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I recently got a nice email from Steve, an Australian living in Norway:

Just to let you know that we are having fun in Stavanger Norway reading your blog. We are a lindy hop scene here with about 50 regular dancers www.swingcats.no. We've been looking up your songs- so some of them are definitely going to be played here on the west coast of Norway! So thanks for the playlists and all the comments you post with them. Amongst the (few) of us who DJ here we are calling any songs from you the Pustoblogsky songs.

He also passed along a list of favorite songs from his scene, plus some more obscure ones with the aim of recommending some music that wasn't on my radar. I'm still digging through the list, but I may pass on some of his suggestions once I find them.

It's awesome to hear from somebody reading the blog, especially from someone outside of my circle of friends in Chicago. I'd probably keep posting even if nobody ever read it, but it's still encouraging.

I do actually listen to non-swing music...

...in case you were wondering. Just for kicks, I'd thought I'd give you an idea of the other sorts of music I listen to. I created the list below by sorting my iTunes library by "Last Played" and then going genre by genre, grabbing some of the most recent tracks I've played. Admittedly, I cherry-picked a bit, mostly to give a more representative collection of artists, rather than listing five tracks by the same band. Some of the genres are in heavier rotation than others too (I think the last time I listened to most of the tracks under Hip-Hop/Rap was some time in 2007). Right now I'm into country music.

I hate having a messy iTunes library, so I always categorize tracks into one of the nine categories below, or into jazz. I also like to arrange things so that all tracks by a given artist fall within one genre. Outside of jazz though, I don't really think too hard about how an artist gets classified, so what you think of as Country, I might call Rock/Pop, what you call Blues, I call Folk, etc. Labels are arbitrary, we get the point. Here goes:

Blues

• You Do Me Any Old Way - Big Bill Broonzy - In Chicago 1932/1937
• Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho - Josh White - Josh White Vol. 5 (1944)
• Cornbread, Peas And Black Molasses - Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - An Introduction To Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
• Whiskey Makes Me Mean - Gerry Hundt - Since Way Back (We're friends with Gerry and his wife, who's a swing dancer. Gerry's an awesome musician in the Chicago area. Here's his MySpace page.)
• Sweet Mama Tree Top Tall - The Deep River Boys - London Harmony
• The Blues Ain't Nothin' But - Georgia White - Georgia White Vol. 3 1937-1939 (Great vocal, GREAT lyrics.)
  
• Your Average Kind of Guy - Dr. John - Dr John Plays Mac Rebennack, The Legendary Sessions

Classical

• Suite for viola and orchestra - Yuri Gandelsman, Slovak Radio Orchestra - Bloch: Israel Symphony; Suite For Viola and Orchestra
• Symphony No. 9 in E minor From The New World, Op. 95 - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra - Dvorak: Symphonies Nos 7-9
  
• Symphony No. 2 in D major op.43 - Philadelphia Orchestra - Sibelius: Symphonies No. 2 & No.7
• Beethoven: Cello Sonata #3 In A, Op. 69 - Lynn Harrell, Vladimir Ashkenazy - Beethoven: Cello Sonatas
  
• IV. Allegro - Pablo Casals - Brahms: Sextet No. 1, Piano Trio No. 1

Country

• My Window Faces the South - The Time Jumpers - Jumpin' Time (I heard this band in Nashville, at the Station Inn. They play classic western swing.)
• Struck It Rich - Town Mountain - Heroes And Heretics (Heard these guys in Nashville too. They play bluegrass, including many original songs.)
• Move It On Over - Hank Williams - Lovesick Blues
• San Antonio Girl - Lyle Lovett - Anthology Volume One
• Miss Molly - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - The Essential Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys
• Let's Chase Each Other Around The Room - Merle Haggard - The Essential Merle Haggard
• Maybe Sparrow - Neko Case - Live from Austin, Texas
• Just A Closer Walk With Thee - Patsy Cline - Golden Hits

Folk

• The Littlest Birds - Be Good Tanyas - Blue Horse
• That'll Be A Better Day - The Old Crow Medicine Show - Eutaw
• Blue Moon Of Kentucky - Bill Monroe - Smithsonian Folkways American Roots Collection
• Wagon Wheel - The Old Crow Medicine Show - O.C.M.S. (We love singing along to Old Crow Medicine Show on car rides.)

Gospel (I like listening/singing along to Gospel music. Not for swing dancing though.)

