Swing and Blues Corner Posts

I’m sitting in Frankfurt Airport, chilling out after the wonderful intensity of Chase Festival, and I’m feeling inspired to jot down some thoughts about the allure of swing music. I mean – this music, above all, is the reason I dance… and given just how long I spend dancing to it, collecting it, DJing it, describing it, talking about it – I really ought to be able to tell people what’s so great about it. So here goes.

At our classes, one of the most common questions that newcomers ask is: “What music should we practice to, and where can we get it?”

There’s a whole world of jazz and swing music out there, but for newcomers to the dance, who aren’t yet used to some of the complexities and intricacies of some of the more sophisticated examples, I prefer to use songs of reasonable tempo, with clear uncomplicated rhythms, and which are nicely accessible to everyone. At the same time, I want them to be fun songs, with good energy melodies – they still need to be enjoyable for beginners. Finally, they have to swing. These are for new swing dancers, and in my view, it’s essential that newcomers get a feeling for the music as soon as possible.

Finally, I want these songs to be easy to get – so this will be a very simple article – just a list of songs suitable for basic Lindy Hop practice, with Amazon, iTunes and eMusic links to allow people to get the songs easily. These aren’t necessarily the best, or the most exciting pieces of swing music around, but neither are any of them particularly challenging to dance to.

So without any more preamble, here’s a bunch of songs.