Blues rooms and lighting (or the lack there of)

While DJ’ing the lindy room at a recent exchange mid-Atlantic exchange, a number of follows from the northeast told me, “I like blues as much as the next person, but the blues rooms in the south are so dark I can’t see who I’m dancing with or if there’s anything around me to avoid so I’m staying in the main room where I feel more comfortable.”

It seems to me, the further south you travel down the eastern seaboard the less well-lit blues rooms are. Some of us joke, it must be a Bible Belt thing and people don’t want to be seen dancing to “that devil baby-making music”. Also, strictly blues events are generally more well-lit than lindy blues rooms (with a few consistent exceptions), as are events organized primarily by women.

Not sure about the northeast, but in NYC, Philly and DC you’ve got good visibility and tempo’s vary. Heading south into Virginia (and up until a couple years ago also NC) things suddenly go dark. I remember older events when the 1st thing coming in the door were the black lights and red bandanas, then the case of booze, and finally the sound system.

At ATLX this year blues room DJ’s stunned organizers by saying “the lindy room gets the food, the drinks and enough light to watch everybody else do their cool moves, we’ve got to use flashlights to find our way safely to the DJ table”. Although they replied, “we’ve never heard a blues dancer ask for more light”, the next night, we got better lighting. Get into parts of Florida and blues rooms can seem almost vampiric… any bit of light and dancers will scatter.

Lighting levels also seem directly correlated to expected tempos (and intentions) at lindy late night blues rooms. When I first started DJ’ing one mid-Atlantic state dancer approached me to say, “hey chief, enough with the bouncy-bouncy-- see that follow I’m dancing with? Yeah, smoking… so can you play more, you know… (rolls eyes suggestively and gyrates his groin in my direction).

All this leads me to ask:

Do overly dark rooms start ringing potential comfort level alarm bells in female dancers (it’s a rare lead who will ever complain a room’s too dark)? If so, why do some organizers (usually the boys) and some regions seem less bothered or concerned by that? Have some missed reading the memo or am I completely wrong?


Comments:

Nathan Malone:
"I prefer darker blues rooms. Most dance nighclubs not related to the dance scene tend to be dark, at least in Texas. That is the experience I draw from, darker rooms have a certain atmosphere, there are always brighter rooms that people can hang in.

But, what do I know, never heard a complaint about rooms being too dark, I have heard complaints about the room being too bright.

I am sure there are people in my area who have the opposite view though. Just like people's opinion of what should actually be played in blues room varies, etc..."


Susan Brannigan:
"Too light is annoying, and so is too dark. I like to be able to see who I'm dancing with. More importantly, though, I like to be able to see who I'm talking with, to make eye contact and have a normal conversation when I'm not dancing. On the other hand, after midnight I like a relaxed lighting atmosphere. My eyes are tired late at night, and frankly I probably look too tired to look, er, radiant in "normal" light.

IMHO, blues rooms should not strive to be like nightclubs. If I wanted to dance in a nightclub, I'd go to one. Blues rooms are supposed to be for dancers, not hokey ladies-men and women desperately seeking them. Er, right? :-p"


Bill Speidel:
"Its a tough gradient. There's definitely too bright, what I would call appropriately dim (how's that for nebulous?), and pitch black where the lone light source is the glow of the dj's laptop screen on the far side of the room."


Kyla Anderson:
"This is a great discussion... i like my blues room lit for mood...(lower light but not dark!) i have a ton of blue and white holiday lights on backup in case i need to add light to rooms..i know that sounds cheesy but if placed correctly it works.

I second the vote for enough light to see faces, have conversations, avoid falls and actually maybe just a hair brighter..i have to fight with several dancers about too much light...which is funny since i like it dim already!!"


Bill Speidel:
"I also think lighting can be very room size dependent. The larger the room and greater the # of dancers, the more light I like (maybe so I can see the floor better as a DJ?). Intimate house parties, darker is fine."


