SwingDJs

As the saying goes, everybody knows Johnny Hodges - at least in these learned circles - so I guess there's not much that needs to be said here. He was one of my all-time favourite musicians. He had perhaps the most beautiful tone in jazz, and perhaps the most immediately recognizable. He was perhaps...

One of my dad's (For those of you who don't know: http://www.cilicia.com/armo_article_george_avakian.html ) biggest laments is never recording Ellington and Armstrong together. His approach was radically different from the album on Verve and it was really well planned out. Of course there were alwa...

I like the version from Ellington -55 - it takes quite a while for the theme to enter, and when it does it usually gives a lot of people a start, which is fun to watch. Before "In the Mood", the signature riff was also used in Wingy Manone's 1930 "Tar Paper Stomp" and in Fletcher...

How could I forget? Fabulous R'n'B band The Treniers has infectious handclapping on most of their songs. Also, they rock, they roll and they swing!

Perhaps the more advanced a dancer you are, the more tempting it is to gear your music to 'advanced dancers'. Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean challenging music. Many advanced dancers actually prefer the safe, medium-tempo stuff that they know well, perhaps because they like to focus on techn...

Aren't a very considerable percent of the jazz standards show tunes to begin with? Start with the Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern songbooks...

My all-time favourite is undoubtably from Gene Harris - but it needs ... the right moment. That it does. Some of my best blues dances ever have been to this version at Blues Night in Herräng late, late, late - like, after the sun's gone up. (On my way there in a week... here's hoping for a bit of s...

You want to be able to fade in/fade out the applause, though, especially if it goes on longer than you like. Loud applause that is just cut dead because someone arbitrarily decided that that's where the track ends can sound awful. Apart from that, go for it! The energy and atmosphere of live recordi...

As far as I remember, Swing When You're Winning was mostly rehashes of Sinatra hits in arrangements fairly close to the originals, so you might want to take a look at those. I think the most swinging Sinatra albums were the ones he did with Billy May, Come Dance With Me and Come Swing With Me in par...

The advice at the heart of this thread was given to new and/or up-and-coming DJs. You're right - I took the quote out of context, and if anybody misread it as general advice to all djs, my apologies. (Of course it was a very recent posting and I presumed that most here had just read it.) I just tho...

LindyChef wrote (in the Syllabus for Swing DJ Training thread): * Don't dance and DJ ... a song here and there is fine, but you can't really do both. I think this could be a thread of its own, since I haven't seen it discussed here before. So, what's your take on dancing and DJing? Personally, I alm...

Might depend a little bit on who plays the instrument, but I do have a soft spot for a soulful tenor sax. If it's Lester Young playing, in particular. Or Ben Webster. Oh, and also Johnny Hodges on alto. But then I don't have to choose between those, do I? Neat.

I've always heard that Ellington's Stompy Jones was named for a dancer. No idea who he was, though (and just assuming it was a "he").

Oh, hi guys. I'm new here. Hello Jonas, nice meeting you at Swingin' Spring!