Lindy Hop History: 1945-1983

Lindy Hop did not evolve in a vacuum. In the 1930's, while Lindy Hop was developing in Harlem under the heavy influence of black urban culture and Jazz/Swing music, other forms of partnered swing like dancing were being done all across the country. Three detailed examples follow:

Country Music and Dance

During the years between 1925 and 1935 Jimmy Rodgers and The Carter Family recorded what would become the earliest examples of Country music. Country music and its companion dance styles drew from rural and deep southern cultures (both black and white) and the Celtic cultures that settled in the Appalacian Mountains. On November 28, 1925 Nashville's WSM AM 650 launched the "Nashville Barn Dance" radio show. Three years later the name was changed to the "Grand Ole Opry" and today it remains the longest running live radio show in the world. This clear channel AM powerhouse delivered Country music to nearly every state east of the Rocky Mountains and inspired a wide audience to Two-Step and Square Dance.

Western Swing Music & Dance

The southwestern states were dotted with dance halls, juke joints, and honky tonks that generated its own brand of swing that relied heavily on stringed instruments such as the guitar, fiddle, dobro, banjo and upright bass. In the 1930s, band leaders Milton Brown and Bob Wills combined the stringed instruments of Texas fiddle music with the brass and woodwinds of the popular big bands and created an entirely new genre of music known as Western Swing. In fact, the southwestern dance style known as the Texas Tommy is incorrectly cited by many as the inspiration for Lindy Hop swing dancing.

West Coast Swing

On the West Coast, their style of swing dancing (to the same popular Jazz/Swing music driving Lindy Hop) remained in a more European ballroom tradition. Because the migration of black dance and music culture remained primarily east of the Mississippi river and northward along the East Coast, its influence on the west was minimal. This accounts for the excitement generated by Dean Collins when he introduced the West Coast to Savoy style Lindy Hop swing dancing.

The first two examples portray niche genres of music and dance, and illustrate the fact that Lindy Hop, though credited as an original form, was not the only original form of partnered swing like dancing. The last example illustrates how the lack of one influencing element (black urban culture) can impact a regional dance style, even when performed to the same genre of music.

Other Swing Dance Styles

Other examples of early swing dance styles include:

Houston Push.

Dallas Whip.

St. Louis Imperial Swing.

Washington D.C. Hand Dancing.

Carolina Shag.

Collegiate Shag.

St. Louis Shag.

Balboa and Bal-Swing.

"...no AFM members would record or contract to record any mechanical music..."

An internet article titled "US History 1929-1945: Musical Chairs Part II," explains the fallout from this announcement:

Given a little less than two months, the big bands and their record companies launched a recording spree. Many of the famous big bands were still recording new tunes on July's final day. On August 1, 1942, in recording studios across the nation the sound of the big bands ceased.

While the big band sound ceased in recording studios, it still existed in the vaults of master recordings held by the major record labels. The recording companies prepared well for the strike. They released new music recorded during the preceding two month recording frenzy, previously recorded un-released music, and re-released earlier works.

Of particular interest is the re-release of Tommy Dorsey's 1940 recording of "I'll Be Seeing You." This song went nowhere during its original release. Re-released in 1943 due to the musicians strike, it was a big hit for both Tommy Dorsey and his staff singer, a young man named Frank Sinatra.

Crooners Take Center Stage

In the early 1940s the AFM did not recognize singers as musicians. Therefore, they were free to record all they wanted during the musician's strike. Recognizing this opportunity, Frank Sinatra left the Tommy Dorsey Band and began his solo singing career. He and other popular singers, backed by small singing groups, soon began recording and releasing music. This opportunity to spotlight singers as the principal featured element of a song, began the trend to place the music and the musicians in the background.

The AFM Strike Ends

After a little over one year of the strike, in September 1943, Decca Records signed a four year agreement with the AFM. Most of the smaller recording companies soon followed suit. RCA and Columbia Records held out until November 9, 1944 (a full two years and three months) before agreeing to the same deal Decca had struck. This move was prompted by the summer 1944 lifting of wartime restrictions on shellac (a key ingredient for producing records). Both RCA and Columbia feared that the new availability of shellac in large quantities would allow Decca to overrun the market and significantly impact their market share of the recording industry.

