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.

Happy When I'm With You by Gordon Webster

For this month's review, we're staying in Manhattan. For those of you who aren’t NYC regulars or who haven’t heard Gordon Webster since Blues Till Dawn (or his Philly Lindy Love marathon late nights), his second CD release "Happy When I’m With You" is going to knock your socks off. For those of you who are, it's the Gordon "and Friends" you know and love captured live in your very own CD player!

Sure Gordon’s still grooving the piano like the dickens on numbers like “Uptown Sop” and his supporting musicians, like Rob Adkins on bass and Adrian Cunningham on sax and clarinet, are first rate and swinging equally hard. Also, Brianna Thomas is here on vocals, capturing much of the playful energy she packs into live performances on numbers like “All Right, Okay, You Win”, “All of Me”, and particularly “Summertime”, where her vocals and Gordon’s piano work dance together nicely (also listen as Jesse turns in some great muted trumpet work on that track). “September in the Rain”, “Sweet Lorraine”, and “Sometimes I’m happy” are also solid tracks with Brianna on vocals and which have a comfortable, laid back feel.

However, for me, the best work on the album are Gordon’s collaborations with trumpeter/vocalist Jesse Selengut. These 4 numbers brings out a whole new range of piano that those who aren’t familiar with Gordon’s recent work, won’t be aware of. The energetic version of “24 Robbers” packed the dance floor in Richmond with energy last weekend and “Long John” (now available free for a limited time at the link below) and “Bill Bailey” are equally packed with wonderful hard swinging performances by his all star side men. I particularly enjoyed the interplay of Jesse on vocals and Matt on trombone in “I'm Confessin That I Love You”.

There’s truly not a weak cut on this release, which, given the wide range of material, is a testament to Gordon’s abilities as a top notch band leader, above and beyond his great piano work. "Happy When I’m With You" is an appropriate title for this release because it’ll leave you tapping your foot and feeling just that way yourself.

The CD is available for purchase online at:

http://www.gordonwebsterswings.com/