How often have you seen this at a dance: the band finishes a song and all you hear is the din of people talking to each other? No applause, no cheers, just “hurry up and play another song.” Ever wonder what the band thinks when they hear that? We think no one is listening. We’d be right.

One song we play starts with a verse and then has a pause before the first chorus. I like to watch to see if people actually stop. Most nights they just keep dancing in time as if there were still music going on. I’ve taken to pausing for a good 15-20 seconds until everyone realizes the music has stopped and until the crowd of nervous chatterers quiets down and looks to see what’s going on before I continue with the chorus.
So why isn’t anyone listening?

It used to be that people valued music, because it was something special. It took special people to play it, even more special people to play it well, and hearing a great performance was something magical. In our modern culture, music has become something with which we are CONSTANTLY bombarded. We wake up to alarms playing our favorite wake-up CDs, head to the bathroom where we flip on the shower radio, then out to the car and listen to MP3s on the way to work. We go up the elevator where there’s some smooth jazz playing in the background and then we plop down at our desks where we sit down all day and work with our headphones on – streaming Pandora, youtube, and rhapsody. Then it’s back out to the car at the end of the day with our favorite drive-time jams, back to the house where we flip on the TV which provides constant music and dialogue through dinner and until we leave for the dance. Back into the car with our favorite swing CDs and into the dance where a DJ spins tunes until the band starts.

How much of that music are we actually LISTENING to? When was the last time you sat down and actually just LISTENED to an album – didn’t use it as a background to cooking dinner, or getting stoned, or driving to work – just listened? The problem is that music has become background in our society. We’re all so afraid of uncomfortable silence that we feel the need to fill our every waking moment with an auditory security blanket– even if we have to make an extra effort to tune that music out when we need to concentrate on other things. We’ve become experts at NOT listening to music.

In the lindy hop scene we’ve developed a DJed culture over the last 10 years that encourages people to view going to a dance as an athletic activity, a social activity, or a creative activity, but we don’t encourage people to view it as going to a show. Well let me be the one to break the bad news: no matter how old timey someone’s dance steps are, how good their swing out is, or how nice their connection feels – no matter how good they look when dancing or how good they feel about themself while dancing – there is nothing vintage about what they’re doing, there’s nothing even INTERESTING about their dancing unless they’re actually LISTENING to the music.

In fact to take it a step further, I’m not sure it’s really even the LINDY HOP, unless you’re dancing to live music and interacting with it. The same steps exist in dozens of other dances. What makes the lindy a unique dance is that it is improvised to live music. There’s an interaction. With canned music you can demonstrate what it might look like if you were actually doing the lindy hop, but it’s an imitation at best.

During the swing era, people went to the Savoy, the Palomar, the Roseland, and 1000 other ballrooms to see shows. Dancing was the way that people expressed their enthusiasm for the music they were hearing. The energy from the crowd and the dancing itself interacted with the music and created something bigger than just the chart the band was playing. You can’t create that just by telling new dancers that they SHOULD clap because it’s a live band. Bands can feel the difference between obligatory applause and real enthusiasm from people who are listening to the music.

So what can we do to correct this as a community? Here is a short list of MY ideas. It’s certainly not comprehensive, but I think it’s a nice start.

1. Get rid of the DJed music between band sets and before and after the band finishes. Make the focus of the night coming to dance to a band, not coming to a dance at which there happens to be a band. People won’t leave on the breaks. One of the coolest dances on our most recent tour was a show we played in Charlottesville where the circuit for all the power outlets in the building went out. We played the show completely acoustic (good thing we brought a piano, please see my previous blog on pianos). It was a lot of fun. Because there were fewer songs to dance to with the break music left out, people stayed through the end of the show to get all their dancing in. Moreover, on the breaks, people actually TALKED to each other. God forbid we might have to come out of our awkward dancer shells and have a conversation.

2. Expect that people will come dressed up to hear a band. Don’t admit people in jeans. Make them understand that they’re coming to a show and a social event. Not a practice session.

3. I challenge anyone out there who teaches to start hiring a stride pianist for their lessons and quit teaching to recordings. This is how dance classes were taught for hundreds of years. Your students can’t interact with a recording and neither can you as a teacher. How can you demonstrate any musicality whatsoever in your dancing when it’s to canned music? I realize this takes some balls. Someone out there must have enough to start the trend…

4. When you’re sitting out a dance, sit and listen to the band. You might really discover that you enjoy swing music if you sit down and listen to some that’s played well by talented musicians! You’ll also be helping to reduce the “din” in the room and helping to create energy between the audience and the band, making everyone else’s dances better. You might even set an example for some newer dancers.

On our most recent tour I’ve found it AMAZING to see the difference in crowds from night to night, and how that affects the band’s performance. On nights where the crowd is responsive to the band, the show is 10x better. Literally 10x. If you have a good band on stage, it is completely up to the crowd to decide how good the show is going to be that night. Good musicians show up every night ready to interact with their audiences – to put on a show. Dancers don’t always show up ready to be an audience – when they do the band and the dancers both have a WAY better time!