The End of the Big Band Era

Other factors also had a negative impact on the big bands. Again, from the article titled "US History 1929-1945: Musical Chairs Part II,"

For the big bands, on the other hand, the AFM strike provided another crack in their dominance of American popular music. The lack of new big band recordings, their replacement in record stores by the singers, and the cessation of Big Band touring because of gasoline and tire rationing. All these reasons played a part in eroding the big band's popularity. By 1946 the Big Band Era had ended. The bands still played, but they no longer dominated.

During the Golden Years of Lindy Hop the big bands were solidly at center stage representing America's popular music. While their live performances served to feature Lindy Hop swing dancers, dancing is not a part of recorded sound so it had no effect on the relative status of musicians as performers. This was not the case when it came to singers. One might say that during the late 1940's, the big bands went from center stage serving dancers to backstage serving singers. This was a transition that greatly impacted their livelihood.

As Big Band Swing diminished in popularity, there was still swing rhythm Jazz which was the staple of early Lindy Hop swing dancing . . . or was there? If one were to consider the fading of Big Band Swing as the original injury to Lindy Hop swing dancing, the added insult was the new wave of Be-Bop that was now invading what had been swing rhythm Jazz.

MUSIC: The Be-Bop Era
For years, the musicians in bands both big and small provided music that allowed lindy hoppers to express themselves through dance. These musicians were, in a way, serving at the whim of the dancers. Their popularity and ability to earn a living rested on their success at satisfying the needs of dancers who at times could be very demanding about what rhythms they wanted to hear and dance to.

As Big Band Swing acquired status as America's pop music, they took the lindy hoppers with them. Meanwhile, a movement began among Jazz musicians, a movement that emphasized Jazz music as artful expression instead of a means of entertaining dancers. It was the dawn of the Be-Bop Era when Jazz musicians began to express themselves through fast tempos, complex harmonies, intricate melodies, and steady non-swing rhythms filled with surprising twists and turns of improvisation. It was clearly music by musicians for musicians; it was not music for dancers.

Frankie Manning: "We could not swing to this music"

NOTE: The quoted material in this section comes from the written transcript of a June 26, 1997 interview with Frankie Manning and Norma Miller for the documentary JAZZ, A Film by Ken Burns.

Frankie Manning was discharged from the Army in 1947. When he returned home, he encountered an entirely new form of music that he did not understand. In his own words,

I was in the army for five years, I came out in 1947, and I come out of the army and I hear 'blll, blll, ddd, ddd,....' and, and, I just could not get accustomed to that. I said, 'Well what is this, what, I mean what's going on?' You know? And I hear all this be-bop music...

The rhythm Frankie Manning was trying to express here, according to his own later words, was a staccato or steady rhythm that was not the swing rhythm he was used to dancing to.

I work[ed] with Dizzy's band, I formed my own group called The Congeroos. I worked with Dizzy's band in 1947, Dizzy Gillespie's band, in Washington, DC. We went on the stage, I gave him my music, "Jumping at the Woodside," [by] Count Basie, and he's got this drummer up there, and he's giving me all this "chuck a bong pim, chick a pim" and I'm usually hear [used to hearing] "chick a chu, chick a chu, chick a chu." And he's playing this stuff. When we finished the act and I come off, I said to Dizzy, now can I say these words? I said to Dizzy, "What the [expletive] is this you doing, you know?

Apparently the drummer was playing an improvised Jazz rhythm that, again, was not the clearly understood "chic a chu, chic a chu" swing rhythm he was expecting.

Dizzy just looked at me, you know, because I know Dizzy when he was a little kid playing with Teddy Hill's band. So, he just turned and walked away. Because he knew that I did not understand this music. We could not swing to this music. And the difference was, was so much.

Recall that these words are coming from a man recognized as one of the greatest Lindy Hop swing dancers to have ever lived. A man who's "dancing stood out, even among the greats of the Savoy Ballroom, for its unerring musicality." These are the words of a man who understood the musicality that Lindy Hop swing dancing required. But the lindy hoppers did try.

We tried to. I mean even at the Savoy they tried to dance to the music, but they started to getting a dance that they called a be-bop, which was staccato, I mean was almost like going back to the Charleston stuff. They're doing "chung, ung, ung..." and you see the kids up there doing this jerky kind of dance with the music. So, it was different from when I used to see, you know, kids out there on the floor swinging. So, I mean, it was, I just could not understand it. But I mean, eventually, I got to understand the music and I, of course, there was so many musicians coming along who was trying to play and they were not as good as people like, like Charlie and uh, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk and those guys like that. So some of these musicians did not play it that well. So, but it was not music for dancing. And that is the thing that I had been used to, music for dancing. So, it was a, a...

