 The Duke’s Men: Small Groups Vol. 1 (Disc 2) 9/03/08 2:33 AM
Peckin’ Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra 165 1937 3:10 The Duke’s Men: Small Groups Vol. 1 (Disc 2) 9/03/08 2:36 AM
Shortnin’ Bread Fats Waller 195 2005 2:41 The Panic Is On 9/03/08 2:38 AM
Laughing In Rhythm Slim Gaillard and his Peruvians 142 1951 2:56 Laughing In Rhythm: The Best Of The Verve Years 9/03/08 2:41 AM
Turn It Over Bus Moten and His Men 148 1949 2:38 Kansas City Blues 1944-1949 (Disc 3) 9/03/08 2:44 AM
The Grabtown Grapple Artie Shaw and His Gramercy 5 178 1945 2:57 Self Portrait (Disc 3) 9/03/08 2:47 AM
Lavender Coffin Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra with Sonny Parker and Joe James 134 1949 2:47 Hamp: The Legendary Decca Recordings 9/03/08 2:50 AM
Cole Slaw Jesse Stone and His Orchestra 145 2:57 Original Swingers: Hipsters, Zoots and Wingtips vol 2 9/03/08 2:53 AM
C-Jam Blues Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis 143 1999 3:34 Live In Swing City: Swingin’ With Duke 9/03/08 2:56 AM
Sent For You Yesterday Count Basie and His Orchestra with Joe Williams 163 1960 3:10 The Count Basie Story (Disc 2) 9/03/08 2:59 AM
Shoutin’ Blues Count Basie and His Orchestra 148 1949 2:38 Kansas City Powerhouse 9/03/08 3:02 AM
Just Kiddin’ Around Artie Shaw and His Orchestra 159 1941 3:21 Self Portrait (Disc 3) 9/03/08 3:05 AM
The Jumpin’ Jive Chu Berry with Cab Calloway, vocal, & His Orchestra 177 1939 2:52 Classic Chu Berry Columbia and Victor Sessions 9/03/08 3:08 AM
Stomp It Off Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra 190 1934 3:09 Swingsation – Jimmie Lunceford 9/03/08 3:11 AM
Loch Lomond Chu Berry with Wingy Mannone & His Orchestra 153 1938 2:36 Classic Chu Berry Columbia And Victor Sessions Vol. 4 9/03/08 3:14 AM
Massachusetts Maxine Sullivan 147 1956 3:19 A Tribute To Andy Razaf 9/03/08 3:17 AM
Blues In Hoss’s Flat Count Basie 144 1958 3:13 Chairman Of The Board [Bonus Tracks] 9/03/08 3:20 AM
A Viper’s Moan Mora’s Modern Rhythmists 143 2000 3:30 Call Of The Freaks 9/03/08 3:24 AM
Good Queen Bess Duke Ellington 160 1940 3:00 The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition: Complete RCA Victor Recordings (disc 10) 9/03/08 3:27 AM
Mutiny in the Parlor Chu Berry with Gene Krupa’s Swing Band; Helen Ward, vocal; 137 1936 3:06 Classic Chu Berry Columbia and Victor Sessions 9/03/08 3:30 AM
Joog, Joog Duke Ellington and His Orchestra 146 1949 3:01 Duke Ellington and his Orchestra: 1949-1950 9/03/08 3:33 AM
Ain’t Nothin’ To It Fats Waller & His Rhythm 134 1941 3:10 Last Years (1940-1943) (Disc 2) 9/03/08 3:36 AM
B-Sharp Boston Duke Ellington and His Orchestra 126 1949 2:55 Duke Ellington and his Orchestra: 1949-1950 9/03/08 3:39 AM
Lemonade Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five 117 1950 3:17 Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five (vol 6) 9/03/08 3:42 AM
It Takes Two to Tango Lester Young and Oscar Peterson 104 1997 6:09 Lester Young With the Oscar Peterson Trio 9/03/08 3:46 AM
Blues For Smedley Clark Terry, Ed Thigpen, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown 137 1964 6:57 Oscar Peterson Trio + One: Clark Terry 9/03/08 3:53 AM
Christopher Columbus Maxine Sullivan 156 1956 2:21 A Tribute To Andy Razaf 9/03/08 3:55 AM
Smooth Sailing Ella Fitzgerald 118 2000 3:07 Ken Burns Jazz: Ella Fitzgerald 9/03/08 3:58 AM
Over all, the set went pretty well, I think. A few people came up to tell me they really liked it, which is always so nice. It’s just so flattering to have people take the time to tell you that, especially if they don’t know you. It makes me feel really good and encourages me to do my very best.
I played a few old favourites, mostly to hang a bit of shit on Trev, and I did think about doing a very mediocre set for all those people who’ve asked me to ‘play something good’ in the past. It maybe wasn’t the very best I’ve ever done, but it felt like a good job. The floor was packajammed til 3am, and I kept a dozen couples on the floor after 3.30, which was pretty good. There were workshops this morning, so the numbers were bound to drop off, but I did a decent job keeping them up and lindy hopping. It was nice to see the floor suddenly fill up again when I played Blues for Smedley and then Christopher Columbus. That’s a little super groove mini-set right there at the end. Two songs with chunky bass action a la Ray Brown at the end there (Two to Tango and BFS) for Jaymee to thank him for driving us home the other night (couldn’t quite manage Blues for Stephanie, though).
Overall, it was a very fun set to do and I’m enjoying myself this weekend. Yay.

