fodder for a charleston choreography

Jennifer writes:

Thank you so much for your great blog! I'm wanting to choreograph a girls solo Charleston routine, but I've kind of hit a wall in terms of finding a song. I like Yam Brown by Bob Hunt's Duke Elington Orchestra, but I'm just not sure. Do you have any recommendations for a 2-3 min. charleston-ish song?

That recording of Yam Brown is really good--great janky feel from the banjo, great Bubber Miley-style trumpet solo at the start. The thing that makes this track really good for a choreography is all of the changes--it shifts mood several times, as if different characters were talking to each other.

A while back, my friend & sometime co-conspirator Jenna choreographed a fantastic routine to a recording of Shake That Thing by Vince Giordano's Nighthawks (check it out). What makes it so engaging is how she used the different voices in the piece as inspiration to create different characters in the dance--she and her troupe even have names for some of the characters. Without that sort of texture in the music, I think it is much harder to hold an audience's attention for 3 minutes. 2 minutes maybe, but 3 no. So Yam Brown is really good in this respect.

You might check out other Duke Ellington tunes like Demi-Tasse and Downtown Uproar, both off The Duke's Men: Small Group Recordings, Vol. 1. You might not be interested, but I would really like to see someone do a routine (partnered or solo) to the version of Caravan on the same album. One of my favorite Ellington compositions.

Here are some other suggestions:

• South Rampart Street Parade - Bob Crosby and his Orchestra - South Rampart Street Parade - 3:34 - 225 bpm. It does sound like a street parade--a bit march-like for your taste, maybe--but it has lots of character.
• Jitter Bug - Cab Calloway - The Early Years 1930-1934 - 3:12 - 230 bpm. More of a swing feel than charleston, but it's very driving and energetic. Actually, this would probably make a better partnered group routine than girls solo charleston.
• Lawd, Lawd - Cecil Scott and his Bright Boys - Harlem Big Bands - 3:13 - 215 bpm. Great rhythm, though certainly a novelty tune.

In terms of contemporary bands, you might check out these:

• Six Feet Down - Tuba Skinny - Six Feet Down - 3:25 - 235 bpm
• I Can't Dance - The Smoking Time Jazz Club - Quarter Note, Vol. 1 - 4:14 - 210 bpm
• Jada - The Palmetto Bug Stompers - Live @ DBA - 4:34 - 210 bpm

Picking a song for a choreo is a little bit like picking someone to go with on a two week long camping trip in the back country. The most important thing is definitely finding a tune that you find fun & interesting, because you'll be listening to it a LOT. In fact, you'll probably be sick of it by the time you've got it choreographed and taught to your girls. Don't worry about that though--even if you're sick of it for a while, you'll come back sooner or later and make friends again, and be glad that you took the trip together. Whatever you pick, let me know how it goes, and send video once you've performed it. Good luck!

P.S. If you're having trouble finding a song that's the right length (or just slightly too fast), you can always trim it down. If you're not familiar with sound editing, have a look at Audacity, a software program for editing digital sound. It's free, easy to use, and has lots of fancy features.

Isham Jones

Abe writes in:

One band I've come across that doesn't seem to get nearly the attention it should from the swing world is the Isham Jones Orchestra, the band that after 20 or so years, became the Woody Herman band. "King of Dance Bands" I believe was their claim to fame. While recordings of the "better" Jones tunes are available on CD, I'd recommend grabbing them off the free Red Hot Jazz Archive (here's a link, though it can be a bit of a pain to get working as it requires the realplayer2.0 codec). Some of the songs more "in-tune" to dancing include

• Black Magic,
• Blue Room,
• Dallas Blues,
• Doin' the Uptown Lowdown,
• Don't Let Your Love Go Wrong,
• Got the Jitters,
• I Hate Myself (For Being so Mean to You),
• Out of Space,
• Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia, and
• Sweet Georgia Brown.

Many of these might not be ideal lindy songs, but would provide excellent choreography opportunities.

I'm a little bit familiar with Isham Jones--I like his recording of Doin' the Uptown Lowdown quite a lot. To my ear, Isham's orchestra sits on the border between "society" dance music and "hot" music, with their later recordings (esp. the ones Abe recommends) moving more towards hot. I've got a soft spot for this style of music (for instance, see here), though I do see why it isn't mainstream--a lot of lindyhoppers don't really appreciate dances like foxtrot, peabody, and "society" styles of charleston, which is the sort of movement that this music inspires.

It's great to get tips from y'all, so keep them coming!

If you're crazy about Charleston...

(See my introduction to this series of posts.)

...and find yourself dancing on subway platforms, in elevators, or while preparing dinner...

• Be cautious if listening to the Cats and the Fiddle's album We Cats Will Swing for You. The Cats are a guitar-driven group featuring male vocal harmonies and lots of janky, catchy tunes. If you put them on your iPod, you may end up embarrassing yourself in public, or chopping off your finger at the knuckle if you're not careful.
• Even though I mentioned this one in an earlier post, I still recommend Firecracker Jazz Band: Firecracker Jazz Band Explodes. High-energy, off-the-wall music from a group that includes some former Squirrel Nut Zippers. Lots of hot tempos. You won't be able to sit still.
• I also already mentioned the Boilermakers, but not their albums Give Me Your Telephone Number or You Do Something To Me. Both have a number of tunes that are Charleston friendly. I think it's something about the banjo in the rhythm section.
  

...and really wish it were the Roaring 20's again...

• Start with some early Louis Armstrong, like The Best of The Hot 5 & Hot 7 Recordings. These are some of the most influential recordings in the history of Jazz, and are endlessly fascinating to listen to.
• For more hot 20's trumpet blowin', there's also Jabbo Smith: 1929 - The Complete Set. The recording of "Jazz Battle" is awesome.
• The compilation album Harlem Big Bands features recordings from 1925 through 1931, and provides a great sampling of dance bands from that era. I particularly like Cecil Scott & his Bright Boys.
  
• Or for modern recordings of tunes from the late 1920's, try Celebrating Bix! from the Bix Centennial All Stars. The group includes Randy Sandke, Dan Barrett, and Vince Giordano, top-flight musicians who all share a love for playing jazz styles from the 1920's, 30's, and 40's. Giordano leads a group called the Nighthawks, who specialize in the music of the 1920'. To get a taste of what they can do, check out this track: Shake That Thing. Unfortunately their albums are not widely available, but you can order them by mail or get them in person at their concerts. (I did the latter, picking up a copy of their album "Quality Shout" and got Vince's autograph to boot.) Details on the Nighthawks MySpace site.
  
• Another modern group, hailing from Britain and called simply Harlem, plays a lot of music from Duke Ellington's earliest groups. Check out their album Harlemania.
  

Note: Dancers, DJs, and folks searching for music, let me know what you think of these recommendations, and please don't be shy about posting a comment to suggest some of your favorites too.