"It was not music for dancing," profound words coming from Frankie Manning. At this point Norma Miller provides her take on what she describes as the "Stone Age" of Jazz/Swing music.

Norma: The Stone Age came in.

Frankie: A heck of difference.

Norma: Right, it was. I used to be, you know why I call it the Stone Age, because Birdland took over. Now Birdland was a very small nightclub. With the musicians up on the stand, but the tables and chairs was right up to the bandstand. So therefore you were compelled to sit and listen to this music. Other than when Basie played Birdland, you didn't have no swing music in the Birdland. The guys who were the top guys in Birdland, which was the leading thing on Broadway in New York in those days was guys like Miles, and guys like Max Roach. And Max Roach never played for dance[r]s as far as I'm concerned. I've never been able to understand Max Roach playing, so consequently it was the era where our guys had all gone away to war. So our dance life had started changing and after they all, all of our dance partners was taken away from us, it made us go and divert into different directions, which made me go into another way. I did, I stopped dancing the Lindy Hop in 1942 and went on to producing shows and I'd, that was what I was doing at Small's Paradise, I produced shows there for a whole year. But I was still in Harlem. But the music was definitely beginning to change all the way around and the whole be-bop era was in the '40's and they took away the swing.

Frankie: And that was the thing, too, that I was saying, the Be-Bop music was not music for dancing.

Norma: It wasn't, it wasn't.

Frankie: It was music for listening.

Norma: For listening.

Frankie: So that was the big change. From bands that were playing music for dancing and bands that started playing music for listening.

When Frankie Manning returned to Harlem in 1947, one of his former dance partners, Willa-Mae Ricker, was directing a Lindy Hop performance troupe called the Harlem Congaroos. Frankie soon assumed the management of this troupe and made one last attempt to keep Lindy Hop alive.

The Congaroo Dancers, Lindy Hop's Last Gasp
Despite a declining audience for authentic jazz based Lindy Hop swing dancing, the Harlem Congaroo dancers found a comfortable niche performing in large traveling shows with big name artists and bands that included,

In 1948, the Harlem Congaroo dancers appeared in the movie Killer Diller and made television appearances on the Milton Berle Show and Toast of the Town.

During the early 1950s, interest in live stage shows began to decline and they were becoming more expensive to produce and maintain. By this time, popular music was turning toward Rhythm & Blues and the earliest stirrings of Rock'n'Roll were beginning to be heard.

By 1954 the last live performing Lindy Hop dance troupe, the Harlem Congaroos, disbanded.

Frankie Manning was married in 1954. Having settled down to raise a family, in 1955 he began what would be a thirty year career with the United States Postal Service.

Lindy Hop Fades Into Remission

Lindy Hop swing dancing did not evolve overnight, nor did it disappear overnight. Traces of Lindy Hop and close variations of the dance continued to be seen socially, but it no longer enjoyed the popularity and national performance level exposure it once did. Before long, popular white culture would regard Lindy Hop and its derivative dance styles as a reckless dance of the black culture that, like race music, was in danger of corrupting the youth of white America.

MUSIC: Jump Blues Swing and Rhythm & Blues
During the late 1940s and into the 50s, America's mainstream pop music was dominated by singers, while the musicians that backed them were all but ignored. The Swing/Jazz music that fueled Lindy Hop now stood outside the mainstream, with its most popular players focused on the freeform non danceable jazz style known as Be-Bop. However, there were other musicians grounded in the traditional swing style who continued to write and perform music for dancers. These players kept the swing rhythm and blended it with the Blues music that had long been a part of African American culture.

Jump Blues Swing

Jump Blues developed in the late 1930s among the swing bands of Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Erskine Hawkins, Lionel Hampton, and Lucky Millinder. But it wasn't until after World War II that this style was popularized. Jump Blues combined urban Blues with swing Jazz to create music with a driving shuffle/swing rhythm that had broad dance appeal. These five to seven piece bands usually included a rhythm section behind horns that played riffs and solos that followed traditional blues progressions. The featured soloists were usually sax players who abandoned the finesse of jazz for a wailing sax that matched the energy of both the music and the dancers.

