SwingDJs

I'm curious to explore how live bands "manage" a dance floor, like a good DJ supposedly does. Can you recommend any live albums that you know were recorded at a dance event, or at least where the dancers would have been a significant consideration for the musicians?

The only two in my collection that I'm sure were recorded live at dance events are the "Live at The Lindy Binge" album and of course Barbara Morrison's "Live at the 9:20 Special". Though even with those I don't know whether the tracks on the CD represent the bulk of the respective performances, or merely selected highlights, the difference being important to my objective.

Any other recommendations?

Brent

Bill Elliott has a "Live at the Palladium Album". It's pretty good.

Ellington - Fargo, ND 1940

Also - all your live broadcasts from the 30s and 40s were recorded live at dance events except the ones that were done for a sit down audience in a radio studio.

Cyrano de Maniac wrote:Though even with those I don't know whether the tracks on the CD represent the bulk of the respective performances, or merely selected highlights, the difference being important to my objective.

The Live at the Binge CD covers about 1/3 of the night's performances... mostly towards the end of the evening.

51st Eight (from Vancouver/PacNW) has a live CD that is pretty good.

There are a couple of Duke Ellington CDs live at dances (Private Collection 2 and 8 I think), but you have to be careful with ALL "live at x dance" albums as a measure of the band leading the room as most of them are edited down to album length and frequently have the order of the set list changed from the original date.

Thanks Reuben and Ryan. The editing was what I was concerned about, and means that for the purpose I had in mind (learning how a band manages a dance floor), these albums wouldn't be that useful. That of course has little to do with whether they'd be good to pick up for other reasons.

Thanks for the information.

Brent

There is a 6-CD set of Benny Goodman airchecks called something like "Live from the Madhattan Room" from 1937-8. You can see just how little big bands of the day really catered to our kind of dancing. There are plenty of novelties and non-swing tunes, ballads, etc., plus the inevitable band-within-a-band trio and quartet selections. These are complete half-hour chunks of live broadcasts.

Also the live 1937 Basie airchecks from the Savoy might be useful. I can't remember how many of the songs are from a single broadcast, but they seem to be consecutive.

Campus Five wrote:There is a 6-CD set of Benny Goodman airchecks called something like "Live from the Madhattan Room" from 1937-8. You can see just how little big bands of the day really catered to our kind of dancing. There are plenty of novelties and non-swing tunes, ballads, etc., plus the inevitable band-within-a-band trio and quartet selections. These are complete half-hour chunks of live broadcasts.

The only thing you need to factor in about the Madhattan Room is that it was fairly upscale and did not cater to Lindy Hoppers, per se. Same would go with other venues, as well.

Also - damn - what they play during that half hour may reflect the leaders knowledge that what he *is* playing is going beyond the confines of he venue.

Sponsored broadcasts (Called "commercials" back in those days) would be far more likely to have a structured playlist hat might not reflect any need to manage a floor sin=mply b/c there might not even be a floor.

"Sustaining" broadcasts, as they were called, had no ads or sponsors -all music except for announcer gab. These are more likley to reflect what is actually going on during that evening.