The first day of our fall tour has arrived.  Tonight we’ll be playing at the Russian Center in Seattle – kicking the tour off at home!  I’ve been packing up my house and putting things into storage all week and at 2 am on Thursday morning I’m STILL not done!  Check back tomorrow for updates!

(Above: Taking a little break from packing my house up before we leave on tour.  It’s been a long week and I’m exhausted!!  Too bad I didn’t have time for a haircut!)
 

One of my motivating ideas of late has been looking for ways to involve more non-dancers at events and dances. It gets more people out and paying money to see live music, buy drinks, dress cool, and generally help support all the cool stuff we’re interested in. So as not to ramble in one really long blog post about this, I’m gonna try and break it up into a few to make it more digestible.

1. PERFORMANCES

I was part of a really interesting discussion on Memorial Day with a bunch of dancers at a Post-camp Jitterbug BBQ about that weekend’s competitions. That in addition to Mary Freitag’s recent blog-post about competitions in the lindy hop scene and the further discussion on Jerry Almonte’s repost of it sparked an idea to make for more interesting, and more fair competitions, while drawing more people and money into the scene.

One of the coolest things about the Jump Session show (IMO) is that it draws in the public. More and more weekends are trying to plan some kind of show as part of the weekend’s entertainment because, frankly, it’s a fun idea. The drawbacks to doing a show for most events are that it’s time consuming to put together, costs money, is logistically difficult, requires people to come up with new routines we all haven’t seen before, etc.

Two things that can offset these difficulties are:

1. Rolling Competitions into the Shows.
2. Making Competitions More Palatable to the Public.

Despite the drawbacks to doing a show, there are a ton of benefits to doing one, especially if the above ideas are incorporated:

• The public voting instead of judges = more voting on entertainment value. That’s a plus in my book.
• More energy for performances from people who haven’t all seen you do an over the back before and are impressed!
• Public voting instead of dancers or judges means less bias (not that we’re particularly biased, but on a scale of 1-biased this would be a little closer to 1)
• Bigger prizes for competitors from larger volume of ticket sales.
• Closer to our roots. It wasn’t all a bunch of dancers who were friends with the people voting back in the day. It was a crowd of mostly non dancers (or people who danced very casually).
• More efficient competitions: competitors lined up back stage – announcer calls their names, band plays – bam – done!
• Higher production value to competitions.
• Less social dancing time eaten up at the dances.
• No sitting around on the floor like a bunch of kids.
• More shows at events for the public means for performers a chance to do your act more than just one time and get PAID for it. You can do this number in Seattle one weekend and DC another weekend and LA the next. Sure the dancers have seen it but the public there has not. Performers put a lot of money into costumes and a lot of time into choreo. If they’re super cool they even paid someone write an arrangement for their piece to make it unique (this is what the old timers didand do today btw). They ought to have a chance to make their money back, and turn a profit for their efforts.

Logistics:
One huge benefit to including the contests in the shows is that it makes doing a show easier because you don’t have to ask as many people to prepare acts for the show since the competitions will take up part of it. This also means you can be more choosy with acts and thus present a better show . Additionally the combination of more opportunities to perform for money and more selective producers will mean higher entertainment and production values for the numbers that people create.

Including the contests also has another hidden benefit. It makes it easier to use a band in the show. If half the show is contests that the band doesn’t have to learn and rehearse arrangements for it cuts down on rehearsal time, and makes it more affordable to include a band. This is going to dramatically raise a show’s production value because it significantly increases the energy of performances. Plus it creates additional draw for your show because a dance show with a bunch of recorded music is way harder to sell than an old timey show with a band.

Financials:
It’s going to be different in every town and vary based on the size of show that you want to put on but let’s use a medium sized show as an example. If you can get 500 people to come see a show at $25/head that’s 12,500. That’s a pretty substantial budget to run a show. Your expenses might run something like this:

• Venue: $2,000ish
• 7 “Acts” (Dance, comedy, whatever): $2,800ish
• 6 Piece Band: 2,500ish (would probably get you a 3 hour rehearsal)
• Competition Prizes: $2,000 (plus weekend event passes, plus whatever you pull from entry fees)
• Sound: $750
• Lights: $750
• MC: $400
• Crew: Probably free if you use volunteers from your weekend.
• Advertising: $1,000

Total: 12,200

Not only do you turn a small profit on this model but you give your band, instructors, and good dancers extra reason to come to your weekend. You may be able to get a combined rate with weekend teaching from an instructor or playing at dance(s) from the band if you hire them for that as well. Remember these numbers are estimates and are negotiable – mostly in your favor! Plus you have opportunity to earn ad revenue if you print a program or get a corporate sponsor for the event. There’s where you really can bring in some dough.