Perhaps the most noted Jump Blues artist of the period was Louis Jordan, who enjoyed enormous success between 1942 and 1951. In 1946, Jordan's "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" became the biggest hit ever recorded in the Jump Blues genre. By the second half of the 1940s, Jump Blues had become the dominant form of black popular music and was often referred to as race music. Among its other successful artists were: Buddy Johnson, Joe and Johnny Liggins, Roy Milton, Big Joe Turner, and Johnny Otis.

Lee Altenberg mentions Louis Jordan and the Be-Bop/Jump Blues bifurcation of Jazz in "A Critique of Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns" [2001]. In his words,

Louis Jordan took the Boogie Woogie rhythm into a small combo format. It was fabulous music for dancing. Meanwhile, Charlie Parker developed a soloing style that allowed for extremely fast tempos. He [Charlie Parker], Dizzy Gillespie and those they inspired wanted to pursue rhythmic and soloing possibilities that dancing bodies could not follow. While Louis Jordan and the new Jazz development called Rhythm and Blues wanted to develop more propulsive dance rhythms than had been heard before.

What happened is that the dancers went with Rhythm and Blues, while the term "Jazz" went with Be-Bop. Be-Bop and the other developments that descended from it were based on a relationship between musicians and their imaginations ... they pushed technique and musical form to, and beyond, their limits. Rhythm and Blues, in contrast, was based on a relationship between musicians and dancers, and it pushed musical form to be more and more physically enticing to the audience.

Note that in the above quote, the writer refers to "...Louis Jordan and the new Jazz development called Rhythm and Blues..." This is indicative of the fact that what began as Jump Blues Swing eventually evolved into Rhythm & Blues. The Web site of Morgan Wright (hoyhoyhoy.com) had this to say:

There is a fine line between early R&B and late Jump Blues, as it was really a continuum. The major difference is that the beat in Jump Blues was typically a shuffle rhythm, rather than the rocking backbeat that emerged in R&B in 1948. ... The most significant thing about Jump Blues is that it bridged the gap between swing and R&B, and it gave early R&B its instrumentation, especially the heavy use of the saxophone.

Rhythm & Blues

Many sources associate the transformation of Jump Blues into Rhythm & Blues with white culture's eventual acceptance of race music as a viable musical art form. In October 1942, Billboard magazine began charting race music under the heading "The Harlem Hit Parade." In 1948, a young reporter at Billboard coined the term Rhythm & Blues to describe what had always been referred to as race music. One year later, Billboard magazine replaced the "Harlem Hit Parade" with what is now called their "Rhythm & Blues Charts."

As a side note, the young reporter mentioned above was Jerry Wexler, who would later become a well recognized pioneer in R&B record production for Atlantic Records.

The following notable events are taken from the "Rock'n'Roll Timeline" offered at DigitalDreamDoor.com. These events succinctly describe what was happening in Jump Blues and R&B music between 1948 and 1952:

1948:

The Orioles, led by Sonny Til, become the first of the young black vocal groups to appeal to a teenage audience, scoring a #1 hit with their debut, "It's Too Soon To Know," the first rock ballad.

Wynonie Harris's version of "Good Rockin' Tonight" tops the R&B Charts and gives rise to the popularization of that word in connotation with the music.

Saxophonist Wild Bill Moore releases "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll."

The raciness in R&B becomes prevalent with such artists and songs as Julia Lee's "King Size Papa" and Bull Moose Jackson's "I Want A Bowlegged Woman" which further connect this music to a young, wild audience bent on moving away from past styles.

1949:

The saxophone becomes the centerpiece sound of R&B and is used for its suggestiveness and its ability to incite a crowd into a frenzy as evidenced by Big Jay McNeely's smash "The Deacon's Hop" and the slowed down sultriness of Paul Williams "Hucklebuck."

The electric guitar takes hold with the blues recordings of T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters and will soon become a centerpiece in R&B.

Atlantic Records starts its run as R&B's biggest label with Stick McGhee's "Drinkin Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee."

The Orioles continue their dominance of the market with 8 Top Ten hits during the year and frequently cause riots at their performances.

A failing white Memphis' radio station WDIA hires Nat Williams, the first black disc jockey and changes its format to rhythm & blues which promptly turns the station's fortunes around. They also hire future singing stars B.B. King and Rufus Thomas as DJs.

