Setlists from WCLX 2008

This past weekend was the tenth installment of the Windy City Lindy Exchange. I did two sets over the course of the weekend. Both setlists are below.

I spun from 1 to 2 a.m. at the Saturday late night at the Galaxie. It was the first set of the night, so people were trickling in the whole time. By about 1:30 the floor was fairly full. I've never deejayed for an exchange late night before--I tried to weigh several different aspects of the situation, though I'm not sure how successful I was. For one, I thought I should keep the energy pretty high, so that people wouldn't get sleepy. Also, down the hall was a second room for dancing--the djs there were playing a very wide variety of tunes including blues, hip-hop, pop, and at least one Tom Waits track. Finally, considering that the deejayed music and band selections from the main dance on Saturday were pretty homogeneous (consisting mostly of New Testament big band arrangements, Sinatra style crooning, and a (pitiful) rendition of Jump, Jive and Wail), I thought I should present some contrast. Here's my set:

1. Shine On, Harvest Moon - The Ink Spots - Voice Masters Vol. 2 - 3:09
2. Who Walks In When I Walk Out? - Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald - The Wonderful Duets - 2:21
3. Dat Dere - Oscar Brown Jr. - Sin & Soul ...And Then Some - 2:52
4. My Blue Heaven - Stuff Smith Quartet - Swingin' Stuff - 3:46
5. All Of Me - Twin Cities Hot Club - Twin Cities Hot Club - 4:10
6. It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) - Lionel Hampton - Lionel Hampton Story 1: Hot Mallets - 3:15
7. Sugar Blues - Clarence Williams - Boogie Woogie Blues - 3:39
   
8. Southern sunset - Swing Parade South - Hommage a Sidney Bechet - 3:32
9. Everybody Loves My Baby - Sippie Wallace - Sippie - 3:11
10. Tain't What You Do - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 3:06
11. Shine On Harvest Moon - Pete Fountain - Pete Fountain and The Kings Of Dixieland - 2:52
12. All the Cats Join In - Benny Goodman - The Best of The Capitol Years - 4:22
13. Twenty-Four Robbers - Fats Waller - The Unique Mr. Waller - 2:45
14. Minor Swing - The Boilermaker Jazz Band - Give Me Your Telephone Number - 3:41
15. I Don't Care Who Knows - Catherine Russell - Sentimental Streak - 3:18
16. Smack Dab In The Middle - The Deep River Boys - London Harmony - 2:59
17. Rock Me All Night Long - The Fabulous Treniers - The Hoss Allen Sessions - 2:41
18. Baby, Won't You Please Come Home - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 2:54
19. Never Make You Move Too Soon - Barbara Morrison - Doing All Right - 3:34
20. Four or Five Times - Joe Williams - For Dancers Only! - 4:48

The exchange committee had planned a dance for Sunday afternoon on Federal Plaza, which is in downtown Chicago (in the Loop, as the locals say). It was raining by the time I got there around 2 p.m. I went to CVS and got some trash bags to keep my equipment dry, then set up my laptop under an umbrella. Less than ideal conditions. There were only a few people there, and seldom more than two couples dancing at one time. The cement was slick from the rain. As often happens at outdoor dances, some passers-by stopped to watch or chat. The last two tracks of my set were requests from some dude that just wandered up. He stayed to dance by himself.

1. Didn't It Rain - Lavern Baker - Precious Memories / LaVern Sings Bessie Smith - 2:47
2. Shout, Sister, Shout! - Sister Rosetta Tharpe - The Gospel of the Blues - 2:41
3. Hoodle-Addle - Ray McKinley Orchestra - You Came A Long Way From St. Louis - 3:21
4. All Right, Okay, You Win - Count Basie - Count Basie at Newport - 2:45
5. Aint Nobody's Business If I Do - B.B. King - Ogden's Blues Favorites, Vol. 3 - 3:38
6. I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues - Doc Cheatham - Putumayo Presents: New Orleans - 3:20
7. I Ain't Goin' To Cry Anymore - Dinah Washington - Mixed Emotions - 2:40
8. Chicken Shack - Pinetop Perkins - Ladies Man - 4:28
9. Tutti Frutti - Slim Gaillard - 1938-46 - 2:38
10. Like It Is - Erroll Garner - That's My Kick & Gemini - 2:44
11. It's A Shame - The Spinners - Motown: The Classic Years - 3:10
12. Teardrops From My Eyes - Ruth Brown - Rockin' In Rhythm - Best Of - 2:59
13. I Don't Care Who Knows - Catherine Russell - Sentimental Streak - 3:18
14. Lean Baby - Illinois Jacquet - Flying Home - 3:05
15. Sermonette - Earl Grant - Singin' & Swingin': The Best Of Earl Grant - 2:42
16. Ain't Got No Room for the Blues - Banu Gibson - Vintage Banu - 2:46
17. Confessin' The Blues - Carrie Smith - When You're Down and Out - 4:36
18. Take The "A" Train - Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Band - 2:54
19. The Comeback - Count Basie - Count Basie at Newport - 4:10