Timing:

• Acts: (with MC time between): 35 min
• Jack and Jill Contest: 15 min
• Lindy Contest: 15 Min
• Charleston Contest: 15 min
• 3 Musical Numbers from Band: 10 min
• Awards and Bows: 10 min.  

That’s an 1h 40m show, 2 hours with intermission.

Summary:

• Interesting
• Profit potential with ticket sales and ads.
• More draw to your event weekend
• Brings money into the dance community
• Let’s the dance community reach out into your local community, which builds the local scene.
• Gives performers and competitors a reason to step it up. 

It’s already going that direction. <gauntlet> Who’s gonna take it up a notch? </gauntlet>

Part 2 Coming Soon to a blog near you.

Cheers,

Glenn

PS: <plug> Buy our new CD! </plug>

Hi Jazz Fans,

Those of us who were around during the Neo-Swing boom, remember what it was like to have a huge dance scene. Going to a dance was the “thing to do” and even though most of the dancing and music were pretty bad, there was still something that sucked people in (sucked may be the operative word here). We certainly have better music and dancing now-a-days, so what was it that drew people into the scene then that’s missing today?

One could make a case that people just love what most of us would consider to be bad dancing and lousy dance music. One could also make a case for national media attention. I think these are both valid, but there’s something else that neo-swing had that we’re missing – a culture that catered to multiple interests.

People who came out to dances during the boom might have been there because they loved dancing, they might’ve come because they liked the music, maybe they liked dressing up, maybe it was just a good place to go to meet a guy or girl. As neo-swing became “lame” in the public eye, and the movement died out, those of us who really dug the dancing cleared away the rubble and did what we needed to to keep the scene going. This largely meant lower budgets for dances which curtailed organizers’ ability to have live music. This worked out OK at the time because there were so few bands that dancers really liked dancing to.

As far as fashion goes, how we went from 3 piece suits, cute 40′s dresses, and finger rolls, to track pants and exchange tee-shirts is, well, completely unexplainable – but the track pants and tee-shirts do pretty clearly highlight why no one showed up looking to meet a date. (I could find some photos of you all from 2002 but I’ll save you the embarrassment.)

Fast forward to today. We’ve got a community that’s growing and in order to continue that growth we should take a lesson from neo-swing. There are only so many people in each town who can be drawn into the scene because they want the experience of moving their bodies in dance. Basically, the market is limited to people who are already inclined to dancing for dancing’s sake; when we advertise dances as “free lesson” “learn to dance” “dance dance dance” those are the only people we’re marketing to.

If however you’d like to draw bigger crowds to your dances and create a larger scene with more potential for live music, then it’s time to expand your market. That DOESN’T mean playing crappy music that you don’t like, or compromising your ideals in any way, it’s simply a matter of viewing what you like from other perspectives.

Three new people come out to a DJed dance. The first one just loves to move his body and falls in love with the movement. He stays in the scene. Newbie No. 2 spends $40 every weekend going to hear indie rock bands. He comes once, and loses interest cause he’d rather spend his money to see a show than hear some guy play old Andrews sisters records through a crappy PA. Newbie No. 3 goes out to clubs every weekend and is the best dressed girl there. She feels clearly out of place in our fashion nightmare. This is basically how it’s gone down for the last 10 years. We lose most of the folks that would’ve stayed if we’dve been well dressed and had live music, and kept the ones who were purely interested in dancing.

Doing the math here, we can see that it’d be a lot easier to support our dances, to hire bands, and to do special events if these people were in our scenes. Even if none of them ever stepped out onto the floor to dance – which they most likely would – there’d be a host of people supporting the bar and paying the cover to hear a live band and buying the band’s CDs. As a dancer, does it matter to you if there are people at a dance for reasons other than dancing? They’re definitely people that share interests with you. Their presence would definitely make it easier to bring your new boyfriend out to a dance without him feeling intimidated. You’d definitely get to dance to live music a lot more often.

So what do we do? Well first of all, you’ve got to go get yourself a suit and hire a band to play in a cool venue. A good band. IMHO one dance a week with a band and a big crowd in a cool space is better than 3 dances a week with a DJ in a dance studio, so it might be time to join forces with another promoter to make that happen.

Then do some advertising. Sure, tell people there’s a lesson, if you want, but remember that while we think that “free lesson” equates to easing people’s fears about dancing, a lot of times “free lesson” means “here’s some shit you’re going to suck at so we’ll give you a lesson.” Not surprisingly, most people don’t get totally amped about putting lots of time and money into learning a completely useless skill that after 3 years of hard work and dedication, they’re still likely to be just “intermediate” at (present company excluded).

Instead advertise “hot jazz,” “retro culture,” “drink specials,” “speakeasy.” “swing music” etc. Be creative, but think “if I had no interest in dancing, what kind of atmosphere would make for a fun time out with my friends.” Make sure there’s tables for these folks to sit at and plenty of booze to buy. Make sure your regulars don’t come out dressed like bums. Create a real scene. Something that your local newspaper would want to write about. Pretty soon you’ll have something more than just a dance scene on your hands, you’ll have a fully functioning counter-culture.

