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.
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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!)
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Hi Jazz Fans,
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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.netband.to/syncopators
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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
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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.netband.to/syncopators
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