~SUN COAST DIXIELAND JAZZ SOCIETY’S* 20^TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER/DANCE

 January 20, 2007

    Saturday Jan 20, we danced to three members of the “Titan Hot 7”. The TH7 is one of the most popular bands on the Trad. Jazz fest circuit. Jazz Fest circuit. The TH3 was composed of Bob Draga on clarinet, Jeff Barnhart on piano and Danny Coots on drums. They are all superlative jazz musicians, and since they often play together, it is obvious that they can read each other’s musical minds. Further, they are all cut-ups. This made for an evening more for entertainment than for dance. However, Rudy and I got in a few, including one at 288 BPM—once again, as if I needed another object lesson, I know why I shouldn’t dance at that tempo. Halfway through, my will was conquered by wilting stamina. But, we had the good plastic surface, faux-wood floor all to ourselves. This proves we were the dumbest people in a room filled with about 320 elderly dixielandophiles. The venue was the classy bar/restaurant in a golf clubhouse in Largo (a St. Petersburg burb), but the room had bad acoustics and was full of chatty folks. However, at the band break, they did a fix on the sound system so we could hear the band AND the piano, which was all but silent during the first set. The bass player from the Bill Allred Classic Jazz Band was scheduled, but did not show. Neither did nifty jazz vocalist, Claudette Pepper, who scored a good-bread gig instead. She is one of Bob Draga’s exs, so maybe that had something to do with her decision. The buffet food was very good, and included poached salmon. How ‘bout that? The music started at 6:30 and ended right around 10:30. The tix for non-society members were $40, a little stiff for our budget, but I’m glad we went.

      * This is still one of the more robust trad. jazz societies with 742 members in ’06, but the inevitable actuarial attrition is showing. The society started with 419 members in 1987, with membership rising for 9 continuous years to a top of 1,175 members in 1997. Since then, the membership has been in decline. The society runs one of the most successful trad jazz fests, The Sun Coast Dixieland Jazz Festival, which is held every November in Clearwater Florida . Rudy and I have attended for 4 years, and they still draw well, with no fall-off, so far, in the number of bands invited.

~BACK TO THE GROTTO  January 21, 2007

    Sunday Jan 21, we danced at the Zendah Grotto at the regular swing dance there. As always, the DJed music was a mix of swing, R&R, and up-tempo Blues, at a mix of tempos designed to please (or displease in equal measure) all of the diverse types of swing dancers which attend. There is a sort of segregation of dancers in this venue, with the Lindy Hoppers in one corner at stage left, the older 6-counters along the wall at stage right, beginners at the back of the room and the Rockabillies evenly dispersed throughout the room. Some time soon, I must think about the social implications of the distribution of dancers in a room, but, right now. I am fighting a cold, and the medicine rendering it sufferable is making me goofier than normal. 

~LAST TIME THIS WINTER AT THE GROTTO

     Sunday January 28 at the Zendah Grotto and Abdul Presume was DJing. I think he did a great job. He played “The Suits are Picking up the Bill” by the Squirrel Nut Zippers—love that band, and love that tune, and haven’t heard it in such a long time. If I am not mistaken The SNZ are or were based in Nashville, and, even though they were a highly un-Retro-Swingish band, they were popular during  the Retro-Swing era, but I have not seen any evidence that they are still together—guess I should Google them, whenever I get to a Googleable speed hook-up. With the current popularity of Charleston , I would think the SNZ are due a revival.

 

**HOT NEWS BULLETIN: This just in. The Zippers, who disbanded in 2001, are touring again (pulse Yehoodi  and SwingoutofTown.com for dates and venues). Yippee! The “30s punk band” which otherwise defied pigeon-holing, is together and playing again. 

     There was a big crowd of dancers and a good turnout of Lindy Hoppers. I was told that the Sunday night swing dance at the Grotto is pulling in lots of LHers from Orlando and even a few from Gainesville . This group sponsors a big dance in October in Tampa with a swinging big band and beau coup floor at a classy dance facility. Last year it was Georgie Gee and Barbara Morrison. So, if you are in the Tampa area in October, think about it.

    We only danced 8 days in January—hard to get in dancing when the closest venue is 100 miles away.   