In June RCA Victor introduces the 45 RPM Record which is easier to produce, smaller and cheaper than the delicate 78's, which makes it more practical for younger audiences who will soon become music's primary customer.

Louis Jordan's massive hit "Saturday Night Fish Fry" marks the end of the jump blues dominance of the 40's, while Jimmy Preston's raucous "Rock The Joint" points towards a new horizon of Rock'n'Roll for the 50's.

1950:

Fats Domino's first record "The Fat Man" ushers in the full-fledged rock sound.

The Johnny Otis Rhythm & Blues Caravan takes the R&B show on the road scoring ten Top Ten hits that year, three of them chart toppers, with such vocalists as 14 year old Little Esther, Mel Walker and the Robins.

The R&B ballad takes shape with huge smashes in that style by Ivory Joe Hunter, Percy Mayfield and Laurie Tate which bring about a much needed versatility in the emerging music.

Arkie Shibley & His Mountain Dew Boys record "Hot Rod Race" sets the stage for white country music to meet rhythm & blues in a term to be known as rockabilly in the future.

Atlantic Records scores its first #1 record in the decade with Ruth Brown's "Teardrops From My Eyes." This song would later be the biggest R&B hit for a female artist for the next 40 years.

1951:

A wave of young black vocal groups spring up with variations of the style popularized by the Orioles. The Five Keys smooth harmonies hit with "The Glory Of Love," the Clovers combine tougher harmonies with southern-inflected blues and hit with "Don't You Know I Love You" and "Fool, Fool, Fool", kicking off a string of 15 straight Top Ten hits... the Dominoes gospel-based singing and racy lyrics land them the biggest hit of the decade with "Sixty Minute Man" which sells in such high numbers that it makes #17 on the Pop Charts as well.

The first jukebox that plays 45 RPM records is introduced.

In Memphis Sam Phillips records Ike Turner's band with Jackie Brenston on lead for "Rocket 88", leasing it to Chess Records of Chicago where the alcohol fueled rocker tops the charts and further cements rock's future as a raucous, exciting and dangerous style of music.

Les Paul's dazzling electric guitar work on the #1 Pop Hit "How High The Moon" with Mary Ford allows the song to cross over onto the R&B Charts bringing together the diverse influences that would help form rock'n'roll.

In July, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed begins his "Moondog Show" on WJW, broadcasting nothing but rhythm & blues, quickly becoming a hit with young black audiences.

And so it goes. In the four years between 1948 and 1952 Jump Blues evolved into Rhythm & Blues, which was now beginning to play a role in what would become Rock'n'Roll music. The next section in this series addresses the one recurring issue seen throughout this transition: race.

Race and its Impact on Swing Music and Dance
Racial issues had a major impact on the evolution of swing related music and dance. To deny it, or pretend it is not a significant factor, would be a disservice to the reader, a disservice that will not be made here.

With Respect to Music

Incidents of white popular culture's re-packaging of race music for white consumption are well known. One obvious example being Pat Boone's recordings of Little Richard's "Tutti Fruitti" and "Long Tall Sally;" and Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame." Another example would be Bill Haley & The Comets recording of Big Joe Turner's "Shake Rattle & Roll" with sanitized lyrics.

While these recordings brought the music of black Jump Blues and R&B artists to a wider audience, they clearly did not possess the heartfelt soul and emotion the original artists brought to the music. Moreover, to serious fans of Jump Blues and roots R&B music, videotape of these performances by white entertainers is both painful and mildly amusing to watch.

Clearly, during the post-war years, American popular culture was defined by middle and upper middle class white Americans. Mainstream pop music between 1945 and 1955 was dominated by white singers that included Frank Sinatra, Frankie Laine, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, and Mario Lanza. The first black singer to break into the white dominated pop music scene was Billy Eckstine, who was soon followed by Nat King Cole.

The Jump Blues, Rhythm & Blues and early Rock'n'Roll that was about to break was not mainstream popular music during this period between 1945 and the early 1950's. This genre of music was not only lesser in terms of popularity, it was regarded by most white middle-aged Americans as an unsophisticated (in some cases morally wrong) product of the black culture that threatened the youth of America.

With Respect to Dance

Sophisticated Western Swing was the dance style of middle aged white America during the heyday of Frank Sinatra and other pop artists. This style of partnered dance evolved on the west coast, and was later delivered to all of America by Arthur Murray. While it is true that Western Swing was (thanks to Dean Collins) influenced by Lindy Hop, it either never relinquished or soon reverted back to its fundamental defining attribute: European/Latin posture and style. A posture and style that by design set itself apart from what it regarded as the unsophisticated and reckless dance style of the black culture.

