On behalf of Laurie and Nina I’d like to thank everyone who came out for the Big Big Benefit this weekend. It was great to so many people out along with so many different groups working together to help one of their own. In particular I’d like to thank the following people: At the top of the list is the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture for all their support. People who work for the park were some of the first to come to Laurie’s side when she was first admitted into the hospital, and they were super helpful all weekend. Donna Barker especially worked very hard to facilitate everything and even poured in a lot of time to put together the the puppetry performance CD’s.
The Line
I was at an event a few years ago chatting with another dancer during the last dance of the weekend. We were watching a particular follow, and I’ll admit we were not paying attention to her connection or style; we were just straight up checking her out, and her considerable . . . talents. But oddly enough, the more we watched her, the less attractive she became. It just came down to the fact that we just didn’t like her dancing. This was a significant moment to me because up until that point it was fairly easy to identify what I didn’t like in a person’s dancing based mostly on their technical deficiencies. We were (an still are to a certain extent) collectively learning how to connect and how the dance generally worked. I’m talking about a time when people thought that Hollywood and Savoy were two entirely different dances and stopped dancing when they couldn’t find enough people to agree with them. But here was an advanced dancer with no such issues. I just couldn’t get into any of the creative or stylistic choices she was making.
Album Review: Sam Cooke Live at The Harlem Square Club
I’ve been on a live soul music kick lately and I finally picked up “Sam Cooke Live at The Harlem Square Club” after I heard Peter Strom spin “Having a Party” from this it at ILHC last year. I had such a great dance to that song that it’s part of my personal Lindy highlights from last year. I don’t know why it took me so long to get it since it’s honestly one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. From any music genre. It’s that good.
From start to finish, Sam Cooke bleeds out energy and passion into the microphone. If you didn’t already believe that this smooth crooner was the man who created Soul music, then there's no way to deny it after hearing these recordings.
Camp Jitterbug 2010 Roundup
Camp Jitterbug is THE most important Lindy Hop event in the Western Hemisphere right now. The killer instructor line up; great live and DJ'd music, uber high level contests, and the one of a kind Jump Session Show. I’ve never been actually, but it’s significance is such that it cannot and should not be ignored. This roundup almost a month late, but fortunately a lot of people have been talking it up. It feels like the Lindy Sphere-o-blogs is becoming more and more active. Check out Mary Freitag’s experiences on her blog Art and Dancing, a Canadian perspective on Hamfats.ca, and Mikey Pedroza’s ongoing series of reactions on his blog.
Humility
Benny Powell passed away this weekend just at a time when I’ve been considering the concept of humility quite a bit lately. Benny played trombone for Count Basie through much of the New Testament period of that orchestra. I had the pleasure of meeting him while working on Frankie95 last year. He was one of the more prolific musicians during the weekend. He co-led the band for Frankie’s memorial service. Then the next night my man just showed up to play when he didn't have to. He confused the heck out of everyone because we thought he just got his nights mixed up since he was scheduled to play with Wycliff Gordon and Art Baron on Monday night. But he heard of the three big bands playing on Saturday, and just wanted to be there.
Jump Session Videos
Not very many things surprise me these days in relation to Lindy Hop, but I’m more than a little shocked to see Jump Session videos online now. Many of them by the event promoter, Tonya Morris. It’s surprising because the Jump Session Show was the last major hold out of must see Lindy Hop performances that wasn’t previously available for free online. Between Tonya, Shesha Marvin, and The Killer Dillers’ YouTube pages, it looks like the whole show will be online soon.
I’ve been putting off a full event overview for awhile, but this gives me some motivation to get it done. I didn’t go, but there’s a ton buzz from the Lindy blogosphere about the event. I’ll try to put something together for next week. In the meantime I’ll leave you this weekend with a couple videos from the show.
A Year's Worth of Wandering & Pondering in One Post
When I started my blog I read all kinds of nifty tips to make it awesome and get lots of people to read it. Oddly enough, all of them fail to advise you to post something actually interesting. This may sound a bit conceited, but I think most of the stuff I post here is pretty interesting to read. Maybe not all of it. Just 98%, give or take a couple percentage points. I should know—I read it all the time, and I never get tired of me.
One fun tip talked about summarizing your blog’s content every once in awhile, so for all of you new readers here who keep searching for Skye’s non existent website or information on a certain convicted lindy hopper’s sentence*, here’s a handy dandy guide to all the other stuff you're missing. Or if you’ve already read them, here’s your opportunity to go back and relive the pain and/or the glory.
A Year of Wandering and Pondering
. . . more or less. I started this blog because I wanted something interesting to read. Seriously, there’s probably no one else out there that reads my blog more than I do. Trust me, I see the statistics. That's right, I'm one of those self centered jerks that writes just so I can see what I wrote. Besides, being a terrible editor, this is the only way I catch my mistakes, of which there can be many in any given post.
Until a year ago I was one of those people who always talked about having a blog, but never got around to starting one until Frankie95. I posted a 30+ page overview/rant of the whole experience on Facebook and before I was done, I decided that writing on a semi-regular basis wasn’t as impossible as I thought it would be.
Weekend Video Highlights: Sylvia Sykes Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
As you can see, Sylvia has been all kinds of awesome for a long time. She still has it too, which is how she still gets to teach and perform with the best out there. Life is rough sometimes.
ILHC 2010 Update
I met with ILHC co-director Tena Morales a couple of weeks ago who was in town too nail down some details for this rapidly approaching event. Just being in the hotel with the rest of the DC based ILHC staff was enough to get me psyched for August. I visited the hotel for the first time a couple of months ago and this place is so nice that I had to call Tena to make sure I was in the right place. This place is swanky. From the artsy clock in the foyer to the pimp board room where we met. Honestly, it almost feels a little too nice for a Lindy Hop event, but never let it be said that we don’t at least try to class up the proceedings.