• When The Saints Go Marching In - Wycliffe Gordon - In The Cross
• Didn't It Rain - Lavern Baker - Precious Memories / LaVern Sings Bessie Smith
• Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb - The Soul Stirrers - Shine On Me
• Move Somewhere - The Swan Silvertones - Singin' In My Soul / Blessed Assurance
• Come To Jesus - Mahalia Jackson - Oh, My Lord

Hip-Hop/Rap

• No Diggity - Blackstreet & Dr. Dre - Another Level
• You Don't See Us - The Roots - Things Fall Apart (Yes, I was in college, and bought a Roots album once.)
• Bowtie (Featuring Sleepy Brown & Jazze Pha) - Outkast - Speakerboxxx

R&B/Soul

• Who's Making Love - Johnnie Taylor - Stax Gold
• Here I Am (Come and Take Me) - Al Green - Greatest Hits
• You Beat Me To The Punch - Mary Wells - Motown: The Classic Years
• Good Good Loving - The Simms Twins - Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story: 1959 - 1965 (Disc 2)
• (Mama)-He Treats Your Daughter Mean - Ruth Brown - Rockin' In Rhythm - Best Of
• How Do I Let a Good Man Down - Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - Naturally
  

Rock/Pop

• Youth Culture Killed My Dog - They Might Be Giants - They Might Be Giants
• Before You Accuse Me - Creedence Clearwater Revival - Creedence Country
• Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
• Nothing Matters When We're Dancing - The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
• Rain King - Counting Crows - August & Everything After
• Peggy Day - Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline
• Hotel Yorba - The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
• Hold On - Tom Waits - Mule Variations
  

World/Latin

• Tristeza, Separacion - Astor Piazzolla - Astor Piazzolla Key Works 1984-1989
• Mami Me Gusto - Ibrahim Ferrer - Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer
• Miyaabele - Baaba Maal - Missing You (Mi Yeewnii)
• Jigi Jigi Isapa - King Sunny Ade - Odu (My uncle gave me a KSA tape back in the '80's, and I've been a fan since.)
  
• Youth And Pleasure Polka - Vrazel - Golden Sounds (This is from my polka-dancing grandma.)
  

Fizz setlist 8/10/2009

Good night at Fizz last night in terms of attendance and overall vibe, though I wasn't real thrilled about how my set went. I had two problems. First was sound issues--everything sounded kind of off and a few tracks were really poor, hard to even hear the drum line--and the likely cause of the problem didn't occur to me until the night was over. (I think it was probably that the 12 band equalizer on the sound board in the booth was set funny. Should have thought of that earlier--if I'd had the early set, I would have caught it when I was setting up.)

The other problem was more of a mental block. I just couldn't get out ahead of my set, and often ended up choosing the next song at the very last second, just as the previous one ended. Because of this, I ended up kind of stuck in a narrow range of tempos and also chose a couple songs that made me go "ugh." For some stretches of the set, I'm pretty happy about the flow (for instance 9 through 12, 20 through 24), but on the whole it could have been better.

Here's a bpm sparkline and frequency distribution. And here's the setlist:

1. Bye Bye Baby, Bye Bye - Barbara Morrison - Johnny Otis Presents Barbara Morrison - 3:16 - 135 (This was a birthday jam for two ladies, plus a going-away jam for our friend Andrea.)
   
2. Splanky - The Solomon Douglas Swingtet - Live at the Legion - 4:31 - 135 (Right after 11 p.m., with these next couple songs I was trying to keep the tempos moderate but build up the energy, to encourage people to stay.)
3. Down south camp meeting - Svend Asmussen & Jacob Fischer - Still Fiddling - 3:41 - 145
4. Oo Poppa Do - Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers - One Hour Mama - 3:13 - 160 (Bit of a throwback tune--it crossed my mind because there were a couple of San Francisco dancers in the house.)
5. Onion - Louis Jordan - Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five, 1938-1940 - 2:55 - 170 (Felt like things were peaking here, so I chilled out for the next one.)
6. But Not For Me - Gloria Lynne - Hits Anthology - 2:36 - 120
   
