Lindy Hop can be done to
any music with a swing rhythm: music played in 4/4 time with a rhythm that has
an even-keeled "pulse" on every beat along with syncopated triplets
that shift the beat slightly (bat... ba-bat, bat... ba-bat, instead of
bat-bat-bat, bat-bat-bat) for rhythmic emphasis. This American-originated
rhythm is present in all forms of American music: not just Jazz and Blues, but
also all types of Rock, Country, and "R&B" music. Lindy Hop
dance patterns can be done to any music that is in 4/4 time (thus making
sense of the 8-count patterns), even without the syncopation, such as lots of
other kinds of Funk, Rap, Hip Hop, Rock, Blues, Soul, and even Country
music.
The types of music typically played
at Lindy Hop dances primarily fall within the following genres of music:
-Big
Band Swing Music
Count
Basie (pictured with orchestra), Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, Artie Shaw, Harry James, among
others. Typified by an explosive, upbeat, rhythmic sound that can float
gracefully or groove funky depending on the song. Some of the richest,
most vibrant and complex music around that can superficially uplift you or even
profoundly move you, depending on your level of appreciation or interest.
Big Band Swing can be divided into sub-genres of its own: Classic, Swing-Era Big
Band, and modern, "New Testament" Big Band. The difference does
not just refer to the differences between monaural vs. stereo recording
techniques, but also to performance differences that better technology
facilitated, as well as influences from other evolutionary forces in music such
as Bebop and Progressive Jazz.
-Jump
Blues
Louis
Jordan (pictured with the Tympany 5), Jimmy and Joe Liggins, The Cadets, Etta James, Willie Brown, Louis
Prima, Ella Mae Morse, Roy Milton, among
others. This music is the precursor to Rock and Roll: Bluesy, but with a
light, simple swing rhythm that gives it an upbeat feeling and energy. Defined loosely, it can also include
Motown soul music from the late 1960s, as
well. Great for party dancing or Lindy Hop.
-Vintage
Pop Vocalists
Frank
Sinatra (pictured), Nat "King" Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Tony Bennett,
Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, among others. This genre includes
"swank," mostly jazz-oriented music from the 1940s-1960s, where the
vocalist fronted the band and took center stage. It ranges from fun,
rhythmic Swing tunes to crooning ballads to smooth, velvety, martini-lounge
tunes.
-Mainstream
Swing Jazz
Oscar
Peterson, Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young (pictured with Billie
Holiday & Ben Webster), Ben Webster (pictured), among
others. This sound is typified by a softer, more sophisticated feeling,
yet is still rhythmic and danceable. Ideal for "cocktail party"
feeling or background dinner music, yet not as bland, dull, or sleepy as modern
"Smooth Jazz" can get. Great for slow dancing or slow Lindy
Hopping.
-Groove Swing
"Groove Swing" is a dancers term, not a musicians term, so you will
not find it in any music store. It arose because no musical term aptly
described a sub-genre of swing music that has become popular over the past few
years but is found only on one or two songs per CD (because it is not yet a
musical genre of its own right). The term refers to the way a song is
performed more than how it is composed or arranged: swing music that is played
with a heavy bass-laden emphasis, where the bass is more amplified and played
with a soft attack and long sustain so as to give the bass more of an
omnipresent sound instead of a staccato thumping sound. The bass rhythm is
so rich and strong that it sits down into a deep "groove" from which
the beat emanates: thus the term.
The origins of "Groove swing" seem to begin with Count
Basie's New Testament Band in the 1950s, when
amplification allowed the Bass player (Ed Jones) to reduce his attack (how hard
he plucks the bass string) and sustain each note longer to provide a mellower, "groovier" rhythm that rolls a bit more fluidly
than the "chonk-chonk" beat typical of other swing music. The
"groove" dug even deeper when other "Soul Jazz" musicians of the
1960s, 70, 80s, and even 90s took the small-band formula of Mainstream Jazz and
injected some "uumph!" into the rhythm, developing that Groove into a
sub-genre of its own so popular among dancers that it has its own venue named in its
honor: Lindy Groove, in L.A.
Gene Harris, Jack MacDuff, Charles
Brown, Al Grey, Ray Brown, and even modern musicians like Barbara Morrison
produce this sound at it best.