Susan Brannigan:
"Agreed, Bill. I think I can trust you to use your common sense. :)"


Jean Gonnella:
"I personally like a blues room dim but not so dark I can't see the person I am dancing with....but also depends on song... b cool if the dj could also have dimmer switches so they could decide on lighting for various playlists..as if the lighiting changed every song that may be annoying but every say 10 songs or sooooo..oh i dunno... love blues dancing n alarm never went off and stopped me from blue dancing cuz of light :) lol"


Mike Legett:
"Honestly, I get a little irritated when I hear people say, "I can't dance blues in here- it's too bright." Unless it's too bright for any dancing (Walmart is what I picture). Mood lighting is great to create an atmosphere, just like a well-decorated venue, but it's certainly not make-or-break for me. I suspect that those people aren't approaching the dance the way I do... there might be some motivational differences, so to speak. Rule of thumb- if my eyes need a moment to adjust before I can see, coming from anything other than sunlight, it's too dark. And people who say that about classes? Prepare for a punch in the face. In my imagination.

I agree, too, about blues rooms at lindy events being darker. They're often, well, sketchier in general. Makes me sad that some lindy hoppers don't like blues, and it's based on the blues at lindy events. At a lindy event, you'll rarely find me in the blues room, and that's part of why."


Claudia Thornburgh:
"Of course, at VBLX the blues room tends to serve a double purpose-- tired dancers go in there to sleep."


Yossef Mendelssohn:
"I get annoyed enough with the dim lighting at lindy dances, since it seems some people think there can't be dancing at all unless the main lights are all turned off and christmas lights strewn around the room.

It seems strange to me that all of this changes when there's an obvious reason to watch dancers, like a competition or performance. Why can't there be enough light to see the entire time?

For me, the groin-gyrating attitude is a) a reason I avoid blues in general, and b) a conversation for another time."


Steve Stone:
"Everyone is going to have a problem with the lighting, it's an impossibility to please everyone. I personally like it dim, so my eyes can have time to rest. Our blues dances in Orlando go from 1am - 4am so I've already been dancing swing for 4 hours and working all day. We start the blues with the lights on until about 3am when someone pulls the plug.

Blues to me is a different expression of dancing focusing more on connection and leading, following rather than moves people know. It seems to me, the darker the room, the more people have to actually follow and lead. Now I do realize that the creeps come out in the dark and as Natch stated, they want to grind, but I think that's an individual choice... I just want to dance, but in Orlando it's either annoying light or just about pitch black. ........ we need a lighting coordinator. Natch! We need your lighting magic."


Kate Larson:
"I prefer blues dancing in dim but not pitch black- and this is my own personal reason. I am a bit ADD (well, I have ADD) and get easily distracted by extraneous visual stimuli. When it is dim, there is less to distract me from the dance, the music, and my connection with my partner. I actually have my best blues dances when I close my eyes, but since I don't like to do that often, it helps me to have dimmer lighting.

Even for swing, whether it be Lindy or WCS I also prefer it more on the dim side, too, though not as dim as for blues.

I do agree that no matter where, it should be bright enough at least to see who is asking you to dance. In the end though the lighting isn't going to stop me from dancing whether bright or dark."


Steph Beck:
"Add me to the crew requesting "dim" rather than "dark." As a follow who simply enjoys dancing, I walk into a blues room with the same objective I have in mind walking into a lindy room: assess the situation, the music, the leaders, who's DJing, and to decide whether I want to dance in that room. While I'm ok with it being dark enough that my eyes need a second to adjust, if it's so dark that even after that time, I can't tell what leads are in the room, or I can't see the DJ, or I can't see anything that's not two feet in front of my face, it's too dark and I won't dance.
Chances are, as some of the previous comments have called out, that the darker the room, the more likely some of the guys are to try something. However, most leads who would make me uncomfortable on the blues floor I've already spotted on the lindy floor doing something weird there, and flagged them in my head. If it's so dark that my brain can't compute to compare notes... yup. Too dark."


Amy Davenport:
"It is indeed impossible to please everyone, which is why I would opt for dim, maybe dimmER than regular dances, but not dark. That way people who like it bright may not consider it perfect but at least they can still see. And those who like it dark may not consider it perfect, but at least there is some moodier atmosphere."


Teresa L. Radke:
"Candlelight level"


Heather Adams:
"I don't like bright light in general, because my eyes are pretty sensitive. That said, despite my vampiric love of the night, I DO want my dancing space lit. I'm with Mike, there's a lot of real estate between "cave" and "Walmart," and it seems we could find somewhere comfortable along that spectrum. I also fail to see why anyone who isn't looking to push the boundaries of what is acceptable at a public social dance would object to having some comfortable light in a room.