7. Don't Get Around Much Anymore - Clarence Gatemouth Brown - American Music Texas Style - 4:45 - 130 (Didn't like this choice.)
8. Come On Over To My House - Jay McShann - Jumpin' The Blues - 2:52 - 145
9. Ballin' The Jack - Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band - This Kid's The Greatest! - 3:15 - 145 (This one seemed to go over well--better than I anticipated--and I stick with this sort of old, loose-sounding style for the next 3 songs.)
10. South - The Solomon Douglas Swingtet - Live at the Legion - 3:17 - 182
11. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It - Papa Bues Viking Jazzband - Live In Copenhagen - 3:36 - 135 (This track always goes over well. It can add a big jolt of energy to a room. From a Louis Armstrong imitator, I segue into the real thing...)
12. Perdido Street Blues - Louis Armstrong - The Complete Decca Studio Master Takes 1940-1949 - 3:08 - 145
13. Bar Fly Blues - Jay McShann - Jumpin' The Blues - 2:32 - 116 (This one was too mellow for the moment.)
14. Easy Does It - Paul Tillotson the Love Trio - Lindy Hop Blues - 2:57 - 130
15. Somebody Loves Me - Stuff Smith - Cat On A Hot Fiddle - 3:42 - 150 (The sound problems were particularly pronounced on this track. Stupid JRiver also froze on me, so I launched Winamp real quick...the next one was the first song in the Winamp playlist, so that's what I played.)
16. Don't You Miss Your Baby - Jimmy Witherspoon - Jimmy Witherspoon & Panama Francis' Savoy Sultans - 3:55 - 140
17. My First Impression of You - Chu Berry - Classic Chu Berry Columbia and Victor Sessions - 2:52 - 145
18. Someday You'll Want Me To Want You - Catherine Russell - Cat - 3:13 - 145 (Didn't like how this worked--I was trying to get away from the jazz violin, but forgot that this track has one.)
19. Six Appeal - Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five - Crazy Rhythm - 3:29 - 135
20. Confessin' The Blues - Carrie Smith - When You're Down and Out - 4:36 - 120
21. Frankie and Johnnie - The Ink Spots - Voice Masters Vol. 2 - 2:56 - 130 (This leads into two more tunes with harmonizing male vocals.)
22. Soothe Me - The Simms Twins - Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story: 1959 - 1965 - 2:17 - 110
23. Smack Dab In The Middle - The Deep River Boys - London Harmony - 2:59 - 130
24. Shiny Stockings - Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie - Ella And Basie! - 3:34 - 120 (This track is a pain because it starts really soft and then gets really loud, with blaring horn shouts, so you have to fiddle with the volume the whole time.)
25. Perdido - Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Band - 3:13 - 130
26. Ain’t Misbehavin’ - Kay Starr - Kay Starr: the Best of The Standard Transcriptions - 2:04 - 139 (Whoops this one has a fiddle too. Should have used a big band vocal here, rather than a small group.)
27. Le Jazz Hot - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 2:44 - 140
28. T'aint No Use - Benny Goodman - Benny Goodman - 2:45 - 155
29. Evenin' - Count Basie - Count Basie at Newport - 3:32 - 165 (The mix was horrible on this track, you could barely hear the vocal.)
30. Shotgun Boogie - Paul Tillotson the Love Trio - Lindy Hop Blues - 2:55 - 165
31. Sugar In My Bowl - Miss Tess - When Tomorrow Comes - 3:15 - 105
32. Trombone Butter - Dinah Washington - Dinah Washington Sings Bessie Smith - 3:34 - 100 (I wanted to play one more slower/blues-inflected tune. People danced to this one, but it would have been better to pick something that sounded less similar to the previous tune.)
33. Hold It Right There - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - Redux - 5:27 - 130 (Mix was pretty bad on this track too.)
    
34. Sure, Had A Wonderful Time - Louis Jordan - Louis Jordan And His Tympani Five, Volume 1 - 3:00 - 135
35. My Melancholy Baby - Honeysucklerose - Hep Cat's Best Of Modern Swing - 3:37 - 131 (Didn't like this choice. Too flat.)
36. Life Begins When You're In Love - Billie Holiday - Lady Day: The Master Takes And Singles - 3:02 - 180 (Good choice for a final song, if I do say so myself. Janky, musical, and a vocal that makes you smile.)

