(i) Painful but true: to find Ballroom Dancing music
in the music stores, you usually have to look in the "E-Z
Listening" department; sometimes there's a "Dance Music"
section. Sinatra is usually in the Vocals department.
Better-known or current bands often have their own section
somewhere in the music store, but you may have to ask where.
Latin club music (Salsa, Merengue) is usually in the
"World Music" section.
(ii) When shopping for old recordings reissued on CDs,
look for the words "digitally re-mastered" on the
label. This makes a tremendous and positive difference in
the sound quality. Note, however, that nothing can help the
sound quality of "pre-war" (WW II) recordings, because tape
was not yet used as a recording medium, so there is nothing
but direct-to-shellac recordings to re-master from. One of
the best ways to hear pre-war Big Band songs is on
Time-Life's Swing Era Collection series of
reproductions, recorded in the 1970s with many of the
original band members. This series is available again
through the Time-Life web site, www.timelife.com,
after a long disappearance from the market. (There are 13
albums, 2 CDs per album, in the series. It's enormous!)
Similarly, a fairly good, quick way to buy a lot of Rock 'N'
Roll hits from the mid- and late-50s is on the Time-Life
Rock And Roll Era collection -- but the sound
quality, despite alleged digital remastering, is pretty
mediocre. (The sound is much better on the various artists'
own digitally remastered song collections.)
(iii) There is a series of "Ballroom Dancing" CDs
featured prominently in stores that you should definitely
avoid. The CD packaging is red, with a silhouette of
a dancing couple on it; the alleged orchestra is the
Francisco Montaro Ensemble. These are terrible. Avoid,
avoid, avoid.
The following two series are good places to start for
everything Ballroom except Swing. (For much better Swing and
Salsa stuff, see below.)
The LaserLight label's "Strictly Dancing"
series of CDs has music that is not exactly inspired, but it
is serviceable for practice, and each song is conveniently
labeled as to the type and pace of dance to do to it. It is
very similar to the Betty White series (next paragraph), but
with better musicians--we prefer the LaserLight
series. It is a bit harder to find, however. Some of the
discs have been issued and then reissued with slightly
different contents, so sometimes the songs listed on the
label are different (or in a slightly different order) from
the songs on the actual disk. No big deal. All are good
except the Mambo disk, which is pretty awful. Some of the
disks are dedicated to a single dance (e.g., Waltz), while
others are a mixture (e.g., Latin).
The "Betty White Selects..." series (Conversaphone
label) is available on both cassettes and CDs. Like the
LaserLight series, the music is not exactly inspired, but it
is serviceable for practice, and each song is conveniently
labeled as to the type and pace of dance to do to it. Some
of the cassettes/CDs are dedicated to a single dance (e.g.,
Betty White Selects Music for Waltz Dancing), while others
are a mixture. [Avoid the similar-looking Betty White
dance-instruction recordings.]
• CD recommendations are immediately below.
• We have
listed 250 recommended individual Swing songs
here, on a separate web page, with 25 of our
favorite songs specially marked.
There are quite a few different versions of Swing being
danced these days -- none of which were called "Swing"
originally! The music was called Swing, but not the dancing.
The dancing, in its different forms and in different
decades, has been called jazz dance, lindy hop, jitterbug,
rock 'n' roll, boogie woogie, Jive [in England], Le
Roc or Ceroc [France], and probably a dozen other
appellations. We mention this because each sub-genre of
Swing dancing has its own favorite style of music. What
follows are general recommendations.
Frank Sinatra. Come Dance with Me.
Wonderful Billy May arrangements. Tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 7,
9 and 11 are good for Swing. (Tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 13 and 16 are good Foxtrots at a spunkier-than-usual
tempo. Yes, a few Sinatra tunes are suitable for either
Swing or Foxtrot.)
Enoch Light and the Light Brigade. Big Band Hits of the
30's, 40's and 50's, Vol II.
Big band reproductions done fairly well. This particular
disk is about the best of the series, with 21 songs of which
6 are pretty good Foxtrots (tracks 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13), and 7
more songs are quite good Swing tunes (tracks 1, 8, 10, 12,
15, 19, 21).
Bill Haley and His Comets--From the Original Master Tapes
(MCA label).
20 songs, 19 of which are good rock 'n' roll style Swing,
all with a thumpingly clear beat and most with a medium or
medium-fast tempo, which is excellent for Swing practice.
(The exception is track 8: too mambo-like for our Swing
purposes). If you are going to buy
a second disk for Swing practice, this may be your best
choice.
City Rhythm. City Rhythm Strikes Again (Limehouse
Records).
A new band from Philadelphia, playing classic Swing songs
with a strong, room-filling sound. This album has a terrific
variety of songs, and almost all 17 of them are danceable.