 

~LINDY GRAS IN THE BIG EASY (NUMBER V)  January 31 to February 4, 2007

    Wed, January 31^st. We danced at Rock n’ Bowl in the pre-pre-exchange party, and we have never seen the floor in better condition—they must have mopped it. Playing was the Joe Krown Quartet (keyboard, tenor, bass and drums), and I enjoyed them—they mixed the tempos, threw in some good shuffles with Joe adding bounce-figures on keyboard. The bassist played a held six string bass, and, as a result his solos were musically interesting. A couple of Latin tunes on swing night didn’t annoy me at all, as there were, as always, a contingent of ballroom dancers at Rock & Bowl. The bowling alley lanes were closed—Oh! bless’d relief for the ears. Some out-of-town Lindy Gras exchangers were in town early, so finding some familiar faces was fun. Midtown Alleys Rock & Bowl is the venue for the regular Wed. night New Orleans swing dance, 133 S. Carrolton Ave at Interstate-10, $5, 8:30, always live music, generous sized tile floor, easy parking, full bar, probably all ages, and, recently, no smoking.

    We passed on the Thursday night pre-exchange do, which was a 13 venue, live music, pub-strut. See, it was a dark and stormy night—wet and cold too. Not much lost as we will be in New Orleans for 15 days—plenty of time to catch gigs for all of our favorite bands.

     Fri. Feb 2. The evening dance was held on the third floor of historic Gallier Hall in uptown. It is an impressive building, erected in the middle of the 19^th century, and served as the New Orleans City Hall for 100 years. The 2,680 sq ft of hardwood floor (I walked it off) in the ballroom was shiny (It looked like it had been finished with polyurethane), but someone dusted what appeared to be talcum powder, thus rendering the floor nicely danceable. There was always room to dance during the three hours we were there.

     Simply put, the band was ACES! It was “Bob French and the Tuxedo Jazz Band”, a quintet of tenor, piano, guitar, bass and drums, plus a woman jazz singer. The musicianship was sterling; they swung hard, they made a “tight” ensemble, and, if you have ever heard Abby Lincoln sing, you have a good idea of what the vocalist could do. This was a band and singer almost too good to dance to.

       Apparently, my enthusiasm for this band was not shared by many of the dancers, which brings me to a point of reflection. I heard plenty of big band swing music when I was a pup, but I was imprinting on jazz as a teenager when jazz modernity (Parker, Gillespie and Monk) created a new vocabulary for the music. It is difficult to find an old or young jazz musician today which has not been thoroughly conversant in that vocabulary. I am comfortable with that vocabulary, and it does not bother me if that straight-ahead-and-right-down-the-middle form of jazz is not highly rhythmic However, there are many young Lindy Hoppers who, until they started dancing, had not heard put an active listening ear to that form of jazz. As a result, they find it foreign, and worse they think it is inappropriate for Lindy Hop because it is not highly rhythmic. Since the enormous international dissemination of Balboa, and the recent popular re-emergence of Charleston, young dancers have fallen in love with 2-feel music such as Gypsy jazz, and Dixieland (nee N.O. style Hot Jazz). It makes sense as Balboa is a vertical dance, and both it and Charleston lay well on 2-feel music. Both dances utilize no triple-steps, and, thus, can be done at fast tempos, exactly the tempos common in Gypsy jazz and Trad. Jazz. It seems there is a common misconception that since Lindy Hop is an old dance, it should be danced to old music. To a degree, I disagree with this. In my opinion, Lindy Hop can be done to any 4/4 time signature, four-feel jazz, and one which, preferably, swings. I find something wrong with the notion that Lindy Hoppers need to be hammered with rhythmic pulse. There! I am off the soap-box—gotta have at least one “view” in each “News and Views”.    

      Unfortunately, the ballroom acoustics were boomy, and I had trouble holding the rhythm if there wasn’t a direct line between my old ears and the drummer.

       Lindy Gras laid out a gratis spread consisting of a hot table with gumbo, plus two types of Jambalaya. Lemmie tell you, it was all gooooood. The ballroom was well-lighted, and Lindy Gras had use of the remainder of the side rooms on the third floor for seating, schmoozing and stowing dance bags.

      This event pulls dancers in from all over. Rudy and I got to dance with 4 dancers from Japan (one lead and three follows), and they were all top drawer, with sound dance mechanics, solid leading and following skills, pleasing styling, and a willingness to cut-up. I told them, “Lindy Hop is an international language, and you speak it fluently.”

