Calling All Jazz Music Collectors!
Have you got a smokin' collection of music you love and want to share it with the world? Well, why not consider being a DJ for your local swing dance scene?
It is way more fun and sociable than uploading your stuff to YouTube and a chance to share some of the music you love with people who are going to turn it into some kinetic frenzy!
I am a new Swing DJ since my first gig sometime last May and I would like to share a bit of what I have discovered and what I have been thinking about after doing a whopping (ahem) six gigs over the past six months.
Obviously, you should take into account that I may not know what I am talking about as a DJ, but that should give you all a lot of fun shooting me down in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Feel free to let yourself go!
Going Down Into the Music Mine…
Now I will say that I have a pretty huge pile of music from my favorite musical era (the twenty years from 1925 to 1945) and my particular interest is in the music of small combos (I have relatively little of what would be called “big band” music.)
This includes a wide variety of jazz and popular music including early blues, calypso, ballads, western swing, jump blues, honky-tonk, novelty songs, hokum and jug band music, show tunes, and dance music. That twenty year period produced an incredible variety of incredible music!
I am only guessing, but I think it is fair to say that out of the thousands of song tracks I have from this period, probably less than 3% of the songs are of any interest to a Lindy Hop enthusiast!
That is not to say that the rest of it is junk! Much of the remaining 97% is precious to me, it just won't do to play it at a dance where the music has to satisfy certain criteria before it can be considered fit to play at a swing dance where the primary focus is on Lindy Hop.
I will have to build my own radio station to play that other 97% or possibly get into Balboa or Blues or some other dance scenes to broaden my usefulness as a DJ.
What Criteria?
“It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!” So said Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra, and true as it may be, if I want to DJ a Lindy Hop dance, I have to consider a few more elements or I may not make it out of the dance with my ego in one piece.
The other things besides Rhythm that I will focus on here are Tempo, Sound Quality, and Spirit of the tune.
“The” Rhythm…and that other stuff
As for Rhythm, well, it is essential that I search for tunes with a solid swinging four-beats-to-the-bar pulse. Early Jazz, mostly prior to the late 1920's, was dominated by a 2-beat feel where the rhythm is accenting every-other beat of a four-beat measure.
I have a lot of this early jazz and I love it, but if I play too many of these 2-feel songs in a set, I may not be able to keep the floor jumping like it should.
That said, I will play a good song even if it is a bit “square” in the rhythm. By this I mean that a four-beat song being played more on top of the beat sounds more like a March.
A March Beat was also a feature of earlier styles of Jazz, however this is not the kind of rhythm that will find great favor among the dancers if you play too many songs like this.
Then there are rhythm styles even further afield. Last week I spun a Ruth Etting number that was a waltz (3/4 time) for the first half and then a moderate 4/4 time for the second half. It was worth it because I think the Waltz is the BEST DANCE OF ALL TIME, but not everybody was happy about that particular number.
I will give Blues a spin and maybe even a Rumba, but this again is just one song or so out of a whole set.
I am also careful to avoid more than one or two Boogie-Woogie tunes in a set. Yes, it seems energetic and danceable, but it gets boring pretty quick. I think it was Fats Waller who described Boogie-Woogie as “Thirty-two bars of nothing at all.” I think too many of these songs would be a drag on the evening.
So, to sum up what I have been thinking about Rhythm, I have been trying to keep it mostly to a solid swinging 4-feel and only play a precious few of anything outside of that groove. But if a really good tune is crying out to be played, I want to try to fit it into the set even if it is not banging out four-beats-to-the-bar. I feel a little variety has it's place in the set, too.
The Tempo
Yeah, tempo. I think that from where I am coming from, it should be between 120 and 185 BPM. Yes, you can go higher and lower by a fair margin, but whenever I do, I have to watch out.
I can spin a couple at 195 or 200 BPM and above, but if I push it too much I can see the dancers start to loose steam.
In the lower end of the BPM spectrum it depends on how solidly it swings. I have played stuff down to around 90 BPM but those songs have to swing like a monster or people will give up and start to leave the floor.
