Lindy Hop comes second – the music comes first. As I continue to refine my dance skills, I am continually reminded about the importance of the music that goes with the dances I do. I mainly focus on Lindy Hop, Jazz, Charleston, and Balboa. Each dance takes great skill and lots of practice in order for them to be enjoyed with true ease. The right music is necessary to invoke the right mood for dancing each of these dances, ie, statements such as “This feels like a Bal song” or “Hey, I can do Charleston to this”. More importantly, the right music is needed to invoke the entirety of all movements within the dance style. In fact, some will say that you are not dancing Lindy Hop if you’re not playing swing music. This is a bold statement, and there is truth to it.
Let me explain. The binding force within music we hear is rhythm, time, or repetition. It is clear that dance most easily becomes created when music has rhythm, because patterns and definition to a dance easily take shape when the music has patterns and repetition involved. Musical structure, such as phrases or choruses, plays a huge importance when dancers create choreography. But at the basis of nearly all popular forms of dance is an adherence to rhythm. It makes sense that dancing dependent on it. In swing dancing, rhythm is the true heart of it all.
Now, Lindy Hop became a dance when the music of 1920′s hot jazz changed. The rhythm of jazz music of that time started to swing. Dancers were doing the Charleston prior. It’s interesting to note that the dance Charleston came about because of the hot jazz being played in the early part of the 1900′s. It didn’t really exist when ragtime music, which came earlier, was around. In the late 1920′s, that all started to change as musicians such as Fletcher Henderson and Chick Webb started to change the rhythm of their songs. The dancers loved it because it was new, hip, and really made them wanna dance! But they didn’t just keep doing Charleston… they started to change entirely. Dancers started to syncopate their body movements because of the new rhythms. They did it naturally – they listened to the music and let their bodies move in such a way that would match the new swinging rhythms.
Over the last 100 years, syncopated rhythms stemming from the origins of Jazz music have continued to inspire all sorts of dances and all kinds of music. 1930′s swing music inspired 1940′s R&B. 1940′s R&B inspired 1950′s Rock n’ Roll. Soul came out of R&B, Funk came out of Soul, and meanwhile Jazz continued to evolve and influence all music, and so on and so forth.
Back in the day, in the 1930′s and 1940′s, swing music was produced and played in large part for dancers. Jazz musicians got most of their gigs by playing for dance halls. However, over time, Jazz musicians that played swing increasingly weren’t getting gigs to play for dancers. Concert halls and theaters. Swing music fell out of favor because new types of music were becoming hip and cool, such as 1940′s Bebop Jazz, Blues, and Rhythm n’ Blues, as the world moved on.
But in the 1990′s, the vintage styles associated with swing became hip. Polka-dot dresses, bowler hats, zoot suits fashion-wise. Also, swing-styled rock and pop songs (commonly known as neo-swing) became popular, and also swing dancing made a come back. I’m glad that fad happened because it meant that swing dancing and swing music got exposure.
Here’s the thing: it is truly hard to play the rhythms and arrangements of the 1930′s and 1940′s, and get it right.
Neo-swing did an OK job of getting the style of swing instrumentation infused into their songs, but the re-creators unfortunately were not really focussed on having the music appropriately made for dancing the Lindy Hop, so they didn’t get it right. Their rhythms didn’t always swing. Their melodies often were over-the-top, or didn’t match the rhythm. Some groups and artists got close, and a select few went all the way and started to do it… play true swing music appropriate for Lindy Hop.
There’s the other side: what about all our big bands that are playing 1930′s and 1940′s swing jazz? Well, they do a pretty good job of recreating the arrangements. However, there is something missing there too: having a relationship with dancers that dance to that type of music. Because big bands often are playing in concert halls, there’s not much opportunity to play for Lindy Hoppers. Also, until recently, Lindy Hop as a dance had died off so there hasn’t been much opportunity for big bands to play for dancers that would be able to dance to their music appropriately. Thus, big bands are very good at repeating arrangements; however, they are very commonly plagued by ‘lack of life’ within the music they play. Their music was meant to be danced to, but no one’s dancing. To me, many big bands I hear sound dead.
I believe that Lindy Hoppers today are often confused by what is swing music. Not knowing what to play, what do dance to, or who to seek out. They trust in their deejays and instructors to provide appropriate music for Lindy Hopping, but they should know that these deejays and instructors may not be the perfect role models and have an attuned knowledge of the music that truly makes Lindy Hop happen.
Often times, Lindy Hoppers run into forms of music that are not as directly aligned with the dance, and use that for their inspiration. Farthest away from the source of Lindy Hop music is a term you might call fusion Lindy – Van Morrison, some Ray Charles, some Nina Simone, and pretty much anything that has syncopation. Perhaps a little closer but still on the outskirts of ‘Lindyhoppable Music’ includes neo-swing, 1950′s rock, jump blues, and some swing music that new big bands play. These forms of music still work, partly – they typically have syncopated rhythms that allow Lindy Hop to be danced. The down side of dancing to these forms of music is that it doesn’t inspire the entirety of Lindy Hop as a dance. It mostly has to do with these musical style’s rhythms. They are different, and variations in rhythm (or lack of a living, dancing rhythm) should cause people to dance differently. As you change how people move, you move away from authentic Lindy Hop. I would venture to say that if you are an aspiring student of Lindy Hop, then not having the right music will inhibit your progression as a dancer.
Now dancers are confronted with styles of music that get pretty close to being good forms of music for Lindy Hopping, but are not the real deal. This includes Gypsy Jazz, much of the music that dancers loosely call New Orleans Swing Music (Preservation Hall, Bug Stompers, Jazz Vipers, Tuba Skinny as examples). Getting closer to the Real Deal is the music of some European swing bands and several North American swing bands. I dare not mention any band names because of fear of getting lynched, since many big Lindy Hop events in North America feature these bands.
The true music intended for Lindy Hop is swing jazz music created in the 1930′s and 1940′s for dancer audiences. This music aligns itself with the Lindy Hop dance perfectly. There is no getting around this, and if you are a lindy hopper, or deejay for lindy hoppers, or musician for lindy hoppers, I would strongly advise that you take your primary influences of music from this era. Not just any music either. Find out what music was played at the Savoy Ballroom where Lindy Hop was created and became popular, and try not to compromise. If you find newer, inspiring recordings that you find awesome – that’s ok, it’s fun to experiment, but know whether that song is comparable to a 30′s/40′s tune like Jumping at the Woodside or Perdido or Yatch Club Swing. Make a choice to deviate and know when you are!