Sunday, November 9, 2008

Madison Invasion - setlist from Saturday night dance 11/8/2008

Our buddies up in Madison invited me to DJ for their Fall Invasion, which happened this weekend. John Kraniak, a dj on WORT in Madison, spun the Friday night dance, using nothing but original 78's from the 20's, 30's, and 40's. It was pretty cool to hear records that were actually physically created during the swing era, and a treat to get to dance to them. It put me in a good mood all weekend. Todd and Ronni from Denver taught a day of classes on Saturday, including classes focused on dancing to slow tempos and to faster tempos.

My setlist is below. A couple of things I was shooting for that evening: 1) playing mostly higher fidelity recordings, because the Friday night dance was (understandably) low-fi, 2) working in more blues & boogie material than I usually play, because on Friday I noticed that the Madison crowd seemed to really respond to those sorts of sounds, and 3) my usual goal of playing a wide variety of styles & tempos. The first two I think I did pretty well on, but on number three, I think I had some trouble managing tempos. I think I could have pushed the boundaries on tempo a bit further in either direction--the floor would have thinned a bit, but I could have played some 200+ bpm music and still had folks dancing. I guess my Fizz habits got the best of me there--I rarely break 200 on Monday nights. And I had a few fun songs in the 90-110 range that I just didn't work in, which is too bad (I know the crowd would have liked Toast My Bread). It also would have been better to transition with tempos a little bit more gradually.

Here's the distribution of tempos over the night:


And here's a graph of beats per minute over time:


The red dots are Todd and Ronni's demo, the three songs used for the Jack & Jill finals, and the demo of "Shortnin' Bread." Sorry about the thick black borders on these, and low resolution on the second image. I haven't figured out a good way to publish charts on this blog.

