Some of you may have noticed there was an explosion not long ago. No, I don’t mean the Icelandic volcano, but a host of new swing dance events popping up organised by Swing Patrol. Like all good things, some of those are even free (such as their fortnightly Stokey night) which are the types of things we love to hear about! But what’s great is that Swing Patrol also have workshops and social nights all across our fair city, which keeps us all out of trouble.

But aside from the dance events, the thing that caught my eye recently is their magnificent blog. Featuring video clips from the interweb, discussions on style icons and experiences from newbie dancers (such as Laura’s hatred of tandem Charleston), it’s a very interesting read.

So much so, that we’re now attaching their feed to our sidebar – along with those brilliant event listings from Swing Junction.

Wonderful!

P.S. Before all of you shout, “what about me/my site/my blog?”, well let us know. If it’s brilliant enough, we’ll post it up too!

You may have noticed at the start of our set of weekend tweets every week that we usually add a song title in it. Not by accident, there’s a lot of music out there, and often a lot of classic videos that many of us don’t get to see. For many keen dancers, we hope these give an idea of the wide range of music out there, and what might inspire a swingin’ DJ for a track.

Usually for me, the inspiration behind the song title in a tweet comes from a topical keyword, which leads to a search for classic song titles and then an appropriate video on YouTube. Occasionally, through this effort, one might stumble upon a related video that you can’t help but share. The following is one of those and what a way to start a new theme on this blog.

Oscar Peterson and Count Basie were two legendary musicians and composers who did much to shape jazz in their time. Peterson, a pianist. was regarded as one of the “Jazz Royalty”. Basie, also a pianist, was regarded as one of the most important bandleaders of his time, regularly playing at the Savoy,which was noted as a home for Lindy hop. The two dueted with each other on a number of occasions including in the following clip.

Unfortunately, I haven’t beeen able to identify the exact date of this clip, but I’m sure one of you will be able to. Nonetheless, I was left in awe and astounded when I saw this wonderful arrangement of Basie’s Jumpin’ At The Woodside. If only we could go back in time to be there. In the meantime, though, here’s the next best thing:

A fun little video. They love us in Sweden.

By the way, we aren’t Swedish so we don’t pay their broadcasting fees (only our own TV Licence in the UK to fund the BBC’s lavish Strictly Come Dancing programme). But we encourage all Swedes to pay, and to go to the Snowball and Herrang next year!

Swing Dancers of London are very sad to hear that the legendary Frankie Manning passed away yesterday aged 94.

Frankie Manning was one of the pioneers of Lindy Hop, the dance that we’ve all come to love. Many of us have been honoured to have met him, many of us are very sad to not have had the chance, but we all are touched by the legacy he brought for us to enjoy.

A message from all of us Swing Dancers of London to Frankie: Your spirit lives on with all of us.

Links:
NY Daily News Obituary
Wikipedia profile: Frankie Manning

 

 
Photo: Wikipedia