SwingDJs

i know everyone has different criteria for "lindyable" music (god that word is so horrifying).

one of mine is: can i throw a few charlestons in?

wade in the water: no

i will happily dance to wade in the water. i love the song. i do not for one moment think i am doing lindy hop.

julius wrote:i know everyone has different criteria for "lindyable" music (god that word is so horrifying).

one of mine is: can i throw a few charlestons in?

wade in the water: no

i will happily dance to wade in the water. i love the song. i do not for one moment think i am doing lindy hop.

Oh come on, Julius, don't tell me you don't like to do ultra-smooth-slow-motion charleston?

yedancer wrote:

julius wrote:one of mine is: can i throw a few charlestons in?

wade in the water: no

Oh come on, Julius, don't tell me you don't like to do ultra-smooth-slow-motion charleston?

Oh no; you wouldn't charleston to the Marcelo version, would you? Hehehe

I love "Wade In The Water" I'm just bored with Eva Cassidy's version. I prefer Sonia Dada's. My god... the soul just pours out of the speakers.

Greg Avakian wrote: Oh no; you wouldn't charleston to the Marcelo version, would you? Hehehe :twisted:

In fact, I would not, because that version sucks ass.

What he SHOULD have done was mix the opening descending chords of "Stray Cat Strut" with the opening descending chords of "Wade in the Water".

gatorgal wrote: What I find funny is that everyone I've met always associates "Wade" with the "Westie" scene when I heard it in Lindy circles for a long time before I heard it at a Westie dance.

My understanding was that the song first became popular in early 2000 in the west coast swing world 'cuz it appeared on one of Dan Mezrich's popular westie compilation cds, "Sophisticated Swing" (he did all the "Swingin' the Blues" cds, too). Eva Cassidy was virtually unknown in any swing world before that cd. And then, of course, the crossover dancers brought it into the lindy community.

I like the instrumental version by Charlie Hayden and Hank Jones on a CD called "Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs." Since everyone is familiar enough with the Eva Cassidy version to recognize the tune instantly, this interpretation is interesting to dance to.

I still like the song, in large part because I have probably played it a total of 4 times EVER at a dance. But this debate is getting old.

I hateses it. Tricksey westiehopsses.

Kalman

Soma-Guy wrote:

gatorgal wrote: What I find funny is that everyone I've met always associates "Wade" with the "Westie" scene when I heard it in Lindy circles for a long time before I heard it at a Westie dance. I also associate the song with a particular dancer that I like, so I guess that's another reason why "Wade" doesn't bother me that much.

Tina

Remember. . . Just because it's been played at Lindy Dances doesn't necessarily make it a Lindy Song.

Joel

here, freakin' here.

kalman

julius wrote:i know everyone has different criteria for "lindyable" music (god that word is so horrifying).

one of mine is: can i throw a few charlestons in?

wade in the water: no

i will happily dance to wade in the water. i love the song. i do not for one moment think i am doing lindy hop.

Is it a tempo or feel requirement? Would Woody Herman's Goosey Gander (118), Jazz Archives No 86, be a lindy song? How about Lunceford's "Knock me a kiss" (117)?

both tempo and feel. i don't know the songs you listed so i cannot answer. to me, charleston is a somewhat staccato movement that isn't meant to be ultra fluid (although if you look at whitey's doing very, very fast back charleston in the old clips, it looks like a locomotive -- very smooth, fast, and powerful).

i would say it's more feel than tempo, the more i think about it. i've certainly goofed around doing solo charleston to very slow tempo songs and it didn't feel nearly as unnatural as doing it to wade in the water.

My Fav version is by the Blind Boys of Alabama, Totally non dancy but sooo soulful, they mean every word.

Di

CafeSavoy wrote:Is it a tempo or feel requirement? Would Woody Herman's Goosey Gander (118), Jazz Archives No 86, be a lindy song? How about Lunceford's "Knock me a kiss" (117)?

Sugar Sullivan, who was one of the dancers at the Savoy from 1948 to 1958 claims that they rarley danced Lindy to slower tempo songs. The savoy dancers were great dancers and able to dance differently to different songs and tempos. One of the dances they liked doing was called, "Ballroom." You can see it in "When the Spirit Moves." Also they did the "Slow Grind" or other dances. (See the Jive Junction thread called "Dancing the Slow Grind" to see more on that discussion.)

I would say therefore that tempo does have something to do with if a song is a Lindy tune or not. I would have replied this way before hearing Sugar's response to this question however. I think alot of the time we label venues, dances and things like exchanges "Lindy" events when really they are not. Alot of the times, especially with exchanges, I find the events are not labelled as what they really are. There is nothing wrong with this other music but it is an interesting point.

One example are the late night sets you played at the Vancouver Lindy exchange Rayned. You played a great variety of music and had the crowd right into it doing what they considered "Lindy Hop." I mean anyone who plays James Brown's "Gonna Have A Funky Good Time," is more than okay in my books. However I don't think your sets were "Lindy sets" by any means. The music was "swingin" and the crowd was diggin it. Hell I was diggin it. But I've argued with a few people that a large majority of the sets in Vancouver, and most other exchanges, were not actually Lindy sets. So Rayned, I am interested to know: What kind of a D.J you consider yourself?

I have felt for the past year or so that we should stop calling the majority of exchanges "Lindy Exchanges." A possible solution would be to just call them "Exchanges" or "Swing Exchanges." By someone like Sugar's definition, there are very few actual "Lindy Exchanges."

Soma-Guy wrote: One example are the late night sets you played at the Vancouver Lindy exchange Rayned. You played a great variety of music and had the crowd right into it doing what they considered "Lindy Hop." I mean anyone who plays James Brown's "Gonna Have A Funky Good Time," is more than okay in my books. However I don't think your sets were "Lindy sets" by any means. The music was "swingin" and the crowd was diggin it. Hell I was diggin it. But I've argued with a few people that a large majority of the sets in Vancouver, and most other exchanges, were not actually Lindy sets. So Rayned, I am interested to know: What kind of a D.J you consider yourself?

I would have played a different set if i had a different crowd and a different time slot. Why play a set not optimal to the circumstances? Do you play the same set all the time?