So, I feel totally safe at 120 to 185 but I will venture away from this safety zone as far as 30 BPM slower or faster for songs that have the juice.
The Sound Quality
I know many folks have a lot of music recorded fairly recently with the benefits of modern sound recording technology. I don't. Most of my stuff is vintage and that means that I have to watch out for Sound Quality, too.
I may love that screetchy-scratchy old recording that I have listened to a hundred times in my own room, but how is that going to sound to a roomful of dancers? It will sound mostly like a roomful of hiss with no discernible bass!
The people who came to dance are going to care much more about a solid beat than all those wonderful but hard-to-hear things that I like about that favorite record. Just as bad are some of the murky remastering jobs and “simulated stereo” junk.
I have to strive to give the dancers something they can actually hear and connect with and I always stand ready to tweak the EQ to make a marginal track sound a bit better on the dance floor.
The Spirit
The spirit of a tune is also worth considering. This is a bit hard to define, but I hope you will understand what I mean: One of my most important goals as a DJ is to keep the dance floor excited and inspired to express themselves through their dancing.
I can't expect the dancers to really swing if the song I am playing is too sweetly sentimental or too laid-back and lounge-y.
If it sounds like the tune is leaning too much toward long, sad, or legato passages it is going to sound depressing or boring or both.
If the tune sounds like it might be a part of a Las Vegas nightclub act, that should be left for a time when lounging with a drink in your hand is the goal, not dancing. And a sappy vocal can often torpedo an otherwise good danceable tune.
Maybe it is because of the character of the Lindy Hop that the dancers tend to like the tunes a bit more rough-and-tumble. If the tune is playful with exciting (yet predictable) breaks and a good bounce, it is sure to be a winner!
Keep Digging…
There are many more things I have been pondering, but let's leave it there for now and we can all get back to mining our music collections for hidden gems that will hopefully delight and inspire the dancers at the next Swing DJ gig. If you have the time, I would appreciate any comments you have to offer!
I’ve been DJing for Lindy Hop, Jive, Charleston and Balboa dancers since about February of this year. Easier for me as the clientèle at Swingaroo Vintage Dancehall, Preston, UK will happily dance to vintage, retro and retro sounding music as long as the tempo is right.
Built up a moderately sized music collection of standard classics but I also spend many hours hunting on soundcloud and bandcamp for new tracks from more contemporary artists. Occasionally I make mistakes when picking tracks but nobody tends to notice if the recording is a bit scratchy or jumps slightly. My ears pick up every last fault making me cringe. No complaints so far so I’m doing something right.
My dancing skills, however, have room for improvement!
Thanks for commenting, Bazooka Joe. It is nice that both you and the dancers have room to explore and find out for yourselves what feels right and inspires you at these freewheeling dances in Preston!
It doesn’t surprise me that people overlook minor faults in the recordings as long as they can hear and feel the right kind of rhythm. That seems to be the case where I live as well.
I hear you on the dancing skills: I, too, am a loose cannon on the dance floor, but I just keep going at it because it makes me happy!
–Yukio
Hi! Very interesting post, it’s fine to find people in the same situation that me (or almost). I decided to start DJing because I was tired of dancing to the same songs over and over, and now I can’t dance because I’m DJing…
Well, just to comment, do you think that the “lindy addicts” value the hours and hours that we spend searching “that sound”? Sometimes I feel like they would dance anything that has some “afterbeat”. Some people really apreciate good music selections, so it’s worth!
ha, kinda what Artie Shaw said… But phew, there are always dancers that do appreciate some fine music.
Is this “windshield wipers?”
yes, though I haven’t found a reliable source, maybe it’s just a myth Artie said that: “Dance music, as I keep saying, you can dance to a windshield wiper… a
windshield wiper that’s fairly steady gives you a beat and all you need
is an out-of-tune playing ‘Melancholy Baby’ and you’ve got dance music”
Hey, Oh My Swing! I’ll betcha a nickel that the hard-core “lindy addicts” have no idea how long it took to find that special tune, but the pay-off for me is when that tune (that may be totally new to the dancers) becomes the fuel for some really great dancing.
