Swing or Nothing!

Some of my Cat’s Corner Lindy Hop students asked me to share the names of some of the tunes I often play in our classes, and I am happy to oblige! I was lucky enough to find most of them available for MP3 download on Amazon.com, and here are the tracks listed from slowest to fastest:

1. Things Ain’t What They Used To Be (Charlie Barnet)
2. On The Sunny Side Of The Street
   (Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie)
3. Fine Brown Frame (Nellie Lutcher)
4. Swingin’ on Nothin’
   (Jonathan Stout & his Campus Five featuring Hilary Alexander)
5. Ram-Bunk-Shush (Lucky Millinder)
6. Hungry Man (Troup) (Louis Jordan)
7. Yes Indeed
   (Sy Oliver)
8. No Sale
   (Louis Jordan)
9. Let It Roll Again (Nix-Glover)
   (Lucky Millinder)
10. Big Fat Mama
    (Lucky Millinder)
11. I Want A Tall Skinny Papa
    (Lucky Millinder)
12. Strictly Instrumental
    (Harry James)
13. Comes Love
    (Ella Fitzgerald)
14. Sent For You Yesterday (The Mills Brothers)
15. Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
    (Lionel Hampton)
16. Cole Slaw (Stone)
    (Louis Jordan)
17. Lavender Coffin
    (Lionel Hampton)
18. Begin the Beguine
    (Artie Shaw)
19. Shout, Sister, Shout!
    (Lucky Millinder featuring Sister Rosetta Tharpe)
20. Teardrops From My Eyes
    (Ella Fitzgerald)
21. Beyond The Sea (LP Version)
    (Bobby Darin)
22. Hoy Hoy (Little Johnny Jones)
23. Keep A Knockin’ (But You Can’t Come In)
    (Louis Jordan)
24. Dig It
    (Doris Day with Les Brown)
25. Miss Brown To You
    (Billie Holiday)

That should be enough to download and burn yourself a nice little Lindy Hop practice compilation. Enjoy!

What are some of your favorite Beginning Lindy Hop and Swing tunes?

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Every Lindy Hopper should be familiar with at least one song by Jimmy Lunceford and his Orchestra: Tain’t What You Do (it’s the way that you do it!) That’s because it’s the song to which people around the world dance  the Shim Sham Shimmy, the classic swing line dance popularized by Frankie Manning. Fortunately for us, that’s not the only great piece of swing music by Mr. Lunceford’s band.

Jimmy Lunceford was the leader of one of the most famous black Big Bands of the swing era. The band was famous for its moderate tempo music (great for dancing) and Lunceford’s rhythmic innovation of a half bar accent on the first and third beat in the classic four beat swing. The band was most popular in the 30s playing musical arrangments by Sy Oliver. Lunceford was a perfectionist, and much of the band’s success could be attributed to their tight and almost-perfect collective performance.

A great album by Jimmy Lunceford is Lunceford Special: 1939-1940 and here are some of my favorite tracks:

• Tain’t What You Do (naturally!)
• Le Jazz Hot (smooth and buttery)
• Baby Won’t You Please Come Home (I love the jolly interaction of the horns with the oom-pah of the bass)
• Dinah, part 1 (great for Charleston)
• Lunceford Special (a nice fast tune)
• Blues in the Groove (another nice fast one with horns that will steamroll you)

Can you hear the “Lunceford Two-Beat” in any of the music?

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Can you believe that one of my favorite swing artists to DJ from was a bandleader who couldn’t read music or even play an instrument? Lucky Millinder — his real name was Lucius — was a big band leader popular in the 1940s. He began his career hanging around the theaters and dancehalls of Chicago, where he learned the basics of stagecraft, lighting and music. After leading several bands in New York City on the guidance of music publisher Irving Mills, he eventually formed his own band in late 1940: Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra. Lucky was lucky to have a variety of top vocal talent sing with his band at various times including gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, saxaphonist/vocalist Bullmoose Jackson as well as rockin’ R&B singer Wynonie Harris.

Apollo Jump, the 2-disc set on the Proper Label is a good compilation of Lucky’s work and is jam packed with songs that I love to DJ from as well as use in my lindy hop classes. Here are some of my favorite tracks:

1. Big Fat Mama
2. Shout, Sister Shout (featuring Sister Rosetta Tharpe)
3. Apollo Jump (this one is on my list of DJ’s greatest hits…song that Lindy Hop DJs always play)
4. Hey, Huss!
5. Let Me Off Uptown
6. I Want A Tall Skinny Papa (featuring Sister Rosetta Tharpe, seemingly an answer to Big Fat Mama?)
7. Mason Flyer (this song is full of hard-hitting rhythm that will steamroll right over you)
8. Savoy (a classic lindy hopper’s delight, featured song for the Frankie 95 worldwide choreography)
9. Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well (featuring Wynonie Harris)
10. Shorty’s Got to Go (I just love this one in a minor key)
11. Let it Roll Again (the high energy horns will fool you into thinking this song is faster than it it…I love DJing this for my beginning lindy classes, when they’re just learning to swing out.

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A frequent question among my beginning swing and lindy hop dance students is: “Where can I get swing music for practicing at home?” Here are some of my favorite recommendations, and links for purchasing them online:

Another great way to discover some swing dance favorites of your own is to use an online music site like Pandora Internet Radio which ask you to enter the name of an initial artist or song title and then finds music that is similar in genre, instrumentation, rhythm and feel. Try entering a song or artist from one of the compilations above and see what you get!

What are your favorite CD and music recommendations for beginner dancers?

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Count Basie is easily one of my all-time favorite big band swing artists. One of the first swing CD Box Sets I ever purchased was The Complete Decca Recordings, and oh man, it was so worth it every penny. I picked up the box set right around the time I was delving into practicing my fast swingouts and the 3-CD set provided ample music to work up a sweat. The tracks included are some of Basie’s earlier recordings, what is often called “Old Testament” Basie, which you can identify not only by the old-style recording sound quality, but also by the staccato and jankier feel of the music. Later “New Testament” recordings tend to have what I like to call a smoother and more buttery sound.

The Wikipedia claims that Basie’s signature tracks are the One O’Clock Jump and April in Paris, but my guess is that is from a listening standpoint. Any real lindy hopper knows that Basie’s real anthem of swing is….piano roll please: Jumpin’ at the Woodside!

Some of my other fast lindy favorites in no particular order from the Decca Recordings are:

1. Swingin’ the Blues
2. Shorty George
3. Doggin’ Around
4. Every Tub
5. Honeysuckle Rose
6. Exactly Like You
7. Swingin’ at the Daisy Chain
8. John’s Idea
9. Topsy

And if you prefer a more mid-tempo sound, here are my recommended tracks:

1. Georgianna
2. Boogie Woogie (I may be wrong)
3. Pennies from Heaven
4. One O’Clock Jump
5. Sent for You Yesterday

…really though, the entire set is awesome, so I would heartily recommend purchasing the whole box set instead of individual tracks. The Amazon.com links above are for purchasing the physical 3-CD Set vs. the equivalent MP3 Album. If you’re interested in music history, then you’ll want the former…since it’s got great liner notes to read.

From the Wikipedia:

William “Count” Basie (March 24, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Widely regarded as one of the most important jazz bandleaders of his time, Basie led his popular Count Basie Orchestra for almost 50 years. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Basie’s theme songs were “One O’Clock Jump” and “April In Paris“.

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