Set list from First Friday at Big City Swing, 8/7/2009

First Friday last night was a really interesting evening from a DJ's perspective, for two reasons that each bear a little explaining. First off, after observing the "Flashback Night" at Fizz the week before last, Jenna (who runs the First Friday dance) was keen to try something a little different. The idea of Flashback Night was to take things back to circa 1998, with all the fashions, styles, and music of that point in modern swing dance history. Think Bleyers, track pants, Skants, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. I couldn't make the evening myself (yes, I'm a curmudgeon), but Jenna reported that the floor was packed with the beginners from her Swing I class for the ENTIRE evening. She wanted to use a little of that same flavor for the first hour or so of First Friday, to try and keep the folks who come for the beginner lesson at the dance for more than 20 or 30 minutes. To that end, I dug out some neo-swing and other music that, while not stuff that I would want to listen to all the time, was in a style that I thought would appeal to beginners. I think it worked pretty well--the lesson ended at 8:45, and there were still a good number of those folks there at 11:00.

The other reason that last night was interesting: my friend Jason Young was making his DJ premiere. Jason is nuts about old music and has a great ear for musical details. Jenna and I had been bugging him about DJing for quite a while, and after some time and effort to get some computer equipment and to get his music organized, he was ready to spin last night. I'd given him a little coaching about how to prepare and how to think about DJing. The biggest piece of advice I had for him was to be sure to have a good list of safety songs to pull out when you need them--well-known music that you know will fill the floor. You need safety songs so that you can recover if and when you pull out that particular undiscovered gem that you've been dying to play, you finally get to slip it in to your set, and then it kills the floor because the crowd doesn't at that moment in time have the same level of cultured appreciation for a stylish saxophone counter-melody or for the raucousness of that trumpet solo. If you don't have safeties, you'll get yourself in trouble; if you do, you can recover gracefully.

Jason has very strong and defined tastes in jazz music, maybe even stronger than mine (this from a self-confessed snob), and he's very enthusiastic about his music. The challenge for him as he starts to DJ is going to be moderating his taste. He'd love to be able to share all of his favorite music (and I for one would love to dance to it all night), but in order to be successful, any DJ needs to meet the crowd where they are. Dancers just don't want to hear interesting, novel music all night long; they enjoy new tunes, but they also enjoy hefty doses of familiar music--either tunes they know or tracks that at least sound familiar (a different version of a favorite song, or a different number from a familiar band).

This is all stuff that Jason and I talked about before last night. It's good advice, right? It's also funny because I needed to apply the exact same principles myself, finding music that would be familiar and appealing to the beginners there for the lesson, rather than just trusting that they would be won over by my impeccable taste in jazz. Ah, self-reflection... All that said, Jason did a really good job last night, kept the floor full, and still managed to work in some of his favorite tracks and personal style. His set was sandwiched in between mine. Here's what I played (and here's a BPM sparkline and histogram):

1. Deed I Do - Katharine Whalen - Jazz Squad - 2:42 - 170 (This was played at the end of the beginner lesson, just before 9 p.m. There was a good crowd there for the lesson, and they seemed very enthusiastic. To transition from the lesson to the dance, I thought what the hell let's take a trip in the wayback machine and play...)
   
2. Zoot Suit Riot - Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Zoot Suit Riot - 3:53 - 185 (No he di'n't! Oh but I did.)
3. Boog It - Cab Calloway - Are You Hep To The Jive? - 2:57 - 170
4. Oh Marie - Stompy Jones - Stompy Jones - 2:32 - 165 (So throughout this set I'm trying to keep things appealing to beginners with lots of catchy vocals, familiar songs, and tempos that are easy for east coast swing.)
5. Savoy Blip - Jonathan Stout & His Campus Five - Hep Cat's Best Of Modern Swing - 2:56 - 165
6. Sure, Had A Wonderful Time - Louis Jordan - Louis Jordan And His Tympani Five, Volume 1 - 3:00 - 135 (Little lower tempo here to cool the room off, and also let some lindy-hoppers swing out nice and easy.)
7. Honey Pie - Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers - Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout Miss Thing! - 4:10 - 150
8. In The Mood - Glenn Miller - Ken Burns Jazz - 3:36 - 167 (This is the version that you'll find on every single Best of the Big Bands cd ever made. And you know what, people seemed to like it.)
9. I'm Beginning To See The Light - Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington - Compact Jazz - 3:26 - 132
10. Jersey Bounce - Benny Goodman - B.G. In Hi-Fi - 3:07 - 132 (Chilling out here. I'm now going to start climbing the tempo.)
11. Sunday - The Boilermaker Jazz Band - Give Me Your Telephone Number - 3:37 - 150
12. Buzz-Buzz-Buzz - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 2:27 - 160
13. Big John's Special - Benny Goodman - B.G. In Hi-Fi - 3:08 - 183
14. Put A Lid On It - Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hot - 2:39 - 198 (I really like this song. The floor was full too, lots of east coast swing going on, so I push the tempo up one more. When you've been lindy hopping for years, sometimes you forget that it's really fun to dance 6-count swing to peppy music.)
15. When You're Smiling - The Blue Vipers of Brooklyn - Forty Days and Forty Nights - 3:51 - 215
16. Solid As A Rock - Ella Fitzgerald - Swingin' Ella - 3:00 - 145
17. I Love Being Here with You - Barbara Morrison - Live at the 9:20 Special - 3:07 - 155
18. Don't You Miss Your Baby - Jimmy Witherspoon - Jimmy Witherspoon & Panama Francis' Savoy Sultans - 3:55 - 140
19. Your Socks Don't Match - Louis Jordan, Bing Crosby - Sing And Swing - 3:00 - 115 (I wanted something slow here, but this track was maybe a little too smooth/crooner/pop for me.)
20. The Spinach Song - Julia Lee & Her Boy Friends - Kansas City's First Lady Of The Blues - 2:59 - 160 (I picked this one because the lyrics are catchy.)
21. Down south camp meeting - Svend Asmussen &Jacob Fischer - Still Fiddling - 3:41 - 145