And I’ll betcha another nickel that they will want to get more of that good juice you (and you alone) know how to serve up! If you were bored by the same old tunes, they were probably sounding worn to others as well.
I hope that next time you are playing a DJ gig you will throw something on that you particularly like and grab hold of someone and dance to that great song, too!
–Yukio
Thank
you for not preaching on “how to be a swing DJ” but sharing insightful thoughts and
observations. Pretty spot on, I’d say, so keep on doing what you’re
doing, sounds like you just got the nose for it.
I hear you on the 97%. hehe….. like I want my own radio station/show too. 🙂 That’s why I love 8tracks.com, much of my 97% I can “vent” there.
And yes, do consider playing for balboa and blues dancers too! You get
to play far more than 3% of your collection, trust me.
Hope to have a listen into your stuff, sometime, somewhere.
Thanks, Superheidi, for the link to 8tracks. I didn’t know about that site and I will certainly be checking out what you have posted there!
This article was kind of a crazy idea since I really am just a Swing DJ Newbie who is trying to figure out from observing and talking to dancers what works for Lindy Hop. It is definitely an evolving process! I very much appreciate that you were able to validate for me that I am not too far off the mark in what I am searching for.
Let us all know if you get that radio station/show up and running! I will be keeping my ear pressed to my radio speaker!
Just like my dear friend and collegue Superheidi says: thanks for sharing your thoughts that seem a little familiar to me too. I was very lucky to start DJing with those 97% NOT for dancers, but in a bar/nightclub about 25 years ago (!!! yes, I am an “Old Man Harlem” now), there was no dancers in that time in Berlin, at least no Swing dancers…
The “Jitterbugging” started but in 1996, I am proud that I was part of the first public all-in-party at that time: there was teaching of Swingsteps by “Spreeathen” for an hour, Andrej Hermlin and his Swing Dance Orchestra playing, about 60 becoming dancers and me. The first tune I played was “Laughin’ At Life” by Edgar Hayes – and this became my quote for all following Swing dancing parties.
I only do 78s from my shellac collection (and if needed dubbings on CD or computer with a minimum of filtering) – the “real thing” is my preference if it works logostically. So I know well the problem of sound quality – and I think if you know your music (you seem to do), you can adjust the little things that makes it more easily danceable (bass, voice, loudness).
As on my records there is normally just one tune each side, I was lucky to get them one-by-one (sometimes a bunch, for sure) listening carefully to them several times, cleaning them friom dust and dirt of the last decades – so I know them all by heart (yes, there is some thousands…). Your heart (and you tapping toes) is best to decide what to offer to your public.
Keep the challenges, dare something exceptional as you do already (I like Ruth Etting): The Balboa Castle Camp became so much fun thanks to our – first just jokes – Foxtrot (I gave a little taster of transitions from one dance to the other), Peter Loggins doing his Peabody (= Foxtrot). Playing a Waltz is perfect if the situation deserves it: “Wunderbar” (the Cole Porter tune) ist perfect for New Year’s Eve, “In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus” is perfect On Munich Lindy Exchange during Oktoberfest, “Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins” is a must in Hamburg at half past midnight (“halb eins”)…
Norma Miller’s quote “Feel the beat” shows that there is no bad music but maybe the wrong dance to it. If you dance what you feel, you are right, if you make them feel what you play, you are right. Take it with humour and they will smile. Hopefully we can do some sets together one day?
Stephan, you are beyond awesome! How much does the stack of 78s weigh that you take with you to play a gig? And the phonograph?
I have had very little personal luck searching through stacks of old 78s so I am in total awe of what you are doing there in Berlin! Out of a random pile, most of the records are going to be rejected out-of-hand (bad scratches, stuff like opera you know you can’t use, etc.) Then you take home the few possibilities you found out of the stack only to find that they were not-so-great after all. When you play a good record, approximately how many records did you have to sift through to find that one good side?
The last paragraph of your comment should be inspiration to us all!