Also, I have to say, I am confused why we are mocking people who want to distance themselves from grindy "blues" dancing. I certainly danced blues back when my only option was grindy blues dancing, but I avoid it like the plague now that I have choices. I never went in search of grinding, I just wanted to dance to blues music. Now that I have outlets where I can dance WELL to actual blues music, I certainly don't relish returning to the dancing that made me uncomfortable in the first place."


David Ljung Madison:
"Considering that Mike T. Girl is awesome, I'm surprised I disagree with her.

A well-lit Blues dance doesn't work. Classes are a different matter. Consider the fact that people feel weird doing Blues outside in the daytime, but not Lindy. The feeling is different - Blues is much more about the little bubble that you create with your partner (and no, no gyrating happens in this bubble).

I do agree that you have to be able to *see* - I do remember ATLX being way too dark. Here is what I have learned.

When I started having house parties, I didn't take lighting at all into consideration. All the lights were on. Dima (who is massively responsible for much of the beginning of the Blues scene as we know it) changed my house party by putting in the red light bulbs which are still in sockets in my house ready to be turned on. That created the Blues atmosphere that changed everything.

I have seen events with too much light ruin the "party" feel. For example, the Doghouse (which was a Lindy event, even) finally died because the ambience was wrong. The simple fix they never used was to turn the lights down. Not to dark, but to dimmer. Would've changed everything.

So yes, add me to the list that thinks that lights all the way on or all the way off is a no-go. And I won't even talk about the gyrating, because I think trying to connect that to our dance is a foolish assumption."


Damon Natch Burke:
"I have been corrected on my history of blues dancing in Orlando and thus retract my comment on who grinded what and where.

As a personal opinion of an old man, dancing at 2 am is difficult for me because I'm quite tired, removing the light makes me really sleepy."


Joy Arico:
"My 10 cents...When I dance blues I move around the floor just as much if not more than when I dance lindy. I want to see the other couples on the floor. I do not like when my lead runs me into people. Give them a little more light and that happens less often. For those who want to make a bubble and micro blues all night..let them stand in the middle of the floor. The rest of us will be moving around them.

As for the lighting--When we do dances in a bar, that is full of neon beer signs because we have our parties in "jook joints" the lighting is always dimmed a little. I agree with Susan-- we want to be lit enough, but not so that ppl can really see what I look like at 4 am. The exception is at Playwright with the terrace that opens up to NYC light pollution so we have to turn everything off on 1 end to achieve dim."


David Ljung Madison:
"I did not say bubble to imply micro blues.

I don't think many people who have seen me dance would claim that I don't move around the floor. :)"


Joy Arico:
"Parties in Fancy Ballrooms-- I want it slightly dimmed for ambiance the feeling of candlelight and pretty sconces. Definitely not dark. Dance studio parties depend on the studio...If the studio has bright lights, fluorescent...then they will all be off and we'll bring in lamps.

If it is a dance studio set up for throwing parties as well, with a great sound system and lights on a dimmer.. we just dim them a little and light candles. Again, we want ambiance, not invisibility."

Final note-- you'll notice we do the same in the Lindy rooms at our events as well."


Ben Nathan:
"Personally, I like a room decently lit. If a room can be where I can see my partner clearly and make out their face, that's ideal for me. Granted, I'm not asking it to look like noon, more like dusk where the lighting is comfortable, safe, etc."


Joy Arico:
"Just to throw out the other side of the coin to quote Frankie Manning describing rent parties while quoting Fats Waller..."Turn Out The Lights and Call The Law!"
Dark is the right lighting for our house parties."


Katie Lee:
"I am one of those follows who gets scared off of blues by creepy leads (which is a pity, because I really enjoy non-grinding blues). As this does seem to correlate to lack of lighting...dim-ish, please, not dark!"


Ali Connell:
"My personal rule of thumb is, I want to be able to take a picture (no flash) and at least be able to tell that it's a person in the picture (grainy is fine, can't tell who it is is fine) A room so dark that if you take a picture all you see is black and a few shadows is too dark (and I've definitely seen rooms this dark). Avoiding the fluorescent lights = good. But it's good no matter what the dance or music. However, I've been in blues rooms where I've been looking for friends and been unable to find them despite 5 minutes of searching because the room was so dimly lit. And it definitely seems to me that the constant body rolls and grinding is correlated with the decrease in light.

