WHAT IS SWING?

A lady once asked Fats Waller, " what is swing? " His reply, " lady, if you've got to ask, you ain't got it " was sassy, but not much help!

The Music

Swing encompasses a wide spectrum of music, from the big and small band jazz music of the 1930s and early 1940s, through the jump jive of Louis Jordan, early R&B and the Rat Pack lounge crooners of the 1950s to the new swing bands of today.

Musicians like Count Basie, Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway and singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday were some of those who pioneered the big band and swing sound. In 1932, as if issuing a call to arms, Duke Ellington recorded “Don’t Mean a Thing if it ain’t got that Swing.”  Rhythm is key to the unique swing sound, which developed when double bass and guitar replaced tuba and banjo in the rhythm section of the band, opening up new rhythmic possibilities.

Swing and big band music are currently undergoing a revival – with names such as Robbie Williams and West Life covering old classics.

The Dance

Lindy Hop is a heady cocktail of dancing, flirting and sport! It can be wild and crazy, smooth and cool, rhythmic and improvisational... or whatever you want it to be... Signature moves include the lindy circle, the lindy turn, the swing out, the lindy charleston and the lady's twist. Just as jazz music features call and response within a band, so lindy is a creative interaction between two people — and the music!

The apocryphal tale goes that Lindy Hop was named around 1927 or 1928 after Charles Lindbergh's daring, first-ever solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927. America was gripped. At the end of a dance marathon, a reporter asked George "Shorty" Snowden what the name of the crazy dance he was doing was, to which Shorty replied "Lindy Hop." Just as America was a melting pot of cultures and nationalities, so lindy hop had mutated over time, absorbing a range of contemporary social dances - foxtrot, cakewalk, texas tommy, black bottom, charleston , the collegiate and tap. Who knows, maybe there's some Irish in there too!

Lindy Hop is a fusion of African social dance culture and the formal dance structures of European social dance. Humour and individuality lie at its heart - the blacks were imitating and mocking what they perceived as the formality of the European dances. The Savoy Ballroom in Harlem – the Home of Happy Feet – became the king of swing, and a playground for blacks and whites at a time when most ballrooms were racially segregated. Over 70,000 people a year danced there. Lindy Hop was danced throughout America, with different cities and personalities developing their own styles. The GIs brought the dance over to Europe during the second world war, and it became known as the jitterbug.

The term “swing” is now used as a catch-all for a range of dances – lindy hop, jitterbug, balboa, east and west coast swing, boogie woogie... It also inspired jive, rock n roll etc; the dancers adapting to new styles of music.

You might have seen swing dancing in hit films such as “Malcolm X” , “Swing Kids” , “The Mask” and “A League of their Own" . It has also featured in Ally McBeal and BBC 1’s Strictly Dance Fever .

Lindy Hop is great fun, so take to the floor and SWING OUT!

A recent review in the Daily Mail by Georgina Heffernan described swing dancing as "one of the most fun nights out I've had in ages....SwingTime, which encapsulates those 1930's and 1940's days of decadence, is making a comeback, and with it the velvet tones and glamour of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald. After years of formulaic and tacky night clubbing, there's really no better way to party...... Swing dancing is a dance of craziness and beauty.....After the class finished and the club started, the real fun began. The bar transformed into something resembling the Savoy Ballroom circa 1947, as the young, gorgeous and glamorous, clad in vintage gear, flooded the dancefloor.....It's easy to see the appeal of Swing dancing - the physical energy, the old world glamour and the heady romance of the dancefloor!"