That said, I’m going to go order a new suit.

Love,
Glenn

Hi Jazz Fans,

I once overheard a bandleader say about playing for dancers “I just do whatever I do and if people don’t like it, fuck’em.” This was in the same breath that he was complaining that the better dancers didn’t come out to hear his band play. D’oh.

Musicians and dancers aren’t always on the same page about what makes a good set. Sometimes my fellow musicians or my fellow dancers will walk away from a set thinking it was killer, and I will walk away having been pretty disappointed with the way it turned out. People usually attribute this to “never being satisfied” or “being too hard on yourself” but I think it really has to do with having two sets of benchmarks for success.

Having experience as both a musician and a dancer I notice that I hear different things from dancers than what I hear from musicians in describing a “good” set. Here’s some I often here:

Musicians’ List
• I did creative things with my solos, I had a chance to “open up” as a soloist
• The other musicians inspired me to do different things
• The group dynamic had a lot of play back and forth – musicians were feeding off of each other
• The band was really swingin’ – ie everyone was playing well and we were locked in together to a particular groove
• People were cheering, clapping.
• People told me they liked it.
• Dancers were “jamming”
• People bought CDs/merch

Dancers’ List
• The music had a good variety of tempos
• The average tempo was not too fast
• The songs weren’t too long (longer than 4 min is usually too long)
• The songs didn’t all sound the same
• There was good “energy” to the songs
• The band hit cool breaks, endings, and licks together.
• I recognized some of the songs
• The band’s style was swing (or trad depending on your taste)
• I felt like I was interacting with the live music
• The band didn’t take forever between songs and didn’t talk unintelligibly on the mic.

Pretty different! So why do dancers and musicians see it so differently? I think there are several things that we use as markers for a successful set on both sides that are misleading:

Glenn’s list of myths debunked

• “Doing creative things with your solos” is lost on dancers unless the things that you do are creative in a way that inspires dancing. Playing a bunch of really fast harmonically interesting passages is often lost on dancers, but a big wail on one note from a trumpet never misses.

• “The band was really swingin’” is not the same as “the band was really playing swing.” A band can swing without playing swing music; a band can play swing music without swinging. A combination of the two is important for successful dance music, but the fact that the words are homonyms makes it confusing.

• “People were cheering/clapping and people told me we did a good job” isn’t necessarily a barometer of how well people liked it. People clap at the end of a show because they’re supposed to clap at the end of a show. Dancers sometimes stomp for an encore simply because they want to dance to another song, not because they were crazy about the music. It doesn’t mean it’s not flattering, or that they don’t appreciate you, but take it with a grain of salt. If they say good things about you publicly or to other people without being prompted, then you know they actually liked it. To me, having half the audience hooping and cheering and losing the other half is not a successful set.

• “Dancers were Jamming” – One jam means dancers were digging your music AND there were enough good dancers for there to be a jam. More than one jam (planned jams excluded) usually means the songs were too long and tempos were too fast, so people started jamming because the songs weren’t good for social dancing. Sometimes that’s not the case, but usually it’s pretty reliable.

• “There were a good variety of tempos and the average tempo wasn’t too fast.” The other day someone told me they were happy we’d started playing more “mid tempo” songs. First of all, backhanded compliments are pretty douchy. Second of all someone else came up to me and told me they thought the same set was too slow. This happens at pretty much every dance – not everyone’s going to be happy with the tempos on any given night of dancing whether it’s a band or a DJ. The idea is to make the majority of people at each skill level happy. If you’re not digging the tempos one night, it might be you and not the band. That said, some bands only do play fast and slow songs. If you want to present your opinion, unless you know the band leader personally, share it with the organizer. However, if you’re going to go that route, you need to share your opinion every time, good, bad, or mediocre. People most often are willing to speak up when they don’t like something, but just take it for granted when they do. When organizers only hear the negative feedback then we end up with a DJed scene because they figure people just don’t like live bands.

• “I didn’t like it cause the songs all sounded the same”- it’s good for a band to vary their style subtly within the repertoire however every band has their own individual voice and that’s going to add cohesion to their sound. If a band comes out and just plays head tunes all night, well I find that pretty boring too, but don’t expect a band to come out and sound like 10 of your other favorite bands that a DJ plays right in a row. I’ve never heard a great dancer complain that a band played all the same style of music all night. It’s always novice dancers who make this complaint because they don’t have enough skill to hear the more subtle variations in style that the band IS making.

• “The band took forever between songs.” Some bands, many bands, take too long. They also mumble into the mic between tunes. If you’re gonna talk to people, talk TO them for a reason and make sure they can understand you, but don’t just do it to cover your lack of preparedness for the show. However with a DJ the time is too short between songs. It’s a social dance, so be social, chat with someone. Your lack of social skills does not constitute a band leader’s crisis. That’s one of the reasons I feel like a DJed dance is really just a practice session. Practice sessions are where you’re just there to practice dancing. Social dances are for listening to the music, interacting with others, and dancing.