And finally, here's my set list. I list title - artist - album - time - beats per minute:
  1. Ain't Misbehavin' - Kermit Ruffins - Putumayo Presents: Kermit Ruffins - 4:36 - 140
  2. Blues for Stephanie - Paul Tillotson the Love Trio - Lindy Hop Blues - 4:29 - 130
  3. Yes Indeed - Slam Stewart - Slamboree - 3:35 - 150
  4. All Of Me - Helen O'Connell - Great Girl Singers, Sing 22 Original Hits - 2:09 - 145
  5. Strictly Instrumental - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 2:39 - 170
  6. Birmingham Bounce - Tommy Dorsey - Greatest Hits: Tommy Dorsey - 2:57 - 160
  7. Come On Over To My House - Jay McShann - Jumpin' The Blues - 2:52 - 145
  8. Massachusetts - Maxine Sullivan And Her Jazz All-Stars - Memories Of You - 3:16 - 145
  9. Sent For You Yesterday And Here You Come Today - Benny Goodman - B.G. In Hi-Fi - 3:05 - 155
  10. Let's Misbehave - The Boilermaker Jazz Band - You Do Something To Me - 2:52 - 190
  11. Six-appeal - Charlie Christian - Six-appeal - 3:20 - 145
  12. Let The Good Times Roll - Linda Hopkins - Wild Women Blues - 3:26 - 140
  13. Twisted Snake - Otis Spann - Otis Spann: Best Of The Vanguard Years - 3:02 - 145
  14. Shout, Sister, Shout! - Sister Rosetta Tharpe - The Gospel of the Blues - 2:41 - 145
  15. Hello, Dolly! - Louis Armstrong - Ken Burns Jazz - 2:24 - 155
  16. Big John's Special - Don Neely's Royal Society Jazz Orchestra - Radio Rhythm - 3:18 - 170
  17. Sugarfoot Rag - Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Story Vol. 2 - 3:06 - 190
  18. Corner Pocket - Count Basie - April In Paris - 5:07 - 140
  19. Easy Does It - Paul Tillotson the Love Trio - Lindy Hop Blues - 2:57 - 130
  20. Smack Dab In The Middle - The Deep River Boys - London Harmony - 2:59 - 130
  21. They Raided The Joint - Helen Humes - Let The Good Times Roll - 3:19 - 160
  22. The Darktown Strutters' Ball - Katherine Davis - Dream Shoes - 3:40 - 135
  23. Honeysuckle Rose - Twin Cities Hot Club - Twin Cities Hot Club - 4:47 - 140
  24. My Blue Heaven - Stuff Smith Quartet - Swingin' Stuff - 3:46 - 160
  25. Tutti Frutti - Slim Gaillard - 1938-46 - 2:38 - 170
  26. Hey! Stop Kissin' My Sister - Fats Waller - The Unique Mr. Waller - 2:50 - 190
  27. My Baby Just Cares for Me - Indigo Swing - Indigo Swing - 4:03 - 115 (Todd & Ronni's demo)
  28. Yacht Club Swing - Fats Waller - Yacht Club Swing 1938 - 3:51 - 160 (Jack & Jill warm-up all-skate)
  29. For Dancers Only - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 2:41 - 150 (Jack & Jill phrase battle, 1st song)
  30. Jeep Jockey Jump - The Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra - Swingin' The Century - 2:51 - 210 (Jack & Jill phrase battle, 2nd song)
  31. Fiddle Dee Dee - Lionel Hampton - Lionel Hampton Story 1: Hot Mallets - 2:39 - 195
  32. Jive At Five - Count Basie - The Complete Decca Recordings - 2:51 - 175
  33. The Right Idea - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra - Swing Street Strut - 3:13 - 185
  34. I May Be Wrong (Boogie Woogie) - Jimmy Witherspoon - Jimmy Witherspoon & Panama Francis' Savoy Sultans - 3:21 - 165
  35. Vine Street Boogie - Jay McShann - Jumpin' The Blues - 2:37 - 155
  36. Like It Is - Erroll Garner - That's My Kick & Gemini - 2:44 - 130
  37. A Man That Don't Want Me - Sippie Wallace - Sippie - 2:43 - 125
  38. On Revival Day - Lavern Baker - LaVern Sings Bessie Smith - 3:16 - 140
  39. Gang Busters - Cats & The Fiddle - We Cats Will Swing For You - 3:06 - 185
  40. Shortnin' Bread - Fats Waller - The Unique Mr. Waller - 2:41 - 170 (demo of the routine taught earlier that day)
  41. All Of Me/The Peanut Vendor - Dick Hyman Group Feat. Howard Alden - Sweet And Lowdown - 1:43 - 170
  42. Shine On Harvest Moon - Pete Fountain - Dixieland's Kings - 2:50 - 160
  43. Lindyhopper's Delight - Chick Webb - Strictly Jive - 2:45 - 195
  44. Tain't What You Do - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 3:06 - 160 (Shim sham!)
  45. Home To Mississippi - Otis Spann - Otis Spann: Best Of The Vanguard Years - 3:29 - 130
  46. I'm A Bouncin' Mama - Tab Smith - Top 'n' Bottom - 2:30 - 165
  47. I Don't Care Who Knows - Catherine Russell - Sentimental Streak - 3:18 - 125
  48. Summit Ridge Drive - Buddy DeFranco - Plays Artie Shaw - 4:35 - 145
  49. Boys from Harlem - Randy Sandke And The Nagel Heyer Allstars - Uptown Lowdown - 3:33 - 160
  50. I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby - Louis Armstrong - Satch Plays Fats (Remaster) - 4:28 - 160
  51. Keepin' Out A Mishif Now - Carling Family - 20th Jubilee - 3:32 - 120
  52. Sugar Blues - Clarence Williams - Boogie Woogie Blues - 3:40 - 135
  53. Rockin In Rhythm - Duke Ellington - An Anthology Of Big Band Swing 1930-1955 - 3:01 - 185
  54. Minor Swing - The Boilermaker Jazz Band - Give Me Your Telephone Number - 3:41 - 195
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3 comments:

  1. Steven ReinkeNovember 10, 2008 at 12:58 PM

    Such a great set James! The first thing I chatted about with every follow was how great the music was. I had a blast.

    -- Steven from Madison

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brent CasavantNovember 11, 2008 at 10:24 PM

    Sorry I couldn't make it to the invasion this past weekend -- it would have been a treat to see you and Mary again.

    Nice graphs. I've been wanting to generate graphs like that to analyze my own DJ sessions. What method (i.e. software, etc) did you use to extract the playlist and generate the graphs?

    Brent

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  3. JamesNovember 12, 2008 at 5:58 AM

    Sadly, I didn't use anything fancier than Excel. I just export my playlist from iTunes (as a text file), then open it in Excel and use text-to-columns. Playlists don't include the bpm field, so I had to add that manually. Pretty crumby system, I know.

    To do better, you'd need something that could read an XML export of your entire iTunes library, look up a track based on a key from the playlist (maybe the location field), and spit it out for you. Any ideas? My first thought is that it probably wouldn't be to hard in Python.

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