Tempos range from a slow 121 BPM (beats per minute) to an
ultra-fast 265. (Okay, maybe the fast songs aren't really
danceable, not by mortals anyway . . . )
If you are going to buy only one
disk for Swing practice, this may be your best value -- and
it has some songs slow enough for Lindy Hop practice,
too.
-
Billboard (1957, 1958, 1959, 1961).
Rock 'n' Roll top hits for each year. 10 songs (for $10)
on each disc, of which several are good rock 'n' roll
style Swing. Note that quite a few of these songs have
serious 'breaks,' where the music nearly stops for a few
beats -- this takes some getting used to.
- • Billboard 1957: Tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
are good. Includes such classics as All Shook Up
and Jailhouse Rock (Elvis Presley), Wake Up
Little Susie (Everly Brothers), Party Doll
(Buddy Knox), That'll Be The Day (The Crickets,
with Buddy Holly), Peggy Sue (Buddy Holly), and
A Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On (Jerry Lee Lewis).
Lots of different tempos here, from slow to medium-fast.
Many of the tunes are less energetic than you might
remember, but are nevertheless good for dance
practice.
• Billboard 1958: Tracks 1, 5, 7, 8, 10 are
good.
• Billboard 1959: Tracks 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 are good.
• Billboard 1960: eh. Don't bother.
• Billboard 1961: Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 are
good.
Benny Goodman (Verve's "Compact Jazz" series,
820-543-2).
(Label name and number are specified here to help you
identify which of the hundreds of Benny Goodman disks it
is--there's no other identifying name or subtitle on the
recording.) A great collection of live recordings from 1970,
1972 and 1978. Because of the 1970s recording dates, the
sound quality is excellent. Tracks 1, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14 and 15
are excellent for Swing. Tracks 3, 4 and 9 are extremely
fast Swing--good luck! (Tracks 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are
also very good for medium to medium-fast Foxtrot.)
NOTE: When buying other Benny Goodman disks, remember
that anything pre-World War II will have very poor sound
quality, and that most of the post-war releases have simply
been converted to CD from mushy Nth-generation vinyl with
all of the badly-degraded sound unchanged. There seem to be
more poor-quality Benny Goodman records out there than for
anyone else, so we mention it specifically here.
Jan & Dean. Surf City (Dominion label).
Good collection of medium-slow Swing, good for practicing
your 2ble- and 3ple-step basics. The Beach Boys also did
almost all of these songs and their voices are better, but
Jan & Dean's versions are more danceable.
Swing Kids (movie soundtrack).
Track 1 (Sing, Sing, Sing) and Track 3 (Shout and Feel It)
are superb albeit very fast Swing tunes. Hard to say if this
is enough to make the album worth buying.
NEO-SWING:
- For faster, edgier Swing music, check out
the following neo-Swing bands. Note that these bands play
almost exclusively at fast tempos (tempi?), so almost all of
their songs will be too fast for Beginners to be comfortable
with.
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.
The best musicians of the neo-Swing groups by a noticeable
margin, these folks make a wonderful noise. But, like most
of the neo-Swing groups, almost all their songs are
extremely fast.
Squirrel Nut Zippers.
Sounding like a wonderfully loopy cross between an early
Betty Boop cartoon soundtrack and a New Orleans Swing band,
these were the first of the new Swing bands to hit the
national big time.
FYI:
They named themselves after an old-fashioned
hard-caramel-with-nuts candy (walnuts originally, but
peanuts in recent years) that was made by Squirrel Brand
Candies right here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until
August, 1999. And, since you asked, we'll tell you that
Squirrel Brand, in retroactive turn, named their Nut Zippers
candy after a bar drink mentioned by a man sitting in a
tree.
Indigo Swing.
Excellent. Their three CDs are unusually solid for dancing.
Most people we've talked to prefer the first album ("Indigo
Swing") to the second ("All Aboard"); and apparently the
third album is somewhere in between. (After the three CDs,
the lead singer -- the best part of the group -- retired and
the band renamed itself "Indigo".)
Love Dogs.
Excellent, and local. Their albums aren't nearly as
interesting as their live playing, however, and there are
very few songs on their CDs that are good for practice. They
play a high-energy "jump blues" sort of music, and some of
their songs are hard to dance Swing to. But they are
amazingly fun, and whenever they play locally you should
go!
Ray Gelato.
An unlikely name, playing excellent Swing with a good 40s
night club feel. The lead singer's voice will remind you of
Louis Armstrong or Louis Prima. A good album to start with
is "Men From Uncle."
Royal Crown Revue.
"Datin' With No Dough" is a good dancing tune, as are some
others on the disc.