————
For what it’s worth, here’s the list of what makes me walk away happy from a set:

Glenn’s List
• Musicians walked away feeling good about the set
• Dancers walked away feeling good about the set
• I played well personally
• I didn’t feel limited in which charts I could call by anyone on stage’s abilities
• Everyone in the band played well together and listened to one another
• Everyone read the charts well and paid attention to dynamics, endings, and other details
• Tempos were well mixed
• Styles were well mixed
• There was energy between the crowd and the band.
• People talked about the show to their friends afterward, posted on facebook/twitter/blogs, etc
• People told the promoter/organizer that they liked the show
• People bought CDs
• People told me specific things they liked about the show
• I was able to keep dancers at all skill levels engaged.

————
I think the more that musicians understand what makes good dance music, and the more that dancers understand the logistics and culture of dancing to live music (which IS the culture of the lindy hop), the better the scene will get.

cheers,
Glenn

Hi Jazz Fans,

Over the summer I’ve been fortunate enough to have only had to play one gig with a digital piano (keyboard). A number of my pianist colleagues refuse to play digital pianos and I have to say that I can’t blame them one bit. In fact, of my 5 top call pianists in Seattle, only 2 of them will play on a keyboard.

Digital pianos have their advantages: they’re portable, they don’t have to be tuned (neither do banjos right?), they’re durable, you can plug them directly into a sound system (if you’re into that sort of thing), etc. The disadvantage is, of course, that a digital piano, no matter how nice, expensive, modern or advanced, does not sound like a piano.

A digital piano works (in layman’s terms) by taking a whole bunch of digital recordings of a real piano and then linking them up to the keys. Different samples are played when you play a key loud or soft, short or long, etc. It’s a pretty impressive technology to be honest, but it’s no piano.

Now some people will say “oh well you haven’t heard the latest blah blah blah model from blah blah blah company.” Well probably not, but, coincidentally, people were saying the same thing 10 years ago when I used to sell digital pianos at a retail music store.

So why doesn’t the digital piano measure up?

First: digital. We’re talking about digital samples so they don’t have the warmth, depth, or accuracy that an analogue sample has.

Second: A real piano has an infinite range of dynamics and articulations; a digital piano only has as many sounds as it has samples in its bank. That means if I hit a key with x pounds of pressure and hit the key again with x+.0001 pounds of pressure, the keyboard is either going to round that 2nd one off to the sound it uses for x pounds, or it’s going to maybe use sample x and alter it by +.0001 volume. It’s just a simulation. Also, the keys themselves don’t have the same response under the finger tips that keys on a real piano have. The pianist you’ve hired is an artist. You’re going to miss out on the subtlety of your pianist’s real style with a digital piano.

Third: As dancers, we’re more concerned with rhythm than any other element of music: the pounding of drums, the chunking guitar, the slapping bass, the electronic cone vibrating as a result of samples from a keyboard – wait what? Pianos are percussion instruments; keyboards are not. Keyboards are electronic recordings of a percussion instrument – like electric drums. Now if someone showed up on a gig with an electronic drum kit, EVERYONE would raise an eyebrow.

This matters to us as dancers because what we feel when we have live music, as opposed to recordings, is the percussiveness of the instruments. The actual physical sensation of a hammer hitting a string is like the sensation of a drumstick hitting a drum head. It’s kinesthetic. The feeling (AND sound) of a half-a-ton piece of wood and metal is different than its electronic representation.

A keyboard fills the same sonic space that a piano does – it plays the same part in the ensemble, but it doesn’t provide the same sound, force, or drive that a real instrument does. This affects not only what the audience hears from the piano, but the way that the rest of the band plays. The keyboard doesn’t help drive the rhythm the way that a piano does, and the band feels this. Additionally, keyboards must have monitors on stage to be heard which plays havoc with stage volumes (I’ve gone into stage volume in other places so I don’t feel the need to reiterate it all here).

It’s always a dilemma for me as a band leader when it comes to gigs where there’s no piano. Do I bite the bullet and use the keyboard, sacrificing the quality of sound and swing of the band? Do I leave the piano out and just play with a 5 piece band (that means just playing head charts instead of our 6 piece arrangements)? Do I use an accordion instead (at least it’s a real sound, but it doesn’t add rhythm either)? As musicians we always want to put on the best show possible, but it’s some serious work for a band leader to keep side-men from phoning it in when they have to play with a keyboard in the ensemble – it’s just a drag.

WHERE TO GET ONE

Alright, so we’ve established that real pianos = better show = better dancing = more fun. So what can we do about it? Here are a few ideas that an event, venue, dance studio, or local swing organization might consider in procuring a piano for their live performances.