So that was my first set, going 'til about 10 p.m. Of 21 tracks, 16 were vocals. Jason took over and kept the floor going, until just before 11. Not intentional on my part, but I kind of picked up right where I left off, with another jazz violin track:

1. Somebody Loves Me - Stuff Smith - Cat On A Hot Fiddle - 3:42 - 150 (Looking at the crowd at this point, there were still some folks there from the beginner lesson, but more lindyhoppers had come in too.)
2. Massachusetts - Maxine Sullivan And Her Jazz All-Stars - Memories Of You - 3:16 - 145
3. That's What's Knockin' Me Out - Jimmy Liggins - Jimmy Liggins And His Drops Of Joy - 2:07 - 127
4. Tutti Frutti - Slim Gaillard - 1938-46 - 2:38 - 170
5. Jive At Five - Count Basie - The Complete Decca Recordings - 2:51 - 175 (I felt like folks would appreciate a bluesy number at this point. The next one is one of Jenna's favorites.)
6. Georgia Grind - Louis Armstrong - Satchmo: A Musical Autobiography Disc 1 - 3:19 - 115 (Followed it up with another Louis Armstrong number, to keep the style similar but up the tempo.)
7. My Bucket's Got a Hole In It - Louis Armstrong - An Evening With Louis Armstrong And His All Stars - 4:24 - 145 (This track has a false ending, where the band cuts out, but then does an encore for another minute or so. I should have cut out at the false ending--it tends to throw people, they say "thanks for the dance" and start walking their partner off the floor, and then when the song continues there's an awkward moment of deciding whether to keep dancing or not. Anyways, people seemed to be into the trad. jazz, so I throw on one more.)
8. Shine On Harvest Moon - Pete Fountain - Dixieland's Kings - 2:50 - 160
9. Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby? - Stompy Jones - The Swing Session - 3:18 - 125
10. I Don't Care Who Knows - Catherine Russell - Sentimental Streak - 3:18 - 125 (This track has a sharp, blues-style rhythm in it, as does the next one.)
    
11. Home To Mississippi - Otis Spann - Otis Spann: Best Of The Vanguard Years - 3:30 - 130 (I thought people would like something with a blues sound to it, but this one didn't really work very well. I move back towards more of a big band sound.)
12. All Of Me - Helen O'Connell - Great Girl Singers, Sing 22 Original Hits - 2:09 - 145
13. Too Darn Hot - Ella Fitzgerald - Mack The Knife: The Complete Ella In Berlin (Live) - 3:16 - 160 (Getting to be the end of the evening, so I allow myself a wider latitude here, pick up the tempo up and just play stuff that I really enjoy.)
14. Madame Dynamite - Eddie Condon - Let's Swing It - 2:55 - 185
15. When I Grow Too Old To Dream - Cats & The Fiddle - We Cats Will Swing For You - 2:47 - 200
16. My Melancholy Baby - Honeysucklerose - Hep Cat's Best Of Modern Swing - 3:37 - 131
17. The Raggle Taggle - Boots & His Buddies - Boots And His Buddies: 1937-1938 - 2:37 - 205 (I didn't have a last song picked out before I started dancing to Raggle Taggle--should have had one chosen, because the next one was kind of an odd way to end the night.)
18. What Goes Up Must Come Down - Kay Starr - Kay Starr: the Best of The Standard Transcriptions - 2:35 - 140

Fizz setlist 7/20/2009

I had the late set at Fizz last night, starting around 11 p.m. after Tim Gault's early set. I felt like my set was a bit stale on the whole. I think I need to shake up my habits a bit.