Lionel Hampton Sextet - Fiddle-Dee-Dee

Available on eMusic, Amazon, and iTunes.

Personnel:
Lionel Hampton - vibraphone
Marshal Royal - clarinet, alto sax
Ray Perry - violin
Charles Thompson - piano
Irving Ashby - guitar
Vernon Alley - bass
Lee Young - drums

This song has a really distinctive, ear-catching mood to it...a certain vibe, you might say (yuck yuck yuck). The first thirty seconds of the song sound exotic and a little spooky--it starts out with just the guitar playing these interesting embellishments over Hamp's ringing chords, and a very faint hi-hat symbol in the background. Then the violin speaks up, playing something similar to the guitar. It's a slow build-up, pretty dramatic, but somehow you can feel the swing in it.

Then after all that swirling about, the ensemble comes in and man do they swing. Hampton still lays down the same ringing, exotic chords, but more rapidly now, while his band plays these nice, rhythmic riffs. Everybody takes short solos and then they wrap up quickly--not so much a finale as an evaporation.

I think Ray Perry's violin is the star on this track. Listen in particular for how he doubles the vibraphone in the last phrase--I don't think I've ever heard anything like that before. I'm a pretty big fan of jazz fiddle/violin. When it's done well, I think violinists can swing really hard, and can be a lot expressive and evocative than just "oh what a pretty melody." (For instance, Stephane Grappelli could more than hold his own against Django.)

Laying back was sometimes a challenge for Hampton--since he played a percussion instrument, I think sometimes he would forget that the other musicians actually had to take a breath every once in a while, so he would just speed through relentlessly. Dancers have to breath too, so his tendency to plow through phrases makes some of his music less than ideal for dancing. This track is a nice counter-example though. When it's Hampton's turn to solo, he's frantic as usual, but he leaves room to breath and to let the phrase sink in.

File this under: tracks that will keep the energy high while sounding laid-back.

Ella Fitzgerald - Sugarfoot Rag

Available on Amazon and iTunes.

Some songs that I otherwise really enjoy present a problem for deejaying. A lot of big band music is meant to convey excitement/energy/pep, so it comes out with horns blaring, firing riffs off every which way, and never lets up. (I think this is true of music from every era--maybe particularly so for more arranged music.) Sounds like the perfect way to keep the energy high in a room full of dancers, but actually I've seen songs like that backfire. The problem is, if a dancer doesn't feel up to matching the intensity of the first few bars of the song, they might be more inclined to sit the song out. Sometimes you just don't want to dance that exuberantly.

In songs with big intros, sometimes the energy also drops off a cliff once you hit a long solo. Take for instance, Count Basie Orchestra playing Dance of the Gremlins--fun song, great riffs, but it can be kind of draining. Other Count Basie numbers have a different energy pattern to them--the steady build. Basie's version of One O'Clock Jump is a masterpiece (will have to blog about that one later), but the energy in it is like a steady climb up a hill--it doesn't peak until two thirds of the way through the number.

Sugarfoot Rag, on the other hand, is like a roller coaster ride. It has an interesting pattern of phrases that take the energy up and down, then up and down again. The song is a standard three choruses, but the choruses follow a rather unusual pattern. Typically in swing music, a chorus is made up of 4 (8-bar or 4-eight count) phrases in an AABA pattern. In this song, the pattern is AABCC, and each phrase puts a different twist on the energy.

