Week three of the lockdown brings us round two of my most-DJ’d music countdown. Enjoy the second batch of tracks.
Being a complete geek, I now have the full list on a spreadsheet, which auto-generates the HTML tables used to show it in the blog. All I need to do now is find preview links, make the Spotify playlist, write some descriptions, then copy-paste into the blog. What could be simpler?
As I’ve been DJing since 2007, and have had a pretty steep learning curve in that time, this will probably throw up some bizarre choices and guilty secrets. I reserve the right to remove any of the really bad choices that I find. Where possible, I’ll put in links where you can listen to the tracks.
These are not necessarily my all-time favourite tracks, and they’re not necessarily the ones that I’d be recommending as the best dance tracks ever. They’re just the ones I’ve played the most over the last thirteen years.
I’ve created a Spotify playlist to host all the tracks (or all the ones i can find on Spotify anyway) – and each week, I’ll keep adding the tracks for the week. You can listen to it here!
| Track | Artist | Album | Time | BPM | Plays | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 90 | Short Dressed Gal | Preservation Hall Jazz Band | New Orleans Preservation, Vol. 1 | 2:38 | 163 | 74 |
| A cheerful energetic song from the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band (side not – we watched them perform a few years back. Highly recommended) Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 89 | Swingin’ On Nothin’ | Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five, featuring Hilary Alexander | Jammin’ the Blues | 3:37 | 126 | 74 |
| Among the longest-standing and best of the contemporary swing outfits – and a go-to version of Swingin’ on Nothin’ from Mr Stout and Hilliary Alexander. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 88 | Blue Drag | Earl Hines | Classic Earl Hines Sessions (1928-1945) [Disc 2] | 3:02 | 140 | 75 |
| A slow and playful version of this standard, with Earl Hines’ intricate virtuoso piano to wonder at. The only issue here is the sound quality. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 87 | I Know How To Do It | Sam Price | Complete Jazz Series 1929 – 1943 | 2:46 | 177 | 75 |
| A fun mid-tempo track, featuring Sam Price’s great jump piano – another that’s hard to find in great quality, but the song makes up for it. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 86 | Ten ‘Til Five | Glenn Crytzer and his Syncopators | Harlem Mad | 2:49 | 141 | 75 |
| One of Glenn Crytzer’s better tracks – a nice slow-mid tempo number with Glenn Crytzer’s very distinctive sound, and which builds beautifully throughout. Another go-to track. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 85 | Jump Through The Window (11-16-43) | Roy Eldridge | Complete Jazz Series 1943 – 1944 | 2:44 | 153 | 76 |
| On a lot of people’s overplayed lists, especially since a Certain Routine (Skye and Frida?) popularised it – but with good reason – a wonderful mid-tempo track, and great for dancing. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 84 | Shorty’s Got To Go | Lucky Millinder And His Orchestra | Devil’s Holiday | 3:13 | 143 | 76 |
| This song almost defines the idea of an overplayed song list. Which is why these days, I hardly play it – but it still reliably fills the dance floor – so I really should bring it out more often. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 83 | Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed | Benny Goodman & Johnny Mercer | Complete Jazz Series 1946 – 1947 | 3:07 | 126 | 78 |
| Deceptively slow and gentle – but some really compulsive rhythms and and a gorgeous melody that had me slightly addicted from the moment I heard it. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 82 | Rhythm Sundae | Earl Hines & His Orchestra | Classic Earl Hines Sessions (1928-1945) [Disc 3] | 2:53 | 141 | 78 |
| Back to Earl Fatha Hines – more intricate piano, more mid-tempo gorgeous dancing rhythms. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
| 81 | Johnson Rag | Glenn Miller | Glenn Miller: The Spirit Is Willing | 2:48 | 153 | 79 |
| There’s a good reason DJs tend to stay away from much of Miller’s music – he generally was playing a safe repertoire for (it has to be said) extremely white audiences. That is not to say he didn’t play some gems though – and this is a good bet on most Lindy dance floors. Listen on Spotify |
||||||
Footnote: – For anyone who doesn’t know the term, BPM is short for Beats Per Minute, and is a standard way for DJs to measure track speed.
Like, like, like!