ideas

I’m currently thinking about ‘faceplant fatigue’ as a tiny side-thought in a larger article and am collecting articles.

There are heaps of other neat articles on the sudden ‘rush’ to ditch faceplant, but I’m tickled by the thought of ‘social networking fatigue’. It’s so difficult having friends.

jumper

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I love superhero films. I love sci-fi. I will see anything on these themes, anything at all, so long as it doesn’t star Tom Hanks (whom I abhor and avoid at all costs).
So I went to see Jumper the other afternoon on my own (couldn’t imagine anyone else who’d go see it with me and understand how I wanted to watch it). I was expecting B, and B I got. But it was fun*. Until just now, when I started thinking about it.
Here’s a quick overview of the story (look out for spoilers):
A boy is bullied at school. He has an abusive, alcoholic father.
He learns to ‘jump’ between physical locations. There’s talk of worm holes and so on, but it’s mostly a matter of willing yourself to a new location. You must, though, have a picture or visual image of your destination – your jump point (this is interesting because it leads to obsessive, massive collections of photos of exotic places).
He grows up, and has a flash apartment. He jumps all over the world, stealing money from banks.
He’s chased by nasty ‘paladins’, who’re some sort of ancient religious order committed to wiping out jumpers.
He revisits his high school sweetheart and shows off. This ends in trouble.
He learns he’s not the only ‘jumper’.
He joins forces with another jumper (just for a very short time, it’s agreed) to kill a particularly nasty paladin, Samuel L. Jackson.
He discovers the mother who abandoned him is a paladin.
She saves him in Rome.
There’s a lot of fighting, the girl gets beat up a bit and involved in the violence.
The paladin gets killed (I think – I can’t remember).
He (and the girl) visit his mother. We’re left with a ‘there will be a sequel’ scene.
Basically, it was like watching The O.C. with special effects. The characters were physically quite beautiful (in a very conventional, O.C. way). There were petulant teenagers of both genders (I think the protagonist was meant to be in his 20s, but he read teenager to me), there were silly car chases (yay!), there were silly story lines… no, wait. I don’t think there was actually a story line.
Overall, it was fun. So long as you didn’t notice:

  • The way the protagonist (whose name I just can’t remember) treated women: find ’em, fuck ’em, jump out of their town and go surfing/leave them stranded in a foreign country. This wasn’t a feminist-friendly film. There were at least two female characters, but they didn’t really speak at all, let alone speak to each other
  • Paladins. Why do people call characters ‘paladins’? Especially if they’re baddies? It doesn’t really work, even if it’s meant to make you think about knights or swords or whatever.
  • Ethics. Well, you wouldn’t have to ignore them, because there didn’t seem to be any. It’s made quite clear that this a fairly selfish teenager, who could seriously do with a telling off. At one point he’s watching telly in his luxury flat and we see a news story about people stuck in flood water. The voice over on the news report is something like ‘how could anyone possibly get there to save them?’ and the protagonist looks away, bored. Needless to say, though he has the technology, he won’t be doing any saving. Or walking to the fridge. Or using doors.
  • The muscles-without-cause. The protagonist is seriously buff. Buff like Clark from Smalls – he’s seriously built, and yet his lifestyle doesn’t seem to leave room for working out, getting exercise, lifting weights, etc. So the Jumper guy is seriously musclebound, and yet he’s so lazy he’s suprised when the other Jumper guy (that young kid from Billy Elliot, all growed up) walks around cities instead of jumping from place to place. How, I ask you, could he have developed that body – hell, how could he not be seriously obese with that type of lifestyle? Clark has a slightly different problem – he’s simply so strong he’d find it very difficult to get any sort of resistance training happening. So how come he’s so buff and built?
  • The costumes. Oh, golly, there was bad teenage fashion in this film. Where was the big name French designer to save the costumes? Even the stupid Matrix managed to put together some decent costumes for the characters.
  • The camera work. Oh man, I freakin’ hate this director (Doug Liman), especially the Bourne films. The latest Bourne film was particularly painful – nasty cuts, editing jumping all over the place, horrible hand held camera. In most cases all this busy technical stuff managed to distract from the excitement and tension of the actual events on the screen – we’re so busy noticing the editing or camera work, we forget to pay attention to what the protagonist is doing. I dunno, perhaps it ‘looks’ like first-person real time games or something (hence marking its territory as ‘young adolescent males’ with this and the persistent misogyny in the narrative), but I just find it annoying. Jumper was at times really difficult to physically watch – the camera would move too quickly for your eyes to focus (including a couple of really, really lame pans across the desert – they were meant to show us how alone and isolated the character/lair was, but moved so quickly we didn’t have time to see that there was nothing to see). There were some poorly composed shots – nasty framing that left you thinking ‘perhaps this film’s artier than I th… no. It’s just crappy.’
  • The extras. Looking. At. The. Camera. Yes, wonderfully profesionally work there, Young Woman In Bar 2.
  • The bullshit sound in the bar scene. So the protagonist is in a bar, talking to his high school sweetheart. It’s crowded. Said crowd is watching a sports game (dunno what type), so they alternately cheer loudly, hush expectantly and mouth conversations silently in the middle of the shot while the leads talk about… what? I was distracted there. That was some really bad action. So we heard the leads talking quietly, with almost no ambient noise, and then all of a sudden the crowd starts cheering. We see people, right in the middle of shots, talking, but we can’t hear them. It’s really, really terrible, amateur stuff.