Hey Yukio,
your first question makes me sweat: doing a whole night by myself, I normally carry two cases with a choice of up to 80 records each, this means 160 records what is about 40 kilograms of shellac, when there is a band or another collegue DJ to interact, I take just one case. Usually I have to a flightcase with my two record players that do 78 rpm, another 18 kilograms… Other people go weightlifting in a Gym… and it is all “light” music I play…
You are right for the quality of music on 78s: it is not easy to find some interesting bargain on the fleamarkets any more, but you never know! The ealy bird… a. s. o.
If I were not hoping, I would not collect, but it took years of searching, listening, watching, discussing to learn about the music and the records I look for. My “real” collection is very special: I concentrate on German pressings of Hot Dance- and Jazz Music from ca. 1925 to 1958 (the bitter end with still some Swing, Mambo and Rock’n Roll). I think it is amazing to find some real hot Joe Turner record on German Brunswick label knowing that it was published under fashist regime, like so many others like Billie Holiday, Slim & Slam, Jimmie Lunceford, Andy Kirk, Chick Webb, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and many more bands we love.
The background and histories about Jazz in Germany are very interesting and surprising, that’s why I wrote a book about my researches and still do some history talks and Swing walks with a wind-up Victrola in Berlin.
In my other section, the DJ records, I just look for fantastic party records in any pressing, but good shape. So I don’t mind if it’s a well playing US Sunburst Decca or Vocalion or a French La Voix De Son Maître or Swing label if those did not appear in Germany. And then there is the huge R&B section on original labels like Aladdin, Atlantic, Specialty, Swing Time, Chess, Cat etc…
I imagine the quantity of records to go through till you find the one interesting is probably 90 %. Like vinyl, shellac is just a material, the companies wanted to sell anything that was sellable. Even nowadays we consider a huge amount of music that is recorded as … well, not admired by our taste.
So hope is the motor of success. If you like to come to Berlin one day, we can discuss all this and I’ll gladly show you some of the grading and reproducing secrets for shellac pressings.
Yes, it always a great great pleasure to hear the sound of that fantastic shellac collection. But I also supress a giggle a bit when I walk past with the lightest of laptops. I know, I know, it is just sheer jealousy on my behalf.
oh if only I could edit… sorry for all the typos.
Actually, you should be able to edit within your account.
ah thanks, I’ll look into that.
Heidi: I envie you for being light as a feather 😉
You must have shouted “Foo Racky-Sacky!!!” when you found that awesome Fats Waller schallplatten! Too Cool!!! Like it says on the label, it’s a ‘special record.’
And two 78rpm turntables? You are in a league of your own, man!
Indeed, this “Special Record” IS special to me: I got it years ago from a late collector, it is not in a mint condition, but I’ve never seen this German pressing again…
Yes, I use two DUAL 1219 turntables from the late 60s, they fit modern amplifiers but reproduce a nice warm sound thanks to Shure M93 and Expert Stylus cartridges (elliptic shape 70mµ and 80mµ). One of the secrets is the needle you use…
Last year I had to replace one of the players due to a motor injury: After 24 years of working hours and hours at least twice a week, one of the record players died – – – R.I.P. after thousands of Swingtunes! I could replace it by the same model, DJing goes on!
DJ-Battle VINYL (Gašper) vs. SHELLAC (Stephan) Balboa Castle Camp 2014
Wanna join?
I feel like I just walked in on a surprise-party full of friends and relations that I never knew existed before opening up the door! Thank you all for sharing your personal passions for this music here in the comments section and for making me feel so at home!
I also want to express my thanks to DJ Chrisbe for somehow finding that cool lead photo of the guy in the suit doing “audio research” and to Jeanette Bos, photographer from The Neatherlands, for the little picture of me with my little ukulele that I am using for my bio box photo.
Cheers!
Yukio
Yukio, I’m really happy that you wrote that article (and the second one, that will be published next week) and that I could introduce you to a very passionate and enthusiastic community.
It was always my dream to create a platform for Swing DJs and music lovers full of different articles, opinions, essays etc. created by different contributors around the world.
I’m looking forward to reading more from you! 🙂