SwingDJs

I'd like to thank all the DJs who played this past weekend at SoFlex2006. Specially those who are regulars at this board:

Jim Wheatley
Brenda Starr
Nate Dogg
Nando
Bill Borgida
Roy
Tina Davis
Jeramie Anderson

You guys did an amazing job and got the crowd going non stop. Mad props to you all.

I would also like to know what you thought of Kevin Mahogany first gig for Lindy Hoppers.

Serg

I thought it was awesome, great song selection. Too bad he has not done an album where every song was a great dance song.

[photo soon to be inserted here].......

Although I LOVE Kevin Mahogany's voice, I have always felt he leans more to modern jazz than swing; I really enjoyed the dance Saturday night but I thought Tom Willis swung harder and was more in the Joe Williams/Jimmy Rushing tradition.

I also talked to one dancer and asked them how they liked the dance on Saturday - they said they preferred DJ'ed music and that their friends also agreed; we discussed it a little more and concluded that DJ'ed music keeps getting better each year as each DJ finds those great songs; I think at an exchange the DJs will play their number one hits , so live music is going to be tough competition.

The venue also might have been a problem; the floor was a little too small and the venue was very hot; I know from experience that translates into "the band sucked".

But I flew all the way from Seattle to see Kevin Mahogany and I don't regret it for one minute, hope you can use this feedback constructively.

I did purchase the Big Band CD, and I can use almost half of the songs, I'd highly recommend it. Great version of Centerpiece.

Brenda

Maybe it's just me choosing events wisely, but whenever I go somewhere and hear a band, it has to be a pretty bad band before I would take even a good DJ.

Part of it has to do with my self-important attitude about giving jazz musicians exposure to dancing so that in some idealized future all bands playing for dancers will know what the interaction is about. If we keep choosing DJs over middling-to-dance-to musicians, how will those musicians ever improve that aspect of their playing?

I realize this is an entirely ludicrous theoretical line of reasoning.

Thanks for the feedback Brenda. This was Kevin's first gig for Lindy Hoppers. Thus, it would be hard to believe that all his selections would be a hit. However, there were quite a few good numbers. I would rather him sing some Blues instead of balads. But once again, it might be his impression that people like to dance to balads better than straight out slow Blues. All in all was an amazing experience and we will be looking into working with Kevin again.

Regarding the venues being a little to crowd and hot. Oh well, it is always hot here in South Florida. We also do not have any larger venue than 2000 square feet. That's unfortunate, but that's the truth.

Serg

I really don't feel the same way that Brenda does on this. A lot of the songs sounded very much like the recordings that some of us dance to (Route 66, Centerpiece, I'm Walkin', etc...). So, I was real happy to hear those songs and more in the same style.

As for blues vs. ballad, I think people were comfortable dancing to either. The key was that his slower songs were slow and sensual, the dancers who like slow dancing did ok I think.

I agree that the Friday band was great. That was the real surprise of the weekend for me. But, I really don't want to compare apples to oranges. Kevin Mahogany did a great job, it could have been a disaster, but he was pretty dancer friendly, considering he had never played for dancers before. He could have played a set filled with super long songs, latin numbers, bebop, etc...

Finally, some folks are always going to say they prefer a DJ. Especially if the band is not their flavor. But, I certainly don't feel that way.

Sad by true, a lot of dancers don't really care or know much about the bands and artists. The would be totally content to dance to DJs and save the money on cover. The whole idea of being treated to special live music will always be lost on them, whether it is Kevin Mahogany, Barbara Morrison, Dean Mora, New Orleans Jazz Vipers, Paul Tillotson, Campus Five, Lavay Smith, the Basie 100 band, Oscar Brown, Jr., Pinetop Perkins, or any other solid act you can think of. But in spite of the non-live music fans, organizers need to keep bringing in great bands.

In Austin, there are always dancers who just don't appreciate live music, I can name many examples. The powers that be have just treated them as the minority opinions that they are. Frankly, 10% to 20% of any group is not going to be totally content. I think most people had a great time, at least from my viewpoint, I did not take a survey or anything.

Nate Dogg wrote:

Looks like he lost some weight since last I saw him.

julius wrote:Part of it has to do with my self-important attitude about giving jazz musicians exposure to dancing so that in some idealized future all bands playing for dancers will know what the interaction is about. If we keep choosing DJs over middling-to-dance-to musicians, how will those musicians ever improve that aspect of their playing?

I think this is really important, and I think it's very cool that in several cities people are reaching out to the musicians there and bringing them into the scene and showing them how well their music is appreciated and what the dancers enjoy. I think it's very cool when you can dance to a band as a regular event and the musicians have a chance to interact with the dancers and feed off of each other over a long period of time.

Serg wrote:Thanks for the feedback Brenda. This was Kevin's first gig for Lindy Hoppers. Thus, it would be hard to believe that all his selections would be a hit. However, there were quite a few good numbers. I would rather him sing some Blues instead of balads. But once again, it might be his impression that people like to dance to balads better than straight out slow Blues. All in all was an amazing experience and we will be looking into working with Kevin again.

Regarding the venues being a little to crowd and hot. Oh well, it is always hot here in South Florida. We also do not have any larger venue than 2000 square feet. That's unfortunate, but that's the truth.

Serg

Serg - I agree with Nate in that I think Kevin Mahogany did a great job tailoring his set for dancers; it's a subtle point I'm trying to make about his voice which is my personal opinion and hard to relate via the forum I think. It's awesome that you will be working with Kevin again and I commend you guys for trying for so long and keeping that relationship going.

The only venue I thought was superhot was the Saturday night one. I really dug the Millenium Ballroom; it seemed much larger than the other venues and quite a bit cooler.

More Pics

Here are some more pics. For those of you in the pics, you should be able to download them yourself, but if you can't, send me your email via pm and I will send them to you.

p.s. Thanks Nate for all the photos you uploaded to the Flickr group!







Here's the flickr directory also:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87628148@N00/

Sorry to chime in so late but I absolutely LOVED Kevin... if you guys can score him again, please do so. I got the feeling that a good deal of the folks couldn't handle the ballads, but had no problems dancing to the Jazz or Blues numbers he performed. But I'm biased.. the man can do no wrong.

Unfortunately I got in late Friday, so I can't compare him to Tom Willis' set.

Thanks for the kudos, BTW.

Tina