Free The Swing Book by Degen Pener Page B

only six to twelve months
     before was already being written off as just another trend.
Time
and the
New York Times
both predicted that the clock was running out on the revival. There’s even been a Sprite ad slamming swing as a passing fad.
    The truth isn’t anywhere near so bleak, though the swing scene has been experiencing its fair share of growing pains as it
     matures. While the new rock-oriented bands were what sparked the revival, in the past couple of years the dancing has come
     to really dominate the movement. In turn, as the Lindy Hoppers become more experienced, they’ve been gravitating toward bands
     that play more dancer-friendly midtempo songs. “I definitely was affected and influenced by what dancers were interested in
     and looking for,” says bandleader Bill Elliott. “On our first CD everything is fast and slow. By the time of our second I
     was including several midtempo numbers.” Adds Eddie Reed, “I do songs that are tailor-made for Lindy Hop.” But while the newer
     fave bands, such as Indigo Swing, Seattle’s Casey MacGill , Elliott, and Reed, favor a more traditional sound over rock influences, that makes them less likely to cross over to MTV.
     The classic big bands are as much an inspiration to them as jump blues. Reed’s band replicates the Artie Shaw Orchestra of
     the late thirties. Elliott cites Tommy Dorsey as an inspiration. According to Chris Siebert of Lavay Smith’s band, audiences
     are getting more sophisticated and are starting to appreciate the more complex but equally thrilling arrangements of the big
     band era. “They’ve had a little taste of it and they get hungry and they want to find out more,” he says. Others in the scene,
     however, worry that without the rock element, neoswing is losing its edge. Says
Swing Time’s
Moss, “This breakthrough in modern pop music doesn’t really have to do with Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman.”
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    1998
    It’s the year of “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail” as the Gap ad revives Louis Prima’s original cut, and Brian Setzer’s cover debuts
     accompanied by a killer-diller video
    The legend passes on. Frank Sinatra dies at age eighty-two
    Swing sells: Fans snap up 2 million copies of Setzer’s
Dirty Boogie
album, while Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies each surpass 1 million in sales
    1999
    The hundredth anniversary of Duke Ellington’s birth shines the spotlight on one of the greatest composers of all time
    Big Bad Voodoo Daddy plays the Super Bowl
    The Grammys reward the Brian Setzer Orchestra
    Lindy innovator Frankie Manning’s eighty-fifth birthday is celebrated with coast-to-coast parties
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    No matter what style of music they play, all of the bands still encounter some friction with the dancers, and vice versa.
     “We joke about it because the dancers and the bands are really like people in a dysfunctional marriage,” says Elliott. “Each
     needs the other but can’t really get from the other what it wants. What the dancers want from the bands is exactly the tempos
     that they want to dance to all night long. But each dancer has a different idea of what that is. What the bands want from
     the dancers that they don’t get enough of is applause and admiration and appreciation.” Conflict has also arisen among the
     dancers themselves. In the last few years, a different type of Lindy Hop—dubbed Hollywood style by its popularizers, LA dance
     teachers Sylvia Skylar and Erik Robison—has been revived. A smoother way of swing dancing, it’s best seen in such movies as
Buck Privates
and the hard-to-find short
Groovy Movie.
Savoy-style aficionados and Hollywood fans don’t always get along. When the new revival first started in Los Angeles, “they
     would throw salvos at each other,” says Santa Barbara teacher Sylvia Sykes.
    Despite these occasional lapses of perspective, the swing scene is in fact opening up to more influences than ever before.
     Neoswingers are embracing rockabilly again.