-Blues
Everybody knows Da Blues: Muddy Waters, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughn,
Pinetop Perkins, and Snooky Pryor (pictured), among many, many others.
Many different rhythms have developed within the Blues, and not all of them are
danceable. But the straight-forward, 12-Bar Blues from which it all began
typifies Lindy Music at its best. The more relaxed the Bass rhythm, the better.
-Neo
Swing
Big
Bad Voodoo Daddy, Royal Crown Revue (pictured), Brian Setzer, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Ray
Gelato, among others. This music borrows elements from Jump Blues, Rock,
and Big Band Swing to create a frenetic, up-tempo dance music associated with
the Neo-Swing fad of the late 1990s.
-"Westie
Lindy" Music
"Westie Lindy" music refers rather broadly and generally to any 4/4
music that does NOT have a Swing rhythm. Although it is not Swing music in
any sense of the word, you can still dance Lindy Hop patterns to it because
these patterns still fit within the 4/4 time. Instead of syncopating
rhythm (shifting the rhythm slightly for emphasis) in triplets with a
"bat... ba-bat, bat... ba-bat" beat, the triplet beat is hit more
evenly with a "bat-bat-bat, bat-bat-bat." This non-syncopated
rhythm in 4/4 time can be found in Soul, Rap, Hip-Hop, Country, Rock, and Blues
music, and, as such, is somewhat of a broad "other" category.
This "other" category makes some purists cringe, but has gained more
and more acceptance over time.
-Hip Hop, Rap, Funk
Not
always associated with Swing music and Swing dancing, Funk, Hip Hop, and Rap
music are the modern "street-music" descendants of Swing, causing just
as much of a rucus among stodgy attitudes as Swing music once did in the 1930s
and 40s. From the 70s Funk of The Commodores, Earth Wind and Fire, and
Rick James to the modern music of Coolio, Tupac, and even Will Smith, this music
always seems to get a party going.
There are enthusiasts who insist
that Lindy Hop be done to only the vintage, classic swing music that inspired
its creation. The original, classic Swing music is great and every Lindy
Hopper should maintain an appreciation for it. However, just as Jazz and
Blues music has evolved quite a bit since 1933, so has Lindy Hop. Most of
that evolution has occurred in a few short years since Lindy Hop re-emerged from
obscurity in the mid 1990s, whereas the music has seen 60 years of evolution
since the end of the Swing Era, so the evolution of Lindy Hop still has a way to
go to catch up.
Since Lindy Hop and
Swing dancing re-emerged from virtual extinction in the mid-1990s, they have grown
and evolved far beyond the classic Swing Era music that inspired their creation
and beyond the poppish, Neo Swing that helped bring them back to life in the
mid-nineties. Although the Neo Swing stuff has it merits, Lindy Hoppers have mostly
abandoned Neo Swing and other Swingster, Hepster, Lounge Acts. Lindy
Hoppers now dance to
widely diverse jazz and blues music, from the classic Swing Era music of Benny
Goodman, Count Basie or Duke Ellington to the more modern, grooving jazz of Oscar Peterson,
Al Grey, Ray Bryant, Roy Eldridge, Jack MacDuff, and other jazz greats, as well as the hard-hitting Blues of Buddy Guy,
Willie Dixon, and even Austin's own Stevie Ray Vaughn. We no longer
respond much to the prototypical, monorhythmic "Swing Dance" music,
but instead dance to jazz and blues that pure music enthusiasts would love, as
well. Lindy Hopping to
the music is just another way of appreciating this great American music.
Indeed, it is the best way.
"Swing Music" is a
broad term that many people use differently, and is often confused with the term
"Swing Rhythm." Essentially, the term "Swing Music"
applies to a narrower genre of music (a type of Jazz and, arguably, Blues),
whereas "Swing Rhythm" refers to a type of rhythm that can be used in
many different types of music: jazz, blues, rock, country, and even hip-hop and
rap. "Swing Music" is also a term developed by musicians and
historians, an thus serves purposes that extend beyond identifying the music to
which we like to dance. Thus, we prefer to speak in terms of "Lindy
Hop Music" or "Music for Swing Dancing."