Jump Blues and early Rhythm & Blues music inspired the very unsophisticated and reckless dance style that Western Swing wanted to distance itself from. These dance styles were the direct descendants of Lindy Hop. Collectively, like the music that inspired them, they were not mainstream popular dance styles.

Later on, white culture and Western Swing (also referred to as Sophisticated Swing) would openly embrace Rhythm & Blues and change its name to West Coast Swing. Doing so demonstrated another defining attribute of West Coast Swing: the ability to adapt and redefine itself to fit evolving contemporary popular music.

It does not require a leap of reasoning to draw parallels between the music and dance styles presented here. One could easily suggest that the traditional Lindy Hop style of swing dance influenced by black culture, is analogous to the original music of Little Richard, Big Joe Turner and Fats Domino. Likewise, the West Coast style of swing dance, as a product of white culture, is analogous to the cover versions of race music recorded by Pat Boone and Bill Haley & The Comets.

Much has changed. Today, in terms of music, traditional Jump Blues swing and roots Rhythm & Blues enjoy wide popularity, especially among Lindy Hop swing dancers. In terms of dance, the unique posture and styling of Lindy Hop is now celebrated for its roots in black culture. It is what sets Lindy Hop apart from other contemporary swing dance styles.

As middle aged white America attempted to disassociate itself from and discourage the proliferation of race music and dance, it only served to make it more attractive to a younger generation. The generation of white Americans that entered their teens in the early 1950s were the first to openly embrace race music and dance on a wide scale. What resulted were the dance styles we now refer to as East Coast Swing or Jitterbug.

East Coast Swing
An earlier statement in this series read, "Since the migration of black dance and music culture remained primarily east of the Mississippi river and northward along the East Coast, its influence on the West was minimal." Accordingly, Lindy Hop was (and is) regarded as a product of the East Coast and the font from which all forms of East Coast Swing dancing flowed.

Lindy Hop is sometimes referred to as a street dance, a term that implies an ill-defined dance of obscure origin. This is true to a degree, in that Lindy Hop was born through a process of evolution that involved dancers of all skill levels teaching others, who in turn taught others, etc. Moreover, there were undoubtedly many cases of non dancers who liked what they saw, imitated it (without sound dance instruction), and then went on to teach others. It was this spirit of appreciation and imitation that fueled the creation of Lindy Hop's descendant dance forms.

Jitterbug

The term Jitterbug dates back to the earliest days of swing dancing and has, over the years, been used as an umbrella term to describe all manner of swing dance. One source dates the first use of this term back to 1914. Later, in the early 1930s, Cab Calloway's Trumpeter Edwin Swayze wrote a song titled "Jitterbug" that Cab Calloway made famous in 1934.

The most often reported account that associates the term jitterbug with dancing is attributed to a comment made by Benny Goodman. The occasion was the March 10, 1937 opening of what would become a grueling five show per day engagement at the Paramount Theater in New York.

On opening day, thousands of teenagers began lining up outside at 7 a.m. All of the theater’s 3,600 seats were filled when Goodman and his band ascended on a rising stage playing "Let's Dance," drowned out by screams of joy and cheering fans dancing in the aisles.

Mr. Goodman's comment was,

"It looked like a bunch of jitterbugs had gotten loose in the room"

By all accounts, the dancing done in the aisles of the Paramount Theater was the social or street version of swing dancing that could be traced back to Lindy Hop. Some reports indicate that the distinction between Jitterbug and Lindy Hop was racial, Jitterbug being the product of white dancers imitating Lindy Hop. A few years later in 1942, steps would be taken to refine the "dance cavortings" of Jitterbug. By 1952, the term Jitterbug would become synonymous with East Coast Swing.

Recognized Dance Organizations, Lindy Hop and Jitterbug

As Lindy Hop came to be noticed by proper dance instructors, the reception was cold, at best. This attitude, which most consider to be racially based, held until 1942. Even as late as 1936, as the second generation of dancers launched the Golden Era of Lindy Hop, the dance and the music that inspired it was not taken seriously. During that year Philip Nutl, the president of the American Society of Teachers of Dancing, expressed the opinion that,

"Swing would not last beyond the winter."