Jet
Set Six.
Another good neo-Swing band.
Brian Setzer Orchestra.
If they sound a lot like the Stray Cats, it's because Setzer
was a dominant member of 'em. Personally, we think their
sound is too limited and much less satisfying than the other
new Swing bands.
In addition to the LaserLight and Betty White disks
mentioned in Explicitly for Dance
Practice (series), above:
Frank Sinatra. Songs for Swinging Lovers.
Virtually every song on here is a nice Foxtrot, despite the
Swing-oriented name of the disk. If
you are going to buy just one album for Foxtrot practice,
this is probably your best bet.
Frank Sinatra. Come Dance with Me.
Wonderful Billy May arrangements. Tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 13 and 16 are good Foxtrots at a
spunkier-than-usual tempo. (Tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 11
are also good for Swing.) Note: the "strict tempo" for
Foxtrot in competitions is 30 measures-per-minute (mpm). But
for many years in America, especially in the 1950s, a
slightly faster pace of 35 to 40 mpm was popular. This is
reflected on this disk in an especially nice way.
Frank Sinatra. A Swingin' Affair.
Another of the great 1950s Sinatra recordings, with
arrangements by Nelson Riddle, whom we like almost as much
as Billy May. But Sinatra's voice is not in top form,
especially on the first song. Nevertheless, a good disk for
practicing to. Again, virtually every song is a good
Foxtrot, except for a few very slow ballads.
Enoch Light and the Light Brigade. Big Band Hits of the
30's, 40's and 50's, Vol II.
Big band reproductions done fairly well. This particular
disk is about the best of the series, with 21 songs of which
6 are pretty good Foxtrots (tracks 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13), and 7
more songs are quite good Swing tunes (tracks 1, 8, 10, 12,
15, 19, 21).
Besides LaserLight and Betty White -- see Explicitly
for Dance Practice (series), above -- there isn't much
that's good for practice purposes. Just keep in mind that
"Viennese Waltz" is a different dance, so avoid anything
with the word "Viennese" on the label. (Viennese Waltzes are
extremely fast and require a substantially different
technique.)
In addition to the LaserLight and Betty White disks
mentioned in Explicitly for Dance
Practice (series), above:
The Mambo Kings, movie soundtrack.
Most songs here are Mambos (surprise!), but tracks 8, 14
and 16 are very nice Rumbas, and tracks 3, 11 & 12 are
good Cha-Cha's. Track 10 (Perfidia) is a nice, slow Cha-Cha
once you get past the 45-second introduction.
¡Cuba Si! (various artists).
An excellent compilation of music out of Cuba -- primarily
(fast) Salsa, but also with a few tracks that you can
use for Cha-Cha practice. Track 5 is a lovely
Cha-Cha, and tracks 8 and 9 can be used for Cha-Cha practice
as well if you can stay on the beat among the
embellishments.
Marc Anthony. Contra La Corriente.
Betcha didn't know that Marc Anthony did most of his wooing
of Cleopatra by crooning Salsa tunes at her. Here are some
of the actual early-Roman-Egyptian Salsa tunes that won the
heart of Egypt's queen. Okay, okay. Truth: On this disc from
one of Salsa's biggest pop stars, tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7
are very good Salsa tunes, in a slightly mushy 'romantic'
style -- after you wait about 30 seconds for the ultra-mushy
introductions to die off. They are almost all at 44 measures
per minute (medium-slow for Salsa), and are very good for
practice. If you are going to buy
just one album for Salsa practice, this is probably your
best bet. Note: the next Marc Anthony
release (about March 2000) had NO Salsa tunes on it.
Salsa en la Calle Ocho ('96, '97, '98, '99, 2000,
etc.)
This series of salsa discs, one each year, features
compilations of some of the best Salsa music coming out of
Miami. A good way to get started. On almost all the discs,
the songs are quite fast -- but on Salsa en la Calle Ocho
'97, the first two songs are slow (relatively), so we
recommend it, if you can find it anywhere.
¡Cuba Si! (various artists).
An excellent compilation of Salsa music out of Cuba. The
Salsa tunes are on the fast side, but it's a great selection
of great music. (The a cappella track we've listened to in
class a lot is track #13.)
Rikarena. Both the name of the group and the name of
their first album. A great, fun Merengue sound. Many of the
songs have a 15 to 40 second intro imitating some random
musical genre . . . and then, boom, they flip back to
conventional Merengue for the real part of the song.
If you are going to buy just one
album for Merengue practice, this is probably your best
bet.
Juan Luis Guerra. Ojata Que Llueva Cafe. There are
several Merengue tunes on this disk -- and they are all
classics, from one of the greatest of contemporary Merengue
artists.
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