And I think a house party is a somewhat different matter. It's a private event, different expectations."


Summer Leigh Shapiro:
"I agree with the "dim for ambience but not dark" idea. That would go for pretty much any dance or music style, including lindy. There's a reason nicer restaurants, theaters and music venues aren't harshly lit from overhead. Slightly dim is simply a more pleasant nighttime atmosphere.

This especially relates to dancing in dance studios. Most of them tend to be barren and underdecorated. You have to do something to make them more pleasant and party-like, and ambient lighting is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to accomplish that.

I don't want it dark, though. I'm a non-grindy blues dancer, and frankly, I think the vampiric mostly-darkness just encourages the type of people I'm looking to avoid dancing with. Give me wall sconces, ropes of Christmas lights, halogen lamps, whatever... but I'd like to be able to see, thanks. :)"


Sarah Beth:
"Not sure about the geographical implications of blues room lighting, but I agree with Summer & the idea that house parties are okay much darker than public dances, and Mike's opinion of Blues at Lindy events (I usually abstain for the same reasons).
I actually had the same experience at VBLX a couple years back, leaving Sol's great dj'ing because the only light in the room was from his laptop. It encourages creepiness, and anonymity, and discourages mixing up partners.

Here in Memphis, we keep it dim to save our eyes, and have some twinkle lights if needed. But again, we dance pretty fast Blues here--and like Steve said, you want it darker cause is 2am--but you still need to be able to see the band, avoid other couples and find your next partner. ;-)

Bill, hope you can come to Memphis in March & see for yourself!!"


Martin Beally:
"1) Tempo and energy of the music should affect how lit the room is.
2) Public events should be brighter than house parties.
3) I should always be able to see people's faces.

Sidebar: We should stop caring and devoting so much energy to saying what's "wrong" with blues dancing, be it grinding or whatever. Lead by showing a positive example and people will follow."


Emi Mastey:
"Dim not dark. Blues room at ATLX at the warehouse place was so dark I had no idea what leads were in there. How do I know if there are great leads or creeps if I can't see them?"

Photo credit: Evrim Icoz Photography
http://www.evrimgallery.com

Dancers as Professional Athletes

I had an interesting thought when I got to dance with Carla Heiney at this year’s ILHC. That was, I’ll never hit a baseball thrown by NY Yankee pitcher Mariano Rivera or catch a football thrown by NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. In fact, this dance is probably be the closest I’ll ever get to playing with a professional athlete.

That got me to thinking about the Discovery Channel’s Time Warp episode with Carla and Nick Williams and how I felt like I was a kid again watching one of those Olympic athlete profile pieces where you see them using technology to study body mechanics and perfect motions and their skills... and then you want to grow up and be just like them. Of course, they also look the part of professional athletes. Nick looks like some ancient Greek sculptor carved him from granite, as so does instructor Joel Plys. While others like Evita Arce look like they were born on the Broadway stage.

I was reminded of this again at Seattle's Emerald City Blues when I got to dance with Portland instructor Brenda Russell. Several years ago I attended one of Brenda’s workshops and was so amazed and inspired by her flexibility and body control that I began doing yoga, which I’ve realized is central to many dancers’ training. It literally took me two years of steady practice to get my middle-aged, weekend warrior frame the range of motion where I could START practicing the movements she showed. I joked to my wife Patty, “hey look what I can do after 2 years of work-- move my hips; so flipping what?” Well, last month in Seattle while dancing with Brenda I played with some stuff and it was like I’d traded in my beat-up mini-van for a Ferrari Enzo. So THAT'S what dancing is supposed to be like!

I’m always amused when someone excitedly comes back from a weekend workshop with a professional dancer and tries to share what they’ve seen taught, “Your hips are here, like this… not like this… and not like this.” Meanwhile, everyone in the room is saying, “You didn’t move; I don’t understand. What are you trying to show us?” It’s great to see the enthusiasm… up to the point where someone starts claiming to be able to teach it themselves.

Mischievously, when a local teacher once asked me to help demonstrate a concept he’d just learned by doing it wrong two different ways and then correctly the third time, I stood unmoving and lax muscled as he exclaimed, “There! Did you see how the whole body alignment shifted into place? That’s exactly what we want!” Nobody saw a thing but the local still thought he'd done a good job as a teacher.