Regular Venues
If you have a space where you can store the piano, these options are a great way to go. A venue that you patronize regularly is very unlikely to object if you ask permission to store a piano there (after all it makes their space more desirable for other renters and you might even make some of your costs back if others want to use your piano). If the piano is being used only one or two times a month and isn’t being moved around a lot, you can get away with doing a tuning every 6 months or so, which will run you about $100, so maintenance is not too bad. (Make sure you have it tuned when you first get it).

1. Piano rental: It only runs $35-$70/month (depending on cost of living in your area) to rent a basic, in tune, working piano. (It’s $49 a month in Seattle.) Many places will let you rent to own a piano as well, so after 3 or 4 years the cost is gone all together.

2. Piano Purchase: Call your local colleges and ask for the music departments. Ask them what time of year they do their piano sales. Most music departments sell off all or many of the pianos in their practice rooms at the same time every year at an unbelievable discount. You can score big discounts on more expensive pianos this way. Don’t expect to get something for less than about $1000-$1500, but what you’ll get for your $1500 will be much nicer than if you bought it at retail.

3. Piano donation: You’d be shocked how many people out there have pianos that they don’t use that they’re looking to donate. Some of these pianos are actually really good – we have several pianos we use at Seattle Opera that have been donations. Put yourself out there as an organization! Tell people you’re looking for a piano. Ask some folks in your scene with grown kids if they have a piano sitting in their house that never gets played and they’d be willing to donate it to the organization. (People often buy pianos for their kids to learn on and once the kids are out of the house the instrument is unused.)

Events
If you’re putting on an event a piano is a MUST! Borrow one from someone in the scene, rent one, do whatever you have to! You will spend $200-$400 R/T having it moved in and out of your space, and another $50-$200 to rent it. All in all it will run somewhere between $250 and $600. Organizers should plan for the cost of a piano move when they’re budgeting in the early stages of an event.

Another option to consider for folks who throw events regularly is to purchase/have a donated piano stored at someone’s house in the scene that can be moved into venues for events. If you’re doing events on a regular basis and you can get your hands on a piano, it will be a little more cost effective over time since you’ll be paying moving/tuning fees but not rental fees.

IT IS WORTH THE MONEY AND THE EFFORT to get a piano for your event or regular venue!!! Cutting corners on a piano is like flying in fancy dance teachers and then not giving them mics to use in their classes with 100 people in them, or telling them they can’t wear shoes to teach their class and that it has to be taught on a cement floor – it makes it so the people that you’ve hired to make your dance/event great can’t do their very best work.

Pianos are out there just waiting for you to love them. They will make your musicians happier; they will make your dancers happier; they will make YOU happier! They will make your whole scene swing harder. Take a look around your town and you might be surprised what you’ll find: one never knows, do one?

cheers,
Glenn

http://www.bluerhythmband.net
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Hi Jazz Fans,

So often I hear people say “we’ve got to support live music.” Dance instructors often tell their students to support live music by coming out to venues when there’s a band playing, organizers worry about people coming out to “support the band”.

Every effort is appreciated of course, but I think where this phrase misses the mark is that people want to go dancing to enjoy themselves, not to support a something. Telling people to support live music by showing up sends the message “go out dancing to a DJ to have fun, come hear a band to support the scene.” Of course no one MEANS it that way, but it somehow comes across to people as such.

So what CAN you actively do to support live music and share their passion for dancing to a live band with other people? Here are some talking points that you might find helpful:

1. Tell people why you like to dance to live music better than recorded music. The majority of experienced dancers prefer dancing to a live band over dancing to recordings. These are also folks who have a tremendous passion for dancing. Share your passion for this with others. Your students, friends, new dancers, etc. Tell them honestly why it matters to you and why you like it better. People’s authentic passion is a better motivator than anything else.

2. Talk to people about the correlation between improvisation in dancing and improvisation in jazz.

3. Talk about how the band feeds off the dancers energy and the dancers feed off the band. There’s not any interplay like this with a recording.

4. Talk about dancing as the whole experience of dancing, music, fashion and vintage culture rolled together. There’s a reason you own vintage clothes!!

5. Some people are history buffs. Talk about the historical accuracy of dancing to live music.

6. Some people are kinesthetic. Talk about how it FEELS different to dance to real instruments vibrating than it does to a speaker.

7. Tell your audiophile friends that no matter how good a recording is, it’s not the real thing.

8. Tell people that live music nights are THE nights to be out. They’re not just dance practice, they’re social events where you can expect everyone to be out!

9. Tell people it’s what all the cool kids are doing.

In addition to sharing your ideas about why you love to dance to live music, there’s some other great ways to be a supporter.

1. Start a thread or a message about dressing up when there’s a band. People looking sharp means it’s more special when a band plays.

2. Introduce people to the musicians. People are more involved if they know the folks making the music.

3.Be there. Stay home one DJ’d night that week and spend that extra $5 to see a band!

4. Suggest bands’ facebook groups to friends or post a link to a bands’ page as your status every now and then. Facebook lets you send a page suggestion to anyone you want. If you know some dancers not on a fan page of a band you like, suggest it to them. A couple kids at the Century this week were SHOCKED to learn that my band was on facebook. The more folks on our pages the more people who will know about our shows.