Here's my set list (bpm sparkline and distribution):

1. Hey, Ba-Ba-Re-Bop - Lionel Hampton - Lionel Hampton Story 3: Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop - 3:21 - 140 (Started out with a birthday jam for Lish and Allen. The average tempo for the first set was pretty fast, so for the first song of the next set, I chose a slower track with a distinctive, bluesy sound to try and grab people.)
   
2. Southern sunset - Swing Parade South - Hommage a Sidney Bechet - 3:32 - 105
3. Splanky - The Solomon Douglas Swingtet - Live at the Legion - 4:31 - 135 (Off Solomon's new album.)
4. Down south camp meeting - Svend Asmussen - Still Fiddling - 3:41 - 145
5. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It - Papa Bues Viking Jazzband - Live In Copenhagen - 3:36 - 135
6. Chant Of The Groove - Fats Waller - Fats Waller 1941 - 3:05 - 185 (I had a request for some Fats, though I was thinking of playing this anyways.)
7. Rockin' in Rythm - The Solomon Douglas Swingtet - Live at the Legion - 3:06 - 197
8. Sure, Had A Wonderful Time - Louis Jordan - Louis Jordan And His Tympani Five, Volume 1 - 3:00 - 135
9. Keepin' Out A Mishif Now - Carling Family - 20th Jubilee - 3:32 - 120 (During this song I got a request for Ernestine Anderson, so I used Joe Williams to transition.)
10. Just A Sittin' And A Rockin' - Joe Williams - Havin' A Good Time - 4:21 - 120
11. Never Make Your Move Too Soon - Ernestine Anderson - Never Make Your Move Too Soon - 3:31 - 120 (I couldn't tell if the room wanted more of this sort of sound, so I decided to keep it slower but move to a jazzier style with Billie Holiday.)
12. They Can't Take That Away From Me - Billie Holiday - First Issue: Great American Song Book - 4:10 - 110
13. When My Sugar Walks Down The Street - Oscar Peterson - With Respect To Nat - 2:22 - 125
14. Stay Cool - Count Basie - Blues By Basie/One O'Clock Jump - 3:12 - 155
15. When I Take My Sugar to Tea - The Boilermaker Jazz Band - Jump for Joy - 4:00 - 165 (I wanted to play the Boilermakers right at the top of my set, as a promo for the upcoming White Night dance that Riley is throwing. Decided against it though, and it took me until here to slip this track in.)
16. Dinah - One Leg Up - Pere Lachaise - 4:31 - 205 (Mixing up the styles here, I threw in a track from this gypsy jazz group from Asheville, North Carolina. Check 'em out here. It's kind of Django-ish, but with a bluegrass/acoustic folk tinge.)
17. Six Appeal - Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five - Crazy Rhythm - 3:29 - 135
18. Why Don't You Do Right (Peggy Lee, Vocals) - Benny Goodman - Benny Goodman - 3:17 - 125
19. Big Fine Daddy - Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers - Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout Miss Thing! - 4:06 - 120
20. Easy Does It - Count Basie - America's #1 Band - 3:29 - 145 (The mood in the room at this point seemed kind of mellow to me--I tried to keep the music a little on the mellow side too. Not sure if that was the right call, or if it meant I was throwing in the towel for the night, with no hope of packing the floor from this point on.)
21. Me, Myself And I - Billie Holiday - A Musical Romance - 2:37 - 155
22. My Blue Heaven - Stuff Smith - Swingin' Stuff - 3:46 - 160
23. Taking a Chance on Love - Anita O'Day - Anita Sings the Most - 2:24 - 135
24. Ain't She Sweet - Jimmie Lunceford - Jimmie Lunceford - 2:28 - 145 (Continuing the mellow feel, gradually moving up the tempo.)
25. It's You Who Taught It To Me - Fats Waller - The Unique Mr. Waller - 2:42 - 160
26. I'se Muggin' - Django Reinhardt - Django Reinhardt 1: Swing Guitars - 3:07 - 170
    
