The company line in Toronto has always been, “we are lucky to have so many great live bands”. Well, truth be told, I was not a company man for a very long time. Things are starting to change though and I’m slowly starting to see the light. I just need to look in different avenues and directions.

Two bands that really stand out are Patrick Tevlin & His New Orleans Rhythm and Up Jumped Swing. Both bands will be playing at Toronto’s main lindy dance (Dovercourt @ Saturday nights) in the upcoming month. Check out a clip of Patrick Tevlin and his happy pals playing at Grossmans this holiday weekend:

Last night, at the end of Yonge and Bloor Blues, after our last blues song we turned back on all the lights and I played a couple soul/motown songs  to wrap up the night. The people who were still around and still wanted to dance got a chance to bust out the moves one more time and we got an upbeat end to the night.

I did it without thinking much about it, but when discussing it with Randy later, I realized that I did it because I don’t like anti-climactic ends to the evening. Maybe it is just a personal preference (I walk out disappointed when the end of a movie is anti-climactic, I prefer things to be wrapped up in a neat little package), but I feel that I have more fun at a dance when I get a chance to release any residual energy and dance hard one last time at the end of the night. There can be the instinct as the dance progresses to lower the energy level and then call it quits, but I think that the best DJs/Bands will respond to the dancers’ energy level and but then push them to dance harder when the energy gets low.  

It is like the fade-out/defined ending distinction in songs, but at the macro level. I (and many dancers) prefer it when songs end with a defined bang instead of fading out into silence. Plenty of great songs with fadeouts, but ideally most of them would have a distinct ending. Ideally the night should be ended on a high note and the dancers should be able to get some closure.

In the dance world, it can be difficult to accomplish this defined ending, because dances will sometimes run for an undefined amount of time (i.e. until people get tired/bored and leave). At Yonge and Bloor, we don’t have the problem because a large majority of our dancers leave in time to catch the subway, so our dances come to a natural end about 1ish. (And then Randy tries to convince people to get Pork Bone Soup)

At some lindy hop events organizers give a satisfactory ending to everyone’s night by having concurrent lindy hop and blues rooms until the end of near the end of the dance. People can choose their own adventure, and if they want to dance hard just before they leave to wrap up their night, then they can. Alternatively people will finish things up with swing and soul or gospel sets before the end of the night so you get an extra chance to get your groove on.

I have a bit of a pet peeve about organizers/DJs/whoever is responsible (no time for the blame game) who come to a foregone conclusion about how the night is going to go down and where the energy will be at any one time. At lindy hop dances, the pre-determined (insert arbitrary time here) is not “blues-o’-clock” in which you play progressively lower energy music until people get bored and leave, nor is it necessarily “west-coast-o’-clock”, or “disco-o-clock”. It all depends on the dancers, and only partially, they should be pushed in an energetic direction. Don’t decide that people are out of energy, because when you do so, you are killing the night instead of keeping it on life support for as long as possible. If it is indeed disco-o-clock, better make sure that it is a welcome change of pace that will ultimately inject new energy into the tired/bored/uninspired dancers. None of this wimpy lullaby disco stuff. (While disco was an arbitrary illustrative choice, I do firmly believe that a disco afterparty is a great idea.)

These are all just my personal thoughts, I am sure that I am not the only one who likes to wait for that last good dance before leaving, and I hope that I am not the only one who likes to see dances end on an energetic note. (Energetic organizers yelling at people to leave doesn’t count).

Possible times to close out the night:

• Energetic-Lindy-Hop-o’-Clock
• Those-Blues-Songs-That-Really-Get-You-Moving-o’-Clock
• Soul-o’-Clock
• Disco-o’-Clock
• Hip-Hop-o’-clock
• Charleston-o’-clock
• Surf-Music-o’-clock
• Rock-around-the-clock

-Your (Somewhat) Friendly Neighbourhood Kevin Temple

 Tyler Yarema and company’s set was wonderful. They could throw down some great traditional jazz (and he does a mean Fats Waller) but they had a great deal of depth on the edges, exploring blues, slower jazz ballads, boogie woogie and soul while keeping it danceable and inspiring. It was one of the most versatile band nights I have seen. Some bands are great but more one-dimensional, which means that it doesn’t stay fresh after the first hour or two and the DJ sets are a welcome break in between. Tyler’s band played long sets, took short breaks (about 15 minutes or thereabouts) and I was still wanting more. It made me ashamed that I don’t take the time to catch Tyler Yarema playing when I am in Toronto. He has the skills to pay the bills.