But, on the other hand, we can read this film as a story about an abused child suddenly granted unbelievable superhero powers.
Interestingly, the film is based on a young adult fiction novel by Steven Gould. I haven’t read it, but on wikipedia is notes that the protagonist is escaping from an “abusive home”. If you keep that in mind, it’s not really all that surprising that he ends up obsessed with money and a ‘safe’ home, hidden away from the rest of the world. It’s also not surprising that he’s crappy with relationships.
In that light Samuel L. Jackson’s obsessed hunting of the jumpers becomes quite distressing. If the protagonist is a damaged boy who’s not really living socially, then a vicious, religious fanatic hunting him fanatically because he knows he’s innately ‘evil’ serves as the scary fulfillment of an abused child’s sense of self:
Dad hurts me because I’m bad and I deserve it. The paladins are hunting (and hurting) me because I’m evil and I deserve it.
This becomes even more concerning if we keep in mind the fact that we only ever see male jumpers, thus conflating all jumpers with this one protagonist – his experience becomes the experience of all jumpers. This idea is born up by the (unheard) confession by the Griffin (Billy Elliot) jumper that his parents were killed by paladins when he was a child. And the fact that Griffin had a nasty childhood (a point the protagonist responds to with his first moment of ‘real’ (?) emotion. So either all jumpers are echoes of this one protagonist, or all jumpers are abused boys who’ve managed to ‘escape’. Either way, it’s unhappy stuff.
We also see the protagonist’s mother (who abandoned he and his father years ago) turn up on the paladin’s team, later explaining that it was actually the son’s fault that she left in the first place (and her leaving is presented as the reason for the father’s alcoholism and violence)… Well, it’s not a happy story.
Again, if we read this as a story of a lonely, abused child, it’s not surprising that the boy’s chained bedroom door (chained on the inside to protect himself) is replaced by an apartment which apparently has no working doors, and includes a ‘panic room’ (with no doors at all) filled with money and gear. Hoarding food is a marker of a pretty unhappy, frightened child, and hoarding currency/jewels/gear in obsessive tidiness becomes the marker of a damaged young adult who never feels safe.
So, there are lots of things to ignore in this film, and lots of things which are really quite sad on second glance. But if you just think ‘woo-hoo! Special effects!’ it’s all cool. Particularly if you like the O.C. (which is also a story about an unhappy boy-man whisked off to sudden and startling wealth, if I remember properly).
*I’ve blogged the preview here.

