Free The Swing Book by Degen Pener Page A

forms in Ventura, California
    Nathalie Cole releases “Unforgettable,” her “duet” with her father, Nat
    1992
    Spike Lee’s
Malcolm X
premieres, boasting some of the best swing dance scenes on film. No wonder: Savoy originals Norma Miller and Frankie Manning
     assisted with the choreography
    Debbie Allen’s
Stompin’ at the Savoy
TV movie debuts
    St. Vitus Dance, early neoswing band formed by Vise Grip, plays its first live show at the Deluxe
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    And then there was that Gap commercial, the eight-hundred-pound gorilla that finally propelled swing into the stratosphere.
     Featuring Louis Prima’s original “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail” and a new stop-motion cinematography that brought the Lindy’s aerials
     into breathtaking relief, the Gap’s “Khakis Swing” commercial was as much a hit as any song when it premiered in April of
     1998. After the ad was taken off the air three months later, customers screamed for more. “You can’t believe the responses
     we got. We got letters and calls saying, ‘Why did you take it off so soon? I’ve only seen it three times and I love that ad.’
     The public wasn’t ready to give it up yet. So we put it back on the air,” the Gap’s Michael McCadden told
Entertainment Weekly.
And despite the fact that it used hardly a single real Lindy dancer (the dancers in the ad were almost all models) and it
     promoted khakis (a plain, unisex look that was in fact antithetical to the dressed-up atmosphere of the swing movement), it
     brought droves of eager novices into dance studios, wanting to have as much fun as the people in the ad seemed to be having.
     “The ad put it over the top,” says Diane Lachtrupp, co-owner of New York’s Stepping Out, which like every dance studio around
     the country was soon scrambling to keep up with the demand for classes. Just as in the thirties, jazz had once again gone
     mainstream under the label swing. No one in the movement was going to be singing the blues.
----
    1993
    The Derby, LA’s first all-swing nightclub, opens in the soon-to-revive Los Feliz neighborhood
    Also in Los Angeles, Brian Setzer, Bill Elliott, and Eddie Reed all play their first big band gigs
    It’s official. Lounge music is back: Frank Sinatra’s chart-topping
Duets
is released
    The movie
Swing Kids,
about jitterbug fans in Germany just before the war, premieres. While not a hit, it’s credited for giving juice to the dance
     scene
    1994
    Decked out in zoot suits, Jim Carrey hams it up and Royal Crown Revue plays it up in
The Mask
    MTV produces “Tony Bennett Unplugged”
    On November 18 the great Cab Calloway dies
    1995
    Swing Time
magazine, the first magazine dedicated to the swing scene, is published
    The Hi-Ball Lounge, San Francisco’s first all-swing nightclub, opens in the space once occupied by the legendary Jazz Workshop
    1996
    Jon Favreau’s
Swingers
puts the swing scene on the map, showcasing Big Bad Voodoo Daddy playing at the Derby
    Slimstyle, the first swing independent record label, sets up shop in Tucson
    1997
    The Squirrel Nut Zippers’ “Hell” becomes a radio hit. While the sound is more twenties hot jazz than swing, the success of
     the song creates an opening for other retro-style tunes
----
POST BLOW-UP SWING
    Or so it seemed. While the success of swing in 1998 was unexpectedly huge, the growth was just as unexpectedly double-edged.
     The expectations put on what was still in many ways a grassroots scene ratcheted up about 1,000 percent. “Everybody got big
     dollar signs in their eyes,” says Moss. Club owners who weren’t part of the scene rushed to start swing nights, often not
     realizing that most dancers don’t drink much except water. When some of these events inevitably folded, the word started spreading,
     truthfully or not, that the swing fad had peaked. You know the old saying that they like to build you up just to tear you
     down? Many swingers felt that the media was doing just that in early 1999. What it had trumpeted