Our friends over in Seattle had a neat event a couple weeks ago called Savoy Swing Jam to showcase their awesome local scene. I spotlighted the J & J finals in a post last week and thought I’d put up the rest to complete the set. In addition to your standard partnered and solo competitions, Savoy Swing Jam also featured a Short Showcase which allowed contestants to perform a 30-60 second routine. A few other place have done something similar in the past including us over at The Jam Cellar. The time limit makes it a little easier for new performers to give it a go without having the pressure of choreographing and performing a whole song. As you’ll see below, a wide variety of pieces were submitted from Katie McLaughlin & Jared Luxemberg’s clever use of Mess Around variations to Michael “Dargoff” Darigol & Carolyn Palma’s staright forward attempt at swinging out to a song that I think clocks in under 340 bpm’s. At a certain point, it just becomes a little impossible to measure such things. Check 'em all out below. It won't take long ;)

The weekend also featured a video presentation which I may or may not have helped with. Either way, I eagerly await its posting online.

Thanks to YouTube-ites retrogenesis and captainoshiri22 for posting these videos. Be sure to check out their YouTube pages for more videos from the weekend.

[2013 Note: Many of the original videos have been taken off line, but I did find this video on Vimeo which has the entire contest]

Tranky for Frankie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjETCuMKpSE

Swing-amajig

Carolyn Palma & Michael “Dargoff” Darigol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU2hN2U0PHc

Cheryl Crow & Biran Gish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40yqvFPdWxE

Kaitlin Russell & Matt Lam

Katie McLaughlin & Jared Luxemberg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOtVG8RFN54

Hotsy Totsy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbkSn52QrQY

Brittany Johnson & Naomi Boswell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5vObLdUeRI

7^th Avenue Express

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HIztB4Isyc

Gennie Gebhart & Damian Cade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdHBuI6WDzY

Amber Dannals & Alex Dupler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wsJz56h-iw

Our friends over in Seattle had a neat event a couple weeks ago called Savoy Swing Jam http://www.savoyswingjam.com/

. I spotlighted the J & J finals in a post last week http://jsalmonte.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/boston-i-will-be/ and thought I’d post the rest to complete the set. In addition to your standard partnered and solo competitions, Savoy Swing Jam also featured a short Showcase which allowed contestants to perform a 30-60 second routine. A few other place have done something similar in the past including us over at The Jam Cellar http://thejamcellar.com/ . The shortened time limit makes it a little easier for new performers to give it a go without having the pressure of choreographing and performing a routine to a whole song. As you’ll see below, a wide variety of pieces were submitted from Katie McLaughlin & Jared Luxemberg’s clever use of Mess Around variations to Michael “Dargoff” Darigol & Carolyn Palma’s staright forward attempt at swinging out to a song that I think clocks in under 340 bpm’s. At a certain point, it just becomes a little impossible to keep track of such things.