Sadly, I’ve lost track of the number of conversations I’ve overheard where someone who’s started assembling a decent repertoire of dance moves over 2 or 3 years grumbles, “If that person can market themselves as a professional why can’t I? I’ve learned most of the stuff on their videos.” The idea is crazy to me. Nobody’s stupid enough to watch a couple old Manny Pacquiao or Chuck Liddell fight films, beat up their baby brother and then expect to climb into the ring and knockout the champion... but doing the equivalent in the dance world seems to be fine for some people.

I sometimes think maybe what’s wrong with the world today is we don’t have enough biblical smiting going on. For the prideful, the vain-glorious, the greedy, the envious… “WAHPAH!!! I smite thee!” Yup, the world would definitely be a better place.

But for now, here’s a thankful shout out of appreciation to my professional heroes who’ve inspired me to be a better dancer and a better person.

Not Your Grandfather's Swing Music

This was a promotional piece I wrote for publication in Hampton Road's altdaily.com and sevencities.com webzines to promote Solomon Douglas's upcoming show at our favorite local dance venue.


"Jazz pianist Solomon Douglas and his 10 member Swingtet will be doing their best to turn the Boot Restaurant into a modern day equivalent of NYC’s legendary Savoy Ballroom this Sunday night.

Since leaving the Glenn Miller Orchestra to tour with his own group, Solomon has been a favorite musician with swing revival dancers and lindy hoppers across North America, Asia, and Australia. His two CD releases of arrangements originally recorded by big bands like Count Basie and Duke Ellington capture the hard driving energy of the Swing Era of the 1930’s and 40’s.

Swing you say? Ho hum. “Not so!” says swing DJ Sam Carroll.

Solomon Douglas is a musician he recommends “to anyone who’s not really sure they like ‘old school’ swing—Solomon does the jumping songs of old, but in a context that’s more accessible today. It’s a modern band that caters specifically to dancers– so the energy is great.”

Boot co-owner David Hausmann explains, “This is certainly not going to be an evening of your grandfather’s old scratchy recordings. The nights we get the swing crowd in here dancing are the most fun nights to work.” Dancer and singer Laura Windley adds, “There’s an energy present in live music that’s not there in recordings. Likewise, there’s an energy that comes from the dancers that feeds back into the band’s energy, so it’s cyclical drive for both dancers and the musicians.”

The recent popularity of television shows like ‘Dancing With the Stars’ has certainly helped spread enjoyment of old time dances like Lindy Hop and east coast swing. Instructor Wendy Craighill says she frequently sees dancers and their parents discovering a common enjoyment of the music and dance instruction in her Lindy 101 classes in Williamsburg. However, local dancer, Marissa Perdue is quick to point out, “Dancing swing, as opposed to ballroom, doesn’t require you to be overly serious, perfect or for you to try to be sexy. Swing is just a fun expression of unbridled joy where you can’t help but smile while you dance.” Others point out you don’t have to be a dancer to enjoy the drive of good swing music. They’ll point out others sitting in the club and say, “See them over there tapping their feet or their fingers? It’s infectious. They just can’t stop themselves.”

It’s no surprise members of the local swing dance community frequently drop in for shows at The Boot. The owners, who ran Relative Theory before opening their restaurant in Ghent, have created a casual environment that hints of an old “Speak Easy”, complete with handle bar mustached bartenders and a piano from the early 1900’s on the stage. It’s an environment where casual regulars and dolled up dancers can relax and enjoy live local music that local Kelly Jackson says, “always turns a light on my insides!” Others point out the restaurant’s wonderful collection of Virginia beers and wines might also help create that atmosphere of relaxed frivolity.



Dancers like Breanna Perry of Nashville say, “You’d be surprised. Swing dancing is cooler than you’d think, you get to interact with other cool people and to learn something not everybody knows. It’s sort of becomes its own underground cool.” Jen Sowden of New York City agrees, “Don’t get me wrong– I go to clubs too, but I love lindy hop swing because you feel connected to someone by the music. Plus, swing music changes, has more accents, changes in tempo, dynamics and instruments; in short, more rhythmic games than modern music.”

The Swingtet musicians who’ll masterfully bring that swing and old style blues to the Boot Restaurant include trumpeters Nicholas Dyson and Alcedrick Todd from Ottawa and Texas, drummer and bass player Brian and Eric Heveron-Smith from NY, Durham’s Lucian Cobb on trombone, Portland sax player (and bandleader in his own right) Pete Petersen, clarinetists Mike Cemprola and Patrick Breiner, guitarist Ted Gottsegen and band leader Solomon Douglas on piano.

