What follows is probably the least technical illustration of what makes classic jazz great for dancing as well a behind the scenes look at the behind the scenes video about Lindy Focus and A Word on Swing.
This is a little project I did because I recently bought a new camera, and now I am basically teaching myself how to use it in addition to learning photography and videography from scratch. It’s been something that I’ve been wanting to get into for awhile now, and just decided to jump to it.
Other than being an unabashed fan of the Boilermaker Jazz Band, I did this mostly as an exercise in learning how to cut between multiple video angles. Btw, thanks to David Soltysik for letting me play with the original files of his recordings from that night. You can see his footage on his site.
I know it’s not close to perfect, but it was a good learning experience. Looking back, I may have been too much of a slave to include certain shots simply because I like looking at them. It was a great opportunity to catch the Boilermakers in rare form as they were on fire for most of that night as evidenced by your best set in the house shot of Rich tearing apart his drum set. Plus there was the energy of the DCLX crowd and the dancers in the circle.
Everything is in chronological order, other than two short shots, and starts with the end of the second encore song: the theme from Sanford & Son. This was a compromise from showing the whole thing, and I wanted some time to acknowledge the band and show off the fun little bits that happened in between the two songs. David cut out at the end of the song, and I was about to pack it in myself, but I kept rolling on a hunch—really a hope that they would play again and they did not disappoint.
In case you’re wondering, the camera next to the drummer, Rich is the new camera: a Panasonic Lumix GH2. I was on the opposite side of the stage recording with an old point and shoot camera, a Sony Cybershot W350. That one was an impromptu decision earlier in the evening when I realized that I had it with me and decided that if I’m going to do this, then I’m just going over the top with it. David is recording with his hand held video camera in the middle of the crowd.
For those of you trying to decide on your next camera purchase, this is actually a good opportunity to compare video between a point & shoot, a dedicated video cam, and an almost DSLR. Although, it should be noted that despite the fact that the Cybershot shoots in HD widescreen, the rendering settings I used to create the final video was not kind to that camera’s footage and made it worse than it was.
Enjoy this little love letter from me to the Boilermakers and everyone at DCLX. Comments and critiques would be appreciated.
A couple of months ago I posted about Kelly Porter's oral history archive called Jazz Era Voices, and today I got word via Facebook that it is now live. As far as the Lindy Hop community is concerned, I think this is one of the most important projects out there along with The Lindy Hoppers Fund.
Another fine weekend of live swing music here in DC is in the books. On Saturday, The Washington Swing Dance Committee hosted The Solomon Douglas Swingtet at Glen Echo Park.
The knock on Solomon over the years has been that his bands could be very inconsistent. This was usually due to having an inconsistent line up of musicians from gig to gig. He would typically travel alone and recruit local musicians from each city. Often times first meeting, rehearsing and playing with them all in one day.
The Boilermaker Jazz Band came back to The Jam Cellar last night, this time fielding a smaller group of Paul Cosentino on clarinet and saxophone, Mark Kotision on piano, and Rich Strong on drums. Betsy Kipperman also made a brief appearance with the band singing “Me, Myself, and I” and “I Can’t Give You Anything, but Love.” One of these days I’m going to do a larger feature about the Boilermakers, but today I just want to talk about drummer, Rich Strong.
First real blog post, a review of the dance hosted by The Jam Cellar in the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park last night with The Brooks Tegler Big Band.
