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!
"...Watch your husbands, ladies, 'cuz here's Annette Hanshaw with a complexion like peaches and a voice like smooth honey..." (This is how the announcer introduces Hanshaw's vocal here.)
This track was recommended by Steven in Norway and also (independently) by my friend Jason. The tune is sung by Annette Hanshaw, a very popular female singer from the 1920's. I'd never heard of her before. This isn't exactly the jazz that you're used to--it sits on the borderline between early jazz and the "pop" music of that era--though there are a lot of jazz inflections in it. It's also not exactly what I would call swing dancing music, though it does make me want to dance. Maybe a nice foxtrot with some improvising during the horn, sax, and trombone solos. However you classify it though, I'm basically a sucker for this sort of music. When I heard Annette Hanshaw's voice, I was captivated immediately. Hook, line, and sinker. It's charming, nuanced, and also kind of wily--like a girl who knows a lot more than you about the ways of the world, but doesn't go parading it around.
At least in my scene, I would only play this at a dance if I knew that the crowd was receptive and the mood called for it. But that said, I think that since this style of music was part of the milieu of the jazz era, it's not only appropriate for dancing, it's actually enriching, a good challenge for people, and a pleasant change of mood. Foxtrot and ballroom/"society" dances preceded the swing dances, and they were part of the culture into which lindy hop was born. There's only two leaders in our scene (that I know of at least) who will lead a foxtrot when the music calls for it. I wish there were more.
On a completely different note, there must be something about Annette Hanshaw in the air right now. Jason told me about this very peculiar film called Sita Sings the Blues, which makes use of Annette Hanshaw's music to re-tell an ancient Hindu epic story called the Ramayana and the story of how the film's creator was rejected by her husband. The way the story sets up and uses the musical numbers, and the way those numbers are animated, is pretty amusing. It's an odd little movie. You can watch it all on Youtube (here).
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