Tag: <span>swing</span>

The movie Hellzapoppin’ features, as most swing dancers know, the greatest Lindy Hop routine ever to appear in the cinema – in a scene preceded by an absolutely fantastic jam featuring some of the great names of jazz.

This year, a German company named Anolis Entertainment has released it on Bluray – and the quality is absolutely stunning.

So naturally, I’ve dusted off my retiming project!

General rambles Videos

You know what they say – no project is ever finished. You just stop working on it. Case in point – my recent restoration / upscale of Jammin’ the Blues

Of course – sometimes that break lasts only until fresh inspiration comes along or, as in this case, you stumble on a better source to use for the project, and you feel obliged to start it again from scratch.

TLDR: I’ve massively improved on my Jammin’ the Blues upscale / restoration. More after the fold.

Quick note – if you haven’t yet watched Jammin’ the Blues, you are in for a treat. Nearly eighty years later, it’s still one of the finest and most beautiful jazz films ever made.

General rambles Video Edits Videos

One of the classic Tranky Doo clips that we have is the Spirit Moves one, and most of the routine – as we dance it today – is derived from this version. Ironically, this version is almost certainly the reason it’s usually danced to Dipsy Doodle – I say ironically, because it’s pretty unlikely that Dipsy Doodle is what they were dancing to in the clip – and in true Spirit Moves fashion, then music was added as an afterthought, and in no way matches the dancing.

General rambles

This post is a follow-on from At The Chase 2018: Competition DJing Pt 1 (Mix & Match) – where I started to chronicle my decisions behind choosing music for the Chase Festival competitions. The Strictly Lindy prelims had the same format as the Mix & Match – which is to say three heats, each with three songs, each song for 60 – 70 seconds, two medium and one fast. Nice and simple.

As before, my key criteria were to have songs that were fun, swung hard, and that maintained a good energy for the time I’d be playing them. If I were playing the whole song it’d be a different matter – but a one phrase section of quiet can eat a large chunk out of a sixty second running time, and I wanted people to really have a chance to go to town.

So here we go…

Competitions DJing General rambles Music

The first time I went to Herrang – which all those years ago was pretty much our only way of getting to quality Lindy Hop classes – I found a musical paradise. There was SO MUCH INCREDIBLE MUSIC that I’d never heard the like of before – and I came back home with songs like Jeep Jockey Jump and One O’Clock Jump ricocheting around in my brain. At that time, I had no idea what these songs even were – the word “swing” just suggested some guy called Glenn Miller, and Glenn Miller meant exactly one thing – In the Mood. I’d barely even heard of Count Basie… but I absolutely had to find out more.

General rambles Music

I was actually just looking for some recordings from the wonderfully named Club Hangover, and Google brought me here. Started in 1998, and run by the gentleman above – Dave Radlauer – there’s an incredible wealth of information to be found here about Jazz, Swing, and many of the great artists.

Competitions DJing General rambles Music

Oh – the dream of the perfect swing tune. Those gold-dust tracks – those beautiful, amazing tracks which everyone is going to fall in love with, and which cannot fail to set the dance floor ablaze every time they’re used. All you need is a collection filled with nothing but those, and you have it made as a DJ.

It’s nice to dream. Sadly, there’s no such thing – sure there are plenty of amazing tracks out there, but no single track can possibly fit every mood, every moment that you’re going to have to fill as a DJ. The best tracks in your collection can fall completely flat if you play them at the wrong moment. On the flipside, some of the most unlikely ones can work really well if you play them at just the right moment…

Remember – not every song is Lindy Hopper’s Delight. And even Lindy Hopper’s Delight can become Lindy Hopper’s Oh Dear God Not Again if you’re not careful.

DJing General rambles Music

General rambles Music