In 1938, Donald Grant, president of the Dance Teachers Business Association is quoted as saying,

"Swing Music is a degenerated form of jazz, whose devotees are the unfortunate victims of economic instability."

In spite of the fact that Lindy Hop and Jitterbug had long been a part of the famous Harvest Moon Ball competitions in New York, neither were recognized or addressed by formal dance organizations until 1942.

The Refinement of Lindy Hop and Jitterbug

In the early 1940's, the operation of a favorably recognized dance studio required membership in The American Society of Teachers of Dancing (ASTD) and The Dance Teachers Business Association (DTBA). Moreover, once a member of these organizations, studios were obligated to teach, without deviation, from the syllabus they handed down. Simply put: If the ASTD and DTBA did not recognize a dance style, member dance studios or instructors could not teach it.

Imagine the frustration this caused member dance studios in New York and along the East Coast where swing dancing in the Lindy Hop and Jitterbug style were, without question, the most popular dance styles everyone wanted to learn. It was now becoming a matter of economics. The national dance organization's refusal to recognize what they considered to be an unsophisticated street dance was now costing them significant market share and profit. This led the membership to apply pressure on the national organizations to reconsider their stand on the matter.

Finally, in 1942 during a meeting that would outline their recognized dance styles and curriculum for the upcoming year, it was stated in writing:

"The Jitterbug, a direct descendant from the Lindy hop, could no longer be ignored, its cavortings could be refined to suit a crowded dance floor."

This "refinement" of Lindy Hop and Jitterbug street dancing into a properly codified and recognized dance style resulted in what is now known as East Coast Swing dancing.

A Defense of the Refinement of Swing Dancing

What has been described here is the case of an outside body, acting on self imposed authority, stepping in to "refine" something that quite frankly, belonged to someone else. One might challenge this by asking "on whose authority is this action taken?" The truth is, their authority was derived from years of experience and research on fundamental dance techniques common to a wide range of dance styles. Techniques that make partnered dancing a safe and enjoyable experience without compromising the overall look and style of any particular dance.

Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, and East Coast Swing dancing bring with them a real potential for injury. Swing dancing is largely an illusion. While it may appear that the dance lead is pushing, pulling, throwing, and spinning a helpless follow around the dance floor, this is by no means the case. The fundamental techniques that control swing dancing and make it safe are unseen. Concepts of proper connection and frame, the transfer of momentum and energy, and other subtle dance dynamics cannot be learned by mere observation; they must be taught. Unfortunately, as an evolving street dance, much of the popularity of Lindy Hop and Jitterbug was spread by non dancers imitating what they saw without the benefit of proper dance instruction. This undoubtedly led to many injuries as novice dancers answered the call of one well known swing favorite to "Throw That Girl Around."

The Lindy Hop and East Coast swing dancing promoted on this Web site are not the original street versions that lacked proper dance technique. Here the fundamental techniques that make partnered swing dancing a safe, enjoyable and pain free pursuit are practiced. Having said that, it is important to add that the swing dancing promoted here is indeed the style that the original novice street dancers were attempting to imitate.

Defining the East Coast Swing Dance Style

What began as an effort to refine swing dancing soon turned into an effort to define it. At the time there were plenty of highly skilled Lindy Hop dancers, dancers who understood dance technique well. It would be logical to assume that these dancers of high caliber were studied and consulted during this refinement process; a process that discovered Lindy Hop to be a complex dance style difficult to define.

In terms of footwork, Lindy Hop is recognized as an eight count swing style. In actual practice, it is a swing style that transitions seamlessly between six, eight and various other count patterns of footwork; and does so in a free spirit of improvisation. Lindy Hop also involves the interplay of early Jazz dance styles, the Charleston, and Black Bottom. Moreover, to perform Lindy Hop well requires an understanding and developed skill level in proper dance technique.

In other words, Lindy Hop was not a beginners dance, it had to be simplified. Drawing on a dance style that was already understood by established dance instructors, the Fox Trot was modified into a six count swing style we now refer to as East Coast Swing.

The East Coast swing style does not transition between six, eight, and other count patterns of footwork; it holds fast to a basic six count pattern. Limiting the footwork in this way served to remove Lindy Hop's signature break-away or swingout from the East Coast Swing style. Recall that it was this break-away that allowed first generation Lindy Hoppers to shine by adding improvised Jazz steps to their otherwise partnered dance style. Given the quote that reluctantly blessed the formal teaching of swing dancing: "...its cavortings could be refined to suit a crowded dance floor..," one could assume that their logic was: eliminate the break-away (or swingout) and the improvised Jazz steps, and you will save room on the dance floor.