5. Side by side with number 4 is inviting more people to a band’s show. Facebook lets you invite people on your friend list to events you’re attending. Spread the word.

6. Read this blog (and others like it!) and learn about music. Re-post stuff you find interesting for others to see too!

Remember, supporting live music is about telling people how much it kicks ass, not about telling them to support it.

The movement is growing!! Viva live jazz!

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Hi Jazz Fans,

I’m reading this little book on Gene Krupa. It’s a biography, but it also contains lots of quotes from Krupa himself from different interviews. There’s a little spot where he mentions something about his solos from the swing years that I thought was interesting. When you think about it, drum solos were almost always this way in swing music.

About the solos on the song Drummin’ Man Recorded 11/2/1939
“Notice how I stop every phrase on the last beat of the bar. In those days it was considered a cardinal sin to carry over and end on the first beat of the next bar. But now all drummers do it to bring in the rest of the band.”

About the song Drum Boogie Recorded 1/17/1941
“Hey listen to the way I stop that break right on the 4th beat of the bar again. I stop completely, and then I make the final chorus.”

This isn’t the exact recording he’s talking about, but check out Krupa’s solos on the same tune from the same year in the film “Ball of Fire.” There’s always a break before the band re-enters. Classic.

Neat drummer that Krupa fella.

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Hi Jazz Fans,

A lot of people ask me what the difference between trad jazz, dixieland jazz, hot jazz, and 20′s jazz etc. The answer is that now a-days they are used pretty much interchangeably, however within this genre, there are some notably different styles.

Side Note Before We Start: POLYPHONY in the horns does NOT equal trad jazz. Combos played polyphony well into the swing era – swing does not necessarily mean arranged horns.

To illustrate, we’re going to look at some different recordings of the song “Royal Garden Blues” but first let’s set out some definitions so we’ll both be on the same page: (keep in mind, we’re drawing some general lines, there are still people making all these kinds of music and there’s music that is fuzzy between different styles).

20′s Jazz – Jazz from the 1920′s. Examples: Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5, King Oliver, Bix and Tram, Fletcher Henderson’s first band, Jelly Roll Morton, etc.

Swing Music – Music which has the feel of the music from the Swing Era (late 20′s-early 40′s: see “the rhythm of the train” post for more details) Examples: 30′s Basie, 30′s/early 40′s Goodman Orchestra/Combos, 2nd Fletcher Henderson Band, Chick Webb, Fats Waller and his Rhythm etc.

Bebop – Music that was simultaneously a reaction against swing music and the next step past it. Music that in many ways rejected dancing (though not entirely). More focused on harmony and on the horns than swing music which focuses on a steady rhythm. (Dizzy, Charlie Parker, Kenny Clark, Max Roach, Miles Davis, etc)

Post-Swing Music: The graveyard of the big bands. 50′s + 60′s Basie and Ellington, Woody Herman. Music from musicians who didn’t really want to play bop but felt like they had to incorporate certain elements of it. Does not have the train feel that swing music has (seriously read the post on the train), but is instead focused on elaborate arrangements. The music big bands made after both the public and the hip musicians and listeners stopped caring that they were making it.

Straight ahead jazz: What you hear when you go to most jazz clubs. Examples: Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, Joshua Redman, everything you heard played at swing dances between 2001 and 2004. Not Dance Music. Let me repeat that: NOT DANCE MUSIC.

Trad. Jazz Revival – the turn back towards tune popular in the 1920′s and other tunes written in the same style. More simplistic harmonies, both a turn back away from swing and bop, but at the same time with heavy influences of swing music, bebop, post-swing music, and straight ahead jazz. Examples: the majority (though not all) of the trad jazz you hear today).

OK so now for the examples.

Let’s start in the late 20′s with Bix Beiderbecke doing Royal Garden Blues. This is some authentic 1920′s stuff, It’s just so damned good. It never feels rushed ahead, it’s always cool and tasteful.

Note the 2 beat feel, it’s easy, not strained. There is breath in the music and it’s done with taste. Why no one wants to play in this style anymore is beyond me. This has a great feel for a black bottom or a slow Charleston, though I’d say it’s pre-lindy hop for sure.

OK Here’s Ted Lewis from 1931. This recording has Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Muggsie Spanier and a wealth of other great players.

Again, easy, relaxed, laid back, but still on top of the beat, and HOT.

Next a more modern recording, but of a band staying fairly true to the authentic 20′s style. (Leave it to a band with Marty Grosz to do it right.) Laid back and easy. The big drawback on this recording is that the bass sax is awfully loud.