Tyler seemed legitimately impressed with the dancers, he was really feeding off their energy. He also mentioned that it was refreshing for him to be asked for faster tunes instead of being told to play slower music (uh-oh Toronto, you just got called out).

The dancing was great too. I had a ton of fun dances, got to dance with some friends that I don’t get to see nearly often enough and I got to raise the roof on numerous occasions. I really got to engage my fun-loving side in the dancing and there were some dances where I was actually laughing so hard that I could barely continue. At one point after a little bit of creativity gone awry I yelled out “Awkward!” and promptly cracked up.

There was a crowd of dancers from Montreal out, (somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15-20 by my estimation that came in just for the dancing) and a huge crowd of Ottawa dancers. Honorable mention to Lawrence and Chelsea for driving up for Toronto just for the dance. Dishonorable mention to all the other Toronto dancers and to the Kingstonians for not showing up.

There were some top-notch dancers out there and the level of dancing was fairly high generally. I felt like I could be ambitious with my dancing, and didn’t have to shy away from the faster music. It can be frustrating to hear a great fast tune, then look around the dance floor and realize that 97% of the follows in the room have communication break-downs with faster music.  It was nice (but selfish, I am apparently a terrible person) to have to worry about being the crappy member of the partnership and I think it helped me to push myself.

Final verdict: great evening! I hope to see more of Tyler Yarema in the future, and hope I can make time to get out dancing in Ottawa and Montreal a little bit more.

             From your (somewhat) friendly neighbourhood Kevin Temple

Toronto dance organizers, take his name and band contact information down because that’s the SOUND that we want to HEAR so we can SWING. I was so pumped during the dance that at one point I just stopped dancing, with my always game follow (Marika), and just hollered back encouragement and madly stamped in front of the band stage.

Here is a video of the band playing a slow tempo Tuxedo Junction (shim sham). Video embedded from Arthur Lulu‘s site:

Few selected songs that I played while DJ’ing at Hamilton’s Hammer Hopper first dance this year.

As I get more and more DJ’ing gigs slash opportunities, one of the things that I am working on this year is trying not to DJ with an agenda. I have embarrassingly caught myself sometimes in the mindset that I am some sort of music missionary trying to lead the heathens on a path to Harlem heaven. From the top of my head, some prior agendas that I have come to gigs with included playing faster than expected songs, songs from the savoy ballroom era, jazz blooz, new orleans, and my personal favourite, playing really bad songs and seeing if anyone notices (JK… or am I?). Bad news brown I know.

Having an agenda for my DJ set has usually ended up being disastrous. It was through those very awkward sets, that I have decided to abandon the idea that I should “educate” the dancers by forcing my music sets regardless of whether people are actually dancing or not.

“Well if they don’t dance to it then they don’t like real lindy/blues/mambo/jazz music”, I would say to myself and any poor soul unfortunate enough to be within a ten metre radius.

Reflecting back on those sets, I can see how my tunnel vision for a particular sound made me overlook the fundamentals of a good DJ such as gauging the mood of the room, the sound ambiance/level, ebb/flow, and picking good songs that would make the people in the back would want to walk across the floor and ask someone to dance. I was focusing too intently on the songs “I’m about to play”, instead of focusing on the song that was actually playing and making decisions accordingly.

One of the things that I have realized about DJ’ing dances is at the end of the day, its just getting people up and dancing to have a great time. You can get into endless debates of what constitutes a swing/blues song, but what I have found is that as long as you continually play fresh tunes that are appropriate for the event (blues music for a blues dance/swing music for a swing dance), your audience is going to be happy. Or they just plain wouldn’t be dancing. Of course what you don’t let on is the fact that you have poured hundreds of hours meticulously hunting for new tunes, weeding out old ones, and familiarizing yourself with what you are calling as your “music collection”. Every now and then as a DJ, you know you just nailed the right song at the right time and for that three to five minutes, the room is dancing to music that you like dancing to as well. This in itself is almost the reason to not DJ with a pre-made list. :)

Where I’m DJ’ing Next

I’m still earning my chops DJ’ing dances and it’s good to be a scene where the local DJs are actively pursuing new music (Arthur Lulu and Krister comes to mind) and there are opportunities to spin at the regular dances. The only way to get better is to continually practice (trial by fire) so you can catch my sets at the following events

- Sunday Swing and Blues (Imperial Pub; already happened!)
- Toronto University Exchange (this late night friday)
- Hammer Hoppers Monthly Dance @ The London Tap House (Jan. 26)
- Yonge & Bloor Blues (Jan. 29)
- Ottawa Blues Blast (April 23-25)