Showtime is this Sunday, December 6th . Doors open at 7 p.m. with DJ Bill Speidel spinning swing and blues tunes until the live music begins at 8 p.m. The Boot Restaurant is located at 123 W. 21st Street in Norfolk’s Ghent. Admission is $12."

The Long Road to the Emerald City Blues Festival

This blog was going to be a recap of the awesome time I had at this year’s ECBF, but the story of how I got there might be more informative for DJ’s and readers.

You might say I took the long road to DJ’ing in the northwest. About two years earlier I introduced myself by email to organizers on the west coast who suggested I buy myself a ticket west to DJ some house parties and see if I could get invited to DJ a weekly gig where I might catch the attention of someone who’d ask me to come back another time to do a monthly dance.

Portland seemed a particularly tough nut to crack when they explained I’d have to come out and do a 6 month DJ apprenticeship. It would mean 3 months watching a local DJ spin, followed by a month trading supervised 3 song mini-sets and then 2 more months playing 30 minute house party sets before graduating to DJ a full set at a weekly dance.

In fact, several people mentioned that DJ’ing large regional blues gigs in NYC, Philly and throughout the southeast, didn’t mean a thing to anyone west of the Mississippi if they hadn’t been there to experience it themselves.

Looking back now, I realize, at the time, I was the only person I knew DJ’ing acoustic and country blues in the east-- also, the growling trombones and weepy, wailing clarinets that make me melt. It seemed everyone else in the mid-Atlantic states was fixated on guitar heavy Chicago blues and the same dozen “standards.” One night a local event organizer told me, “Even though the DJ’s before me tonight played over half my songs, this was my best set ever.” He finished up with Nina Simone’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” and the statement, “If a song is good enough to hear once in a night, it’s good enough to hear 3 times.” So, maybe the west coast could be forgiven if they felt a bit superior about their taste in music at the time.

But I didn’t buy that plane ticket to play house parties or do an internship; instead I politely joked I’d just keep DJ’ing big gigs in the east until they had to call and invite me out on my terms. In the meantime, I experimented, researched, began editing songs to make them tighter, and continually met a growing number of dancers from the west coast at events who’d go home and tell their friends how much they enjoyed my sets.

In the end, I think my finally getting that phone call from the west some 2 years later came in some small part as the result of some luck.

Sadly, Heather Adams, who’d DJ’ed the blues room with me at ATLX, had to cancel DJ’ing last year’s Enter the Blues due to a death in her family. The organizers asked me if I could step up and take her prime time slot on Friday night as well as mine on Saturday. Also, another scheduled DJ had gotten annoyed he wasn’t offered Heather’s slot and called in sick at the last minute to stay home and dance, so I was given his time as well. In the end, that meant I got to play two solid 2+ hour sets that instructors Topher Howard and Brenda Russell and others greatly enjoyed.

So, I was particularly thrilled to be invited out to Seattle as a headline DJ alongside Steven "Dr Feelgood" Watkins, Tina "Sweet T" Davis and "Our Downtown" Julie Brown at this year’s ECBF. The truth is, had I come out earlier, I wouldn’t have been prepared to “trade ones”, alternating every other song on an equal footing with those other top notch DJ’s.

In the end ECBF was the most amazing dance weekend I’ve ever attended. All the music was incredible and the instructor lineup Brenda Russell and Barry Douglas, Steven and Virginie, Ogden and Amanda, and Topher Howard & Mike the Girl Legett was tremendous. Seattle is also arguably the most delightful city around. Even organizer Martin Beally, who’d like to keep up his reputation as a demanding hard-ass, was a wonderfully warm and personable host (on top of running a super efficient event).

In short, I’ll be taking a direct flight to ECBF next year and you all should as well.

Racism sends blues to the back of the bus

Jazz master Wynton Marsalis recently told CNN that blues has always been a marginalized form of music because of racism. “It came from who we didn't like. That's what it was -- it wasn't that we couldn't see it. It was who it came from, we did not like them.” He explained that blues music is in country, in jazz, in rock and roll but when its straight up blues, its been institutionally exploited for profit or flat out rejected by white recording companies and is therefore now rejected by the African American community as well.