27. Honeysuckle Rose - Twin Cities Hot Club - Twin Cities Hot Club - 4:47 - 140 (I thought the folks in the room at this point might like something a little more jumpy or even neo, so I picked out a Four Charms track as a transition...)
28. Midnight At The Mill - The Four Charms - Flatland Boogie - 3:55 - 154 (...but then didn't really have anything to follow up with.)
29. Fine Looking Woman - B.B. King - The Early "Blues Boy" Years - 2:19 -110
30. Soothe Me - The Simms Twins - Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story: 1959 - 1965 (Disc 2) - 2:17 - 110
31. Blues for Stephanie - Paul Tillotson the Love Trio - Lindy Hop Blues - 4:29 - 130
32. Some of These Days - Billie & DeDe Pierce - Gulf Coast Blues - 2:38 - 150 (This one was for Jenna.)
33. On the Sunny Side of the Street - Kermit Ruffins - Putumayo Presents: Kermit Ruffins - 5:10 - 110
34. Smile - Asylum Street Spankers - My Favorite Record - 3:54 - 140 (Yeah I know it's not really a good song to swing out to, but I thought it might lead to people to walk out feeling chipper and maybe humming.)

Norma Miller

Back in May, Mary (my wife) and I and some friends participated in a show organized by our friend Reggio "The Hoofer" McLaughlin in honor of National Tap Day. It was a variety show extravaganza at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and the star was none other than the Queen of Swing herself, Norma Miller. The night before the show, she came to Big City Swing for a little story time hour.; then during rehearsal the following day, we got to talk with Norma a little bit. She's really something else. When she's on stage or even in front of the crowd at Big City, there's no doubt in anyone's mind that she's a star performer--man she just knows how to ENTERTAIN people. As the finale to the show, she sang her song "Swingin' Frankie's Way" (here's a video of her performing the same number at the Frankie 95 celebration). My friends and I were all star-struck.

(Mary, James, Norma, Chris, Roxy, Dan, and Sheila,
backstage before the National Tap Day Extravaganza, May 16th, 2009)

New album from the Solomon Douglas Swingtet

Just got through listening to the new album from the Solomon Douglas Swingtet, called Live at the Legion. I'm very impressed and itching to start spinning it at dances. It's a live recording, so the tunes all have a great energy to them, and they're designed to be dancer-friendly. I'm sure the Fizz crowd is going to dig a lot of the tracks, especially "Splanky," "South," and "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo."

As on the his previous album Swingmatism, Solomon draws on classic jazz tunes from the best bands in history, including many that swing dancers are sure to be familiar with. Solomon arranged all the tracks on the album based on recordings from the Count Basie Orchestra, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and others. He seems to have focused on two different eras. First, there are a number of tracks from the New Testament 1950's/60's/70's period of both Basie and Ellington: tunes like "Splanky" and "I Needs to Be Bee'd With" that I tend to think of more appealing to dancers that like groovy tunes. "Splanky" is taken at a nice, comfortable clip, not too slow, full of energy and featuring a nice tenor sax solo from Galen Green.

The other period that Solomon focuses on is the early swing era, from 1928 to the early 30's, with arrangements like "South" (based on a Bennie Moten tune), "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" (from Duke Ellington), and "Singin' the Blues Till My Daddy Comes Home" (for which Solomon cites both a Beiderbecke/Trumbauer recording from 1927 and a Fletcher Henderson recording from 1931). It's really great to have some fresh recordings of old tunes like these with good, crisp recording quality. I LOVE early Duke Ellington, but I just can't play the original recording of "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" at a dance--the sound quality would be too much of a turn-off for most of the crowd. Speculating here, but these choices seem to be following the broader trend among bands (as on George Gee's latest album "If Dreams Come True") of exploring music that was popular during the earlier part of the swing era, and among many dancers who seem to have become interested in a broader range of music (one favorite example: this routine uses music from a 1929 recording by Margaret Webster and Clarence Williams).

All in all, a great outing from the Swingtet, a solid addition to any DJ's book, and an album I'd recommend to dancers for their personal collections--it even includes a BPM for each track. It makes me really eager to hear this group live at a dance...