After a very short intro from the horns and Ella, she starts in on the first verse (phrase A):

Gonna get out the sycamore, shine up my shoes,
Meet my baby and tell him the news.
I bet my bundle on a sway-back nag
And I came home a winner with plenty of swag

In the second phrase (also an A), she sings the refrain, which sounds a bit like a nursery rhyme:

One foot, two foot, slew foot drag
Swing your honey to the sugarfoot rag
Dig a little jig and a zig and a zag
And listen to the trombone, sugarfoot rag

In the background, the band claps their hands, which gives a little boost to the energy, but not over the top. At the end of the phrase, Ella summons the trombone, who comes in for the next phrase (B) as the band plays a sort of smooth, slow riff. It's cool and tense at the same time--it feels to me like the song is in slow-motion all of a sudden. The trombone kicks into high gear with a bigger, more energetic solo for the next two phrases (C), while the band plays some bold, brassy riffs in support.

Then the same pattern repeats, first with the verse and refrain, then a slow-motion phrase, and then two phrases of high-energy solos. This time, Ella calls out "And listen to the tenor, sugarfoot rag," which cues a saxophone solo. The third time, same thing, but Ella cues herself "And listen to me, sugarfoot rag," then unleashes some virtuosic scatting.

Calling out the next soloist is a neat gimmick. I've played this song at dances with good results, because it's high-energy but not in a draining way. The constant ups and downs of the arrangement give it a playful feeling, and make it seem less daunting for dancers who might be at the edge of their comfort-zone as far as the tempo goes.

Balboa Party setlist 9/26/2008

I deejayed the Balboa party at Big City Swing from about 8:30 to 11:45 on 9/26/2008. Attendance was lighter than normal, probably because the first presidential debate was on TV from 8:00 to 9:30. More folks started to drift in after that, mostly friends of mine whose taste in music I have a pretty good sense for. Because of that, and because of the smaller crowd, I used more drastic transitions between tempos and styles, figuring that I didn't need to worry as much about super-smooth flow, and should concentrate more on variety, playing whatever selections I thought the dancers would really enjoy most so that nobody would get bored. A few of the songs I tested out for the first time, with mixed results.

1. Summit Ridge Drive - Buddy DeFranco - Plays Artie Shaw - 4:35
2. Perdido - Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Band - 3:13
   