fats waller v duke ellington

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It’s been tricky fitting in all my listening this past weekend.
Will it be Fats, or will it be Ellington? Witherspoon and Sam Price don’t even get a foot in the door, I’m afraid.
I have 8 Ellington CDs to get through, and 3 Fats CDs to get through, and I’m not rushing, mind you. I like to listen to new CDs really slowly, lots of repeat listens to individual songs, lots of skipping back to check out a particular section.
So I’m not exactly running through my new goodies. And when I’m reading, I simply don’t hear the music at all, so I never know when a song’s finished. Or a CD’s finished. I think this is partly why I hate having music on when I’m working – it’s a waste. Music also tends to stop being music and just turn into the odd sound or bump or squeak which I catch every other minute as my attention shifts back to the aural world. I also really hate having that annoying background buzz distracting me from ideas when I’m thinking. So I like Total and Complete Silence when I’m working.
But I was all about Fats at first:
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Fats Waller and His Rhythm the Last Years ( 1940-1943 ) to be precise. This is the other goody that came for me last week. It’s really, really wonderful. I adore Fats, and this is perhaps the best collection I have (so far – there’s no end in sight). So, seeing as it was the first collection that arrived, this was where my listening was at. But then the Ellington Mosaic arrived, and now I’m all about Ellington.
It’s not a real competition, not really. But I’m finding it tricky getting through all these. And it feels like every single song on this Mosaic set is wonderful – I have to keep stopping to put songs into my ‘should play’ list for DJing. Luckily there’s quite a bit of stuff I don’t already have (I love, love, love the smaller group stuff, and have the Columbia 2-CD ‘Duke’s Men’ vol 1 and vol 2.
I really should get my finger out and properly research all these guys, get a proper idea of who recorded with which companies when. Get some sort of clue as to who was in whose band at what time. But I really can’t be arsed devoting valuable research time to something that’s meant to be fun. There’s so much other stuff I should be researching (let’s not talk about reality TV, ok?), I just don’t want to ruin music for me. I have read bits and pieces, but I just don’t have a sensible, comprehensive set of facts and figures and names at my disposal.
I mean, I am totally crap with that sort of thing normally (my memory is so crap it’s a joke), and I find it really difficult to remember the names of songs. I can pick the musicians or the bands (mostly because they tend to have quite distinct musical ‘styles’ or ‘accents’, so you can guess who’s playing what), but names of songs? Nope. I can generally guess the era (30s, 40s, etc), but not reliably. This means that it’s always a nice surprise to discover I actually own that song that such and such just DJed. But it also means my learning curve re jazz history is more of a plateau.
I’ve also noticed that a song seems to sound completely different when you’re dancing to it than when you’re DJing it or sitting at home listening to it. I think it’s because when you’re DJing or listening, you pay really close attention, in a conscious-brain sort of way. But when I’m dancing, I’m responding unconsciously, not actually consciously thinking ‘oh, muted trumpet’ or ‘huh, chunky bass’. Plus there’s a bunch of other things going on when you’re dancing that distract you.
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Anyways, the bottom line is, Ellington is winning, but Fats is kind of niggling in my hindbrain. It’s high-brow versus visceral, bodily goodness – Ellington is clever, Fats is fun (Ellington is fun too, and Fats is clever, but Ellington is telling you he’s smart and Fats is telling you he’d like you to sit a little closer and pass him a drink).

Sam Price and His Texas Blusicians 1929-1941

images.jpegSam Price and His Texas Blusicians 1929-1941 is the other CD that came this week, part of the Big Binge. It’s a Chronological Classic, which is important because this series of albums feature artists in chronological order – so you get a series of Duke Ellington CDs featuring songs in the order they were originally recorded.
It’s the most comprehensive series of albums, and they’re quite sought after. You can pay zillions of dollars for the rarer ones. But I’ve picked up ones that are cheaper and really great. My favourite is the Duke Ellington and his Orchestra: 1949-1950 one, which I picked up quite cheaply. It featured a song called B Sharp Boston which I really like and play quite often at late nights (it’s a bit slower). It also features Joog Joog, which has some nice female vocals (again, the CD’s in the other room, so I can’t check the name for you, sorry, but I think it’s a combination of Ivie Anderson and someone else [EDIT: I just checked and I think the notes are screwy, or I don’t understand, as it has a bloke’s name for the vocals, when I’m certain it’s Ivie Anderson and someone else…]). It’s quite an interesting album because it’s later Ellington (round about the time of some of the late testament Basie stuff that I really like), but Ellington is quite a different band leader. Most of these songs aren’t that wacky arty stuff he got into in the later period, but are much more popular songs. So it makes for interesting listening. And some great dancing.
Any how, this Sam Price action was drawn to my attention by Trev, king of fun scratchy music. And I’m quite in love. He apparently played with Lester Young’s band (or at least Lester – this is another CD I have to check the liner notes on. It’s only new, so I’m totally clueless on specifics). Sam Price, not Trev, that is.
One of my favourite bits of this album is in the song ‘Do you Dig My Jive?’ where he sings:

Ain’t nothin’ new about jive,
Believe it or not,
I know when jive first started,
The time and the spot,
Way back yonder,
In the year one-ty-one,
You can bet your sweet life,
That’s when jive begun.

I like ‘onety-one’ – the first year. It makes me giggle.
So, of course, I’m swimming in lovely music today. And trying to pretend I don’t have a dentist appointment this afternoon. I think I’ll follow that up with a nice film. Probably Jumpers rather than the more serious things I want to see (There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, American Gangster), as I’m always a bit traumatised after the dentist. Thing kind thoughts for me, will you?