Case in point... last night, I went to a Discovery Music series blues concert at the local Attucks Theatre in Norfolk, Virginia and was surprised when the MC told the roughly 40 people in the mostly empty theatre, “I’m glad to see so many more people coming out for events than we had last year.” It made me sad to see the historic black theatre so empty for a young musician, John Bigham (The soul of John Black), who mixes blues, soul, R&B and rap and who’s played with Dr. Dré, Eminem, Fishbone, Miles Davis, Everlast and Nikka Costa. Why were the few people in attendance 60 year old white men with pony tails and their wives? There were maybe 5 African Americans in the theatre.

It reminded me of the day I watched a blues concert in Norfolk and overheard a group of white men from the local Natchel Blues Network loudly celebrating having pushed “that black bitch” out of elected office in their organization and “who did she think she was anyway, thinking she could tell me anything about the blues?” Yup, a black blues singer worthy of membership in Safire, the Uppity Blues Woman for sure. I wrote a letter of complaint and cancelled my membership in the organization the next day.

Since then I've concluded that blues here in southeast Virginia is controlled by those "good old boys". This year’s Virginia’s Blues at the Beach (sponsored by the Natchel Blues Network) listed 15 featured artists – 13 of them were white and all but one were male (no wonder they all sounded homogenously the same). Similarly, all the performers at the organization's Hampton Acoustic Blues Revival this year were white (again with one token female). Meanwhile the organization’s current favorite son is an African American artist whose new album “Wall Street Blues” features heavily produced, suburbanized (sanitized and safe) blues that fuses adult contemporary, Calypso, beach music, rockabilly and just enough boogie woogie to not be threatening or edgy.

Meanwhile, talented local African American blues artists like the Blues Empacts, and those with female performers like Jackie Scott and the Homewreckers, the MSG Acoustic Blues Trio, and the Black White Blues Bands, are left struggling for the same attention given to performers who look more like the promoters do.

I'd say Wynton described it perfectly, at least in southeast Virginia. Maybe its different elsewhere.

Blues Muse Recap

In the name of full disclosure I should start out by mentioning I’ve got a vested interest in Blues Muse since it was originally my baby in 2008 and the LAB organizers in Philadelphia have agreed if they should decide not to continue it, I can take it on the road; plus I’m one of the event DJ’s. So one could accuse me of being a bit biased when I say this year’s event again showed Philadelphia is the city that knows how to throw the east coast’s most awesome blues party.

Of course, the big story for east coast blues scenes for much of this year was NYC and DC simultaneously locking into blockbuster events on the Blues Muse weekend and being forced to split the pool of dancers. Thankfully, Philly organizers were able to shift the event two weeks later to October 16-18, which meant everyone came back together in the middle with the opportunity to share what they’d picked up two weeks earlier.

Once again this year’s lineup of muses was first rate. While last year’s event featured an all east coast lineup, host muses Carsie Blanton and Mike Legett this year brought in Boston’s Julie Brown and the Pacific Northwest’s Abby Kunnecke and Karissa Lightsmith. Rounding out the instructors were dude extradinaire Reuel Reis, and locals Jon Darvill, Stuart Collins & Jesse Young. Not only were the instructors from a wider range, but the organizers had California’s Cid Galicia join “the Mid-Atlantic Big 3” of Mike Marcotte, Corey Wright and I as DJ’s. Plus, Chicago’s Ruby Red stepped in to cover DJ’ing on Friday night for a while since the rest of us were caught in traffic or looking for parking.

In a nutshell, this year’s event was bigger, smoother, and better than last years debut success. The Ethical Society is an awesome venue for classes. Philly continually does late night food like no other place I’ve seen (although Atlanta’s crepes are pretty cool) and the locals are some of the most enthusiastic, friendly and best educated dancers around. Bringing in some of the best instruction from elsewhere in the country just helped put the cherry on top.

Nicely done once again Philadelphia!

Nina Simone Sings the Blues

Emusic now boasts 47 separate albums by Nina Simone, many of which offer alternate live recordings of her classic blues standards.

This month I’m particularly enjoying the 2006 remastered re-release of Nina Simone 1967 RCA debut album “Nina Simone Sings the Blues.” I’d tell you more, but that would deprive you the joy of discovering some great “new” recordings by one of my favorite artists.