3. Sent For You Yesterday And Here You Come Today - Benny Goodman - B.G. In Hi-Fi - 3:05
4. Mr. Ghost Goes To Town - Mora's Modern Rhythmists - Mr. Rhythmist Goes To Town - 3:58
5. Whistle Stop - The Swing Session - Stompy Jones - 2:15
6. Celery Stalks At Midnight (Album Version) - Will Bradley - Swing Time! - The Fabulous Big Band Era (1925-1955) - 3:15
7. All That Meat And No Potatoes - Fats Waller - The Unique Mr. Waller - 2:47
8. Rose Room - Artie Shaw - Artie Shaw, King Of The Clarinet - 2:43
9. Le Jazz Hot - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 2:44
10. Fiddle Dee Dee - Lionel Hampton - Lionel Hampton Story 1: Hot Mallets - 2:39
11. Boys from Harlem - Randy Sandke And The Nagel Heyer Allstars - Uptown Lowdown - 3:33
12. Six Appeal - Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five, featuring Hilary Alexander - Crazy Rhythm - 3:29
13. I'm Beginning To See The Light - Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington - Compact Jazz - 3:26
14. Carolina In the Morning - Jimmy Dorsey - Big Band Masters: Jimmy Dorsey, Vol. 2 - 3:49
15. Sugarfoot Rag - Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Story Vol. 2 - 3:06
16. Dipsy Doodle - Larry Clinton & His Orchestra - G.I. Jukebox, Original Hits from the Swing Era, 1938-1946 - 3:03
17. Take It Easy Greasy No. 2 - Lil Johnson - Lil Johnson & Barrelhouse Annie Vol. 3 1937 - 2:58
18. Grabtown Grapple - Artie Shaw - 1944-45 - 3:00
19. Shorty George - Count Basie - The Complete Decca Recordings - 2:46
20. I May Be Wrong (Boogie Woogie) - Jimmy Witherspoon - Jimmy Witherspoon & Panama Francis' Savoy Sultans - 3:21
21. Country Man - Carrie Smith - When You're Down and Out - 3:46
22. Jambalaya Strut - Dr. Michael White - Dancing In The Sky - 3:46
23. San Francisco Bay Blues - Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band - Blues Over Bodega - 3:41
24. It's You Who Taught It To Me - Fats Waller - The Unique Mr. Waller - 2:42
25. Madame Dynamite - Eddie Condon - Let's Swing It - 2:55
26. Tiger Rag - The Firehouse Five Plus Two - The Firehouse Five Plus Two Story - 3:04
27. Shine On Harvest Moon - Pete Fountain - Pete Fountain and The Kings Of Dixieland - 2:52
28. My Baby Likes To Be-Bop - Ella Fitzgerald - Swingin' Ella - 2:45
29. Ridin' And Jivin' - Earl Hines - Rosetta - 2:39
30. Thursday Evening Swing - Cats & The Fiddle - We Cats Will Swing For You - 2:28
31. The Right Idea - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra - Swing Street Strut - 3:13
32. Digga Digga Doo - Asylum Street Spankers - Mercurial - 4:10
33. Let's Get Drunk And Truck - The Harlem Hamfats - Let's Get Drunk And Truck - 3:06
34. On Revival Day - Lavern Baker - Precious Memories / LaVern Sings Bessie Smith - 3:16
35. Colonel Josh's BBQ - Asylum Street Spankers - Strawberry - 3:40
36. Hoodle-Addle - Ray McKinley Orchestra - You Came A Long Way From St. Louis - 3:21
37. Tain't What You Do - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 3:06
38. Shout, Sister, Shout! - Sister Rosetta Tharpe - The Gospel of the Blues - 2:41
39. Yes Indeed - Slam Stewart - Slamboree - 3:35
40. All Of Me - Della Reese - Cocktail Classics - 2:01
41. Harlem Air Shaft - Duke Ellington - Piano In the Background - 4:03
42. Rockin In Rhythm - Duke Ellington - An Anthology Of Big Band Swing 1930-1955 - 3:01
43. Shoot the Likker to Me, John Boy - Artie Shaw - Self Portrait (Box Set) - 2:48
44. Don't Be That Way - Chick Webb - Jazz After Hours - 2:43
45. Everybody Loves My Baby - Sippie Wallace - Sippie - 3:11
46. My Blue Heaven - Stuff Smith Quartet - Swingin' Stuff - 3:46
47. Sugar Blues - Ella Fitzgerald & Chick Webb - Standing Tall - 3:05
48. Jive At Five - Count Basie - Swinging The Blues: 1930-1939 - 2:46
49. Hey! Stop Kissin' My Sister - Fats Waller - The Unique Mr. Waller - 2:50
50. Darktown Strutters Ball - Jeff Healey - It's Tight Like That - 4:50
51. Tutti Frutti - Slim Gaillard - 1938-46 - 2:38
52. Hop, Skip And Jump - Engelbert Wröbel's Swing Society - Sophisticated Swing - 3:47
53. Apollo Jump - Lucky Millinder - Classic Big Band Jazz - 3:26
54. Between The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea - Django Reinhardt - The Swing Sessions Volume 1 - 2:58
55. Hot Biscuits - Jay McShann - Jumpin' The Blues - 3:08
56. Jazz Me Blues (trimmed) - Jimmy Dorsey - America's Premier Dixieland Jazz Band Live 1950 - 2:00
57. Never Make You Move Too Soon - Barbara Morrison - Doing All Right - 3:34
58. I Found A New Baby - Cootie Williams - Do Nothing 'Till You Hear From Me - 2:39
59. Putting On The Ritz - The Pasadena Roof Orchestra - Pasadena - 25th Anniversary Album - 3:12

Eddie Condon & company - Madame Dynamite

Available on eMusic, Amazon, and iTunes.

This peppy mid-tempo instrumental (well, in Chicago it would be borderline up-tempo) has a lot of qualities that I think make for really fun, interesting dance music--stuff that really makes me want to swing out. Let me highlight a couple:

• The loose, laid-back timing. The song is around 185 beats per minute, but it's lazy. It doesn't feel driving or fast.
• A rapid flow of different voices. Listen to the introductory phrase, where the horns come in one after the other, and then cut out, leaving the piano to finish. None of the individual instruments solos for very long--there's a constant flow of different sounds. I think this makes it fun to dance to--there's always something new just around the corner, so if you're having trouble following or connecting with the saxophone, no worries, here comes the trumpet.
  
• Stop time. Super fun. Stop time is where the band halts and just plays some sort of choppy rhythm that hits on every bar or every other bar, while one instrument solos. It happens several times in this song. The first instance is after the ensemble has played the main melody phrase twice through. In the next phrase (starting around 0:32), the band goes into stop time while the clarinet (Pee Wee Russell) plays over them, then slides into a normal solo to finish the chorus. Later on there are two more stop-time phrases that follow the same pattern, first with Bud Freeman on saxophone and then Alex Hill on piano.
  