OK. So those are groups playing in the 20′s/early 30′s style. Now, in the early 40′s “dixieland jazz” or the jazz of the 20′s made a comeback, it had changed. It didn’t sound like the laid back Chicago bands, or the stomping but squarer New Orleans bands (if jazz was born in New Orleans, it went through puberty in Chicago, the differences between these two styles are probably best left for another post). So what caused this change? Swing and Bop. Before we go on to the Trad Jazz Revival, let’s look at a few swing and bop recordings of this tune so we can hear what the mainstream music was that influenced the trad jazz revival.

Here’s Tommy Dorsey, from 1936. Here they still keep a little of that relaxed Chicago-i-ness, it definitely sounds earlier than ’36 in some ways especially right at the top, but listen for the influence of Boogie Woogie as it goes on, and of course the arranged big band sound. In the rhythm section, the beats are now more even instead of the boom-chick boom-chick that you had in the 20′s, you’ve got boom-boom-boom-boom on all 4 beats – swing.

Goodman, Charlie Christian, Basie, Cootie- SWINGIN’ the hell out of it.
http://popup.lala.com/popup/1873778995213684735

Ok here comes the Count. 4 to the bar. There is nothing trad about this recording. Especially when the sax solo starts and Jo Jones comes in with that big fat cymbal (may be just the hi-hat open extra wide). If anything it’s pushing its way into bop in some places.

Here’s a great version that’s on the line between Swing and Bop from John Kirby. I’ll call it mannerist swing, it’s not quite bop yet and still feels great to dance to.

OK Here’s Ellington from 1946. It’s still swing, but with a decisively modern edge to it, it’s not really pushing toward bop, but it’s starting to push toward post-swing-era music.

http://popup.lala.com/popup/505247669387822230

Bop. I can’t find a be-bop recording of Royal Garden Blues online. So let’s just quickly listen to one of the fathers of bop drumming, Kenny Clarke:

Note that when he plays behind the other guys that the ride cymbal is keeping the time and he’s using the rest of the set to create accents. Bop is when the ride cymbal took over (see previous post on the ride cymbal), but remember that this is NEW in the early 40′s with bop, the same time that the trad revival started.

Here’s Eddie Condon’s band from the 1960′s. Followed by a link to Louis Armstrong also from the 1960′s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJS-nKHquaQ (sorry no embedding on this one)

The horn solos are pretty hot, but the rhythm is all wrong. It doesn’t breathe, I’ve heard heavy metal music with more subtlety. This kind of music bores me to dance to and bores me to listen to. The interesting things about bop music are the hits, the breaks in the rhythm while the ride keeps time, and the complex harmonies, the broken phrases.

So we’ve taken out the interesting parts of bop, and just left the constant ride cymbal and melodic walking bass, and we’ve taken the interesting parts out about swing which are the train rhythm, the laid back feel and the arrangements, and we’ve taken out the interesting parts about 20′s jazz which are the relaxed but hot feel and the subtleties (and also the 2 beat feel from the 20′s, boom-chick boom-chick is GONE).

This is clearly not the same music that people played in the 20′s or in the 30′s. This is, unfortunately the tradition that’s been kept alive and it’s the style that most trad. or dixieland bands play in today. Why? Because it’s how we teach bass players and drummers, and pianists to play cause everyone cuts their teeth on bop and straight ahead jazz.

Most importantly, if you’re reading this and you’re a dancer, this is not dance music. It was never intended to be danced to, in fact be-bop was influenced greatly by musicians railing against playing for dancers because they weren’t being appreciated as artists by the dancers. Even guys like Condon who were around in the 20′s were trying to “legitimize jazz” and take it from the saloons into the concert halls where people would sit and listen to them and not dance.

< rant > Playing dance music is an art in itself and I think many musicians are foolish not to recognize that. I think many dancers, however, propagate this problem by remaining ignorant about the music they dance to. Trying to dance the lindy hop to music it doesn’t fit with is like putting a square peg in a round hole.

Also: “I just like to move to the music, I don’t really care what it is” doesn’t equate to “I’m a free spirit and just love the feeling of movement, all music is wonderful cause it’s amazing”, it actually equates to “Shucks Ma, why’s I got to learn to read, I just likes lookin at the picters.” If you’re not dancing to the music (or not deliberately dancing NOT to the music for our modern dance friends), you’re not dancing, you’re just moving around – take an aerobics class.< /rant >

OK so now for a few more modern bands. I’m not going to post anything here about the styles, since some of these folks are alive. Some of these recordings I like the style, some I don’t, some I have mixed feelings on. I’ll let you make your own judgments.

Cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Hi Jazz Fans,

Just a short note about my friend Kelly’s new website, Jazz Era Voices. The site, which just went up, asks users to contribute interviews, video, stories, and photos from their grand parents or other elderly friends or relatives about their experiences dancing during the jazz age.

If everyone decides to contribute, this site will become a wealth of information about jazz dance around the country and will preserve a lot of stories, ideas, and parts of our culture that would otherwise be lost. Check out the content that’s already up and volunteer a little of your time to put together a submission. Don’t let your family’s stories of the jazz age be lost!

www.jazzeravoices.org

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators