DJam Playlist

After an interesting afternoon fixing our new forum (note to self – after installing and setting up a forum, don’t delete it. It stops it working) – back to my first blog post. I thought it might be useful to kick off with a playlist from Saturday night at last weekend’s DJam – it wasn’t a stunning set, by any means (one half hour band break, then picked up again after then next DJ and competitions) – but it was a little unusual in that I needed to effect play an hour of swing from midnight, then transition into blues. And approaching 1am, the floor was jumping, and it almost felt like a crime to obey the timetable.

However, a timetable is a timetable – and I knew that a lot of people were looking forward to the blues section of the evening, so the transition needed to be done. I’m jumping a little ahead of myself here – I’ll skip back to the playlist itself.

First Band Break
I was aiming for a fun but relaxing half hour with these first tracks. The band had been playing a variety of speeds, but they’d hit the dancers with some pretty high tempos, and many had eaten only shortly before. So the first couple of tracks were to start slowing things down a bit, and make the less confident dancers feel safe to come back on the floor. After that, a couple of slow playful tracks (Hawk in particular is so much fun, and I love all the subtle intricacies of Moon Faced)

Then more of a gentle build up, with more gentle quirky fun from Mr Boogie Man and Spooks, and getting the energy going a bit more with Whatcha Know… and back to the band.

Title Length Speed Artist
Love Me Or Leave Me 02:45 161 Pat Flowers
Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen 05:16 151 Gordon Webster
Hawk 06:00 126 Kyoichi Watanabe
Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed 03:07 129 Benny Goodman
Mr Boogie Man 03:03 143 Wingy Manone
Spooks? 02:23 151 Louis Armstrong
Whatcha Know Joe 03:26 163 Tommy Dorsey & Jo Stafford

Post-Band
This next chunk began at midnight, post-competitions. I was mostly having fun here – albeit being slightly lazy and playing personal favourites. I feel I can get away with this more when playing to an unfamiliar crowd. In The Mood… was perhaps a mis-step. It’s an incredible version, but it doesn’t always work … and while it wasn’t a disaster, this wasn’t the best response I’ve had from it. Although the best responses usually involve death threats. If you’ve danced to it, you’ll know why.

The Goon Drag was a nice safe recovery track.

A request for a Shim Sham was honoured, although my timing could have been better – it messed with the wave a little. I was left with a problem here though, because the room was becoming nicely energised, and it was fast approaching 1am (blues time) – so I tried an experiment, which was to begin by cranking the energy up, not down. Rex’s St Louis Blues is an insane, manic track, which begins as it’s title suggests, but quickly runs through the best parts of various other tracks in a crazy fashion, which makes it a good song to peak on. I then dropped it back to a comparatively gentle version of Joshua (minus those horrific fanfares, for those familiar with the original), then started down the quirky and progressively slower route. Two Woody Allen songs in quick succession was probably a no-no, but it seemed to work. Di Anne Price’s wonderful piano started the blues set proper.

Title Length Speed Artist
Its Tight Like That 02:47 143 Jimmy Noone
Lavender Coffin 02:21 145 Joe Thomas
Jungle Crawl (1) 02:57 153 Clarence Williams & His Orchestra
Leap Frog 02:58 158 Louis Armstrong
Study In Red 03:15 166 Larry Clinton
In The Mood 04:39 175 Gene Krupa & His Orchestra
The Goon Drag (Gone Wid De Goon) 03:08 142 Sammy Price And His Texas Blusicians
Your Feets Too Big 03:06 121 Fats Waller & His Rhythm
All for You 02:50 122 Imelda May
Gimme A Pigfoot 03:09 120 LaVern Baker
T’Ain’t What You Do 03:07 160 Jimmie Lunceford
Make Me Know It 03:59 146 Tommy Dorsey
Get Up 02:50 148 Skeets Tolbert and His Gentlemen Of Swing
Long Gone 02:38 160 Ray McKinley
St. Louis Blues 03:11 188 Rex Stewart
Joshua (Straycat Edit) 02:44 134 Ralph Flanagan & His Orchestra
Shake That Thing 03:32 127 Woody Allen
New Orleans Bump 03:32 120 Jelly Roll Morton
Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya 05:32 94 Woody Allen
Big Fat Mama (1) 02:48 92 Clarence Williams & His Orchestra
Why Don’t You Do Right 04:16 79 Di Anne Price

Blues

Title Length Speed Artist
I Pity the Fool 02:43 76 Bobby Blue Bland
Tramp 03:07 111 Lowell Fulson
Give Me One Reason 05:29 93 Earl Thomas
Nobody’s Fault But Mine 02:11 125 Eric Bibb
W-O-M-A-N – Etta James 02:43 79 Etta James
Rock Me Baby 06:16 66 Big Mama Thornton
Wade In the Water 03:01 99 Michelle Shocked
I Am the Cool 04:17 104 Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
My Discarded Men 03:42 111 Eartha Kitt
It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World 03:53 55 Seal
Come On In My Kitchen 05:53 78 Porterdavis
Night Train 03:06 83 Buddy Morrow
Right and Wrong 04:58 71 Asylum Street Spankers
I Just Wanna Make Love to You 04:10 71 Louise Hoffsten
Step by Step 05:22 53 L. A. Blues Alliance

This was a fairly standard blues set for me. Maybe a little too standard, but I can never resist playing that version of Wade in the Water – a habit I really should break myself of) I was a little worried people might start to drift off during the set, but that didn’t happen. Finished up at around 2:15am, then danced ’till five.

It was a good evening.

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