• Eddie Condon's guitar. In combination with the drums, he provides a lot of little rhythmic fills that make the stop-time build up, and that generally just keep things rolling along.

I've played this song once or twice at dances. I would play it more, except the fidelity isn't that great--there's a bit of a hiss. The style is also not something that a lot of Chicago dancers are used to, so it's not a track that will draw a lot of folks out onto the floor around here. Categorize it under "songs James thinks are great and that he is gradually trying to introduce into his scene."

What's all this nonsense?

While I'm on the topic of introductions, I figured I might add a word about what I'm trying to do with this blog.

I intend to use it to:

• Post set lists from my gigs at Fizz and elsewhere. I've gotten into the habit of doing a bit of a post-mortem on most of my sets, as a way to help me remember what worked and what didn't work. Most of the time deejays don't get a lot of feedback about how they are doing, so this is a way to critique myself. Set lists that include this sort of commentary will be labeled with the tag "commentary."
  
• Recommend particular tracks of music, and comment about why I think they're good for deejaying (or just interesting). I explained this to my friend Jenna, and she summed it up pretty well: "It's like Peter Strom's [blog], only much nerdier." I'll label these posts with the tag "One Track Mind" so you can easily find them or ignore them.
  
• Muse. I'm interested in a geeky way about how people's musical tastes form, so a lot of the musing may relate to this question.

I'm not imagining that a lot of people would actually read this blog, but I'd love to be proven wrong. If you do read it, I'd love to hear from you, to get your reaction to the songs I recommend or to my sets, to get your recommendations on music, or to start an argument about how I'm completely off base (off-bass?) about something.

Who am I?

My name is James. I'm newly married and am about to be a graduate student again. I've been swing dancing for about 9 years (see the long version of that below). My wife (Mary) and I used to live and dance in Boston. We moved to Chicago two years ago. I have been teaching off and on for about the past four years, I perform occasionally with a troupe from Big City Swing, and I have been DJing for about two years.

I deejay at two dances in Chicago. I'm in the rotation at the regular Monday night dance at Fizz Bar & Grill. This dance attracts a lot of the core of the Chicago scene, plus lots of casual dancers. I also occasionally deejay for the Balboa Nights at Big City Swing. This monthly dance is meant to promote balboa, and caters to a mix of folks--we try to play music that is good for beginners who want to east coast, and for lindy hoppers too, so the average tempo ends up being slower than you might expect for a balboa dance.

Here's a little timeline of my life as far as swing dancing goes:

• 1991 (5th grade) - Discover my dad's Best of the Big Bands cd and decide that I like jazz.
  
• 1997 (High School) - Take some very basic ballroom dancing lessons with a friend. Our teacher is 80+ years old and walks with a cane. First see the movie Strictly Ballroom.
  
• 1998 - Learn east coast swing as part of a bad community theater production that featured several "period" dance numbers. I think there was a number that was supposed to be a cakewalk too.
• 1999 (College) - Discover the newly founded Boston College Swing Kids, and start going to on-campus lessons and getting hooked. First see the movie Swing Kids.
  
• 2000 - Still taking lessons on campus. I think during the Spring of this year, I decided to venture off campus to take lessons from someone who actually knew what they were doing. First performance with the Swing Kids troupe, to the song "Leap Frog" by Les Brown.
  
• 2001 - Assume the presidency of the Swing Kids club, along with my friend Nick. We are taking basic lindy lessons in Boston on Tuesdays, then running back and teaching what we learned to the club on Wednesdays. First workshops with Steven & Virginie.
  
• 2003 - Still running the college club, taking lessons in town. Getting serious about getting better. First learn the balboa.
  
• 2004 - Living and dancing in Boston. Taking lots of lessons & workshops.
  
• 2005 - Start teaching the free lesson before the Wednesday night dance at MIT. Occasionally filling in as a DJ there too. This is when I started to learn how to actually teach.
• 2006 - Teaching for a while with ItsAllSwing studios in Boston, and Providence Swings in Providence. Practicing a lot with a troupe of friends from Boston and Providence.
  
• September 2006 - Move to Chicago, start dancing, teaching, and deejaying.