    Sat Feb 3. Back at Gallier Hall for the evening dance, and the floor remained delightful.

     The band was “ Detroit Brooks and the Syncopated Percolators” a trad. jazz sextet of trumpet, clarinet, piano, upright bass, banjo and drums, plus the same wonderful female vocalist who sang on Friday night. There was fine musicianship throughout the band, they were was locked-in tight, but they suffered from uneven sound—the base was not amplified and the drummer played mostly with brushes. If you got the acoustic wash at the front of the bandstand, the pulse was evident; away from it, not so evident. The trumpet players had a huge fat tone, but then, New Orleans has always been a trumpet player’ town, players with big open tones. The only thin tone trumpeter I ever heard in New Orleans was Jeremy Davenport, but then, while he is a fine horn player, he is more known as a good lounge vocalist than a robust trumpet player. The pianist was most interesting and he amused the band mightily with delicious variety. The clarinetist was about as good as you will hear in the New Orleans Hot Jazz idiom. This was a fine 2-feel band to dance to, and the crowd loved them—they were given a thunderous ovation at the end of the evening.

      Once again, we were fed free good and plentiful Gumbo and Jambalaya, plus Falafel and other delicious side dishes. Hey! This is New Orleans and nobody should go poorly fed or under fed in this town, and Lindy Gras saw to it that we didn’t.

     Rudy and I both got in many great dances with many great partners, and we helped close-up the evening dance at midnight—we must have been enjoying ourselves.

     Sun. Feb. 4. The evening dance was at Café Brasil, one of several jazz joints near the corner of St Charles and Frenchmen Streets**. in the Faubourg Marigny section just northwest of the French Quarter. It appears much jazz has congregated in Faubourg Marigyn venues. The floor was variably danceable and appeared to be inlaid marble, but it was too dark to tell. Rudy and I wore our caps with lights on the bills during one dance, and, once again, we were laughed at. The acoustics were good, and the band, “Palmetto Bug Stompers” was great. It was an intensely rhythmic sextet; which harkened back to the spasm street bands of the early 1900s. Composed of a clarinetist (who should have played all night in the chalumeau register; he had tone and intonation problems up-stairs), a fine trumpet player, a stand up bass, a rub-boardist and two guitars. (Note: no drums and no piano), they are a 2-feel band, they played together beautifully, they moved the tempos around, and I liked them a lot. The floor was crowded, not as bad as trying to dance with your whole high school class in a bedroom walk-in closet, like we have experienced on occasion in Minn. , NYC and L.A., but still, floor space was damned dear. Rudy and I hung in there until 11:30, and we had fun. Well, I had more fun than she did, because on a crowded floor, my head is not close to armpits and flying elbows. 

     ** Other jazz joints in Marigny are ”The Spotted Cat”, “d.b.a”. and “ Snug Harbor ” (which books national jazz talent).

     Incidentally, as per our usual M.O., we attended no late night or afternoon dances; we need time to recover in order to dance another day.

    General comments: Lindy Gras drew 230 dancers; I sure hope “Dance New Orleans” cleared the expenses nut, as the cost for all the mandatory security on Fri. and Sat. nights cannot be cheap. They threw one hellova good exchange—this is our first Lindy Gras, and it now ranks among our favorites, especially because of the quality of live music, and because this exchange draws many kindred dancers who seem as interested in jazz as they are in Lindy Hop. My heart-felt kudos go to everyone in Dance New Orleans Inc. It was a minor miracle that they were able to pull off Lindy Gras IV last year only a few months after Katrina, and even today, there are still few things easy in the Big Easy.

     The city is still seriously wounded, and it will require a long convalescence, but it does not now seem in mortal danger like it did when we saw it 3 months post-Katrina Grey Line is offering 3 hour Katrina damage bus tours. This, I guess, for people with morbid curiosity, but I would no more go on that tour than I would go into a morgue to look at cadavers of the murdered. How would you feel if your whole neighborhood was in rot and ruin, and Grey Line hauled buses full of Ma and Pa Kettles through to stare at your sorry circumstances? It would piss me off 4+.     

Allen Hall, plumb wore-out Lindy Hopper

February 5, 2007, in chilly but dry New Orleans