The good news is that the East Coast Swing style embraces the same black cultural influence as Lindy Hop. Six count footwork aside, the East Coast Swing style is danced,

Freestyle along a circular or slotted path.

Into the floor with a low center of gravity.

With knees bent and elastic.

With body weight forward.

With a loose but controlled body posture.

It should be emphasized that East Coast Swing, when performed correctly, also incorporates good fundamental dance technique and lead/follow skills. To do otherwise degenerates the style back into its street dance or imitative form.

The Relationship Between Lindy Hop and East Coast Swing

Lindy Hop Swing and East Coast Swing are intimately related. While it is true a large number of East Coast Swing dancers do not Lindy Hop, I know of no case of a Lindy Hop dancer who does not incorporate six count East Coast Swing into his/her dancing. For this reason, East Coast Swing is probably the principal companion swing dance style that falls under the general Lindy Hop heading.

For many years, East Coast Swing has been the gateway to learning how to Lindy Hop. One theory is that the time spent on drilling fundamental dance technique into a student at the East Coast Swing level, produces dancers who are extremely well prepared to advance to Lindy Hop. This approach works best when the student and the instructor understand from the beginning that the ultimate end goal is to learn how to Lindy Hop swing dance.

East Coast Swing is relatively easy to learn, and for some people it provides all they need and want to know for the type of swing dancing they intend to do. For many this means dancing to fast tempo Swing, Neo-Swing, Roots Rock'n'Roll or Rockabilly music. Dancers in this category have been known to limit themselves to single step East Coast Swing with a few basic aerial moves. This limited, short course, but instantly gratifying approach to swing dance was common during the Neo-Swing Movement that occurred in the late 1990's. Others have taken East Coast Swing to a very high skill level and adapted it to a wide range of musical genres and tempos.

Moving forward, East Coast Swing and Jitterbug, as descendant forms of Lindy Hop, are synonymous terms that refer to a swing dance style that was heavily influenced by black urban culture. It was the dance style that sophisticated Western Swing set itself apart from. It was the style of swing dancing that ushered in alongside Jump Blues Swing, Roots Rhythm & Blues, Honky-Tonk, Hillbilly, and Rockabilly music. It was the dance style that witnessed the birth of Rock'n'Roll. It was the dance style that some thought would send the youth of America straight to Hell.

MUSIC: Early Rock'n'Roll
Recall that back in 1948 Wynonie Harris' version of "Good Rockin' Tonight" topped the charts, and Wild Bill Moore released a tune titled "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll." Then in 1949 Jimmy Preston released a song titled "Rock the Joint." The terms rock and roll were pervasive in the race music that was growing in popularity among a new generation of teenagers; and their affinity for this music was causing a generation gap that had never been seen before. The popular music of white middle class America was about to be challenged, Rock'n'Roll was making itself heard.

Teenagers 1950-1955

The stock market crash of 1929, the poor economics of the 1930s and the war years of the early 1940s were not kind to young adults. The generations that entered their teen years during these hard times had little (if any) freedom, economic power, or influence in the decisions made by their parents generation. These earlier generations had no sense of entitlement or expectation of freedom.

The typical teenager of the early 1950s enjoyed an improved social situation. The following is an excerpt from "The Teenagers" as reported by history-of-rock.com:

In the 50's expectations for teenagers changed. With a booming economy, parents could now help their children achieve more than they themselves had. More parents insisted they finish high school and paid for them to go to college. The parents generation had gone through both a depression and a world war that made them acutely aware of the most important things in their lives: the people they loved most and their happiness. Parents began to not want their children joining the armed forces and were more indulgent of their whims.

As a result youngsters began receiving allowances and had free time after school. They had more time to themselves to be social and form peer bonds. They began to have more fun and became less serious than prior generations. The new liberalized culture allowed teenagers to make decisions for themselves. Decisions that were often at odds with their parents. Music was one of the first places these decisions were apparent. Before WWII a teens exposure to music was limited to radio and an occasional record purchase. The adults decided what music would be allowed in the house. The music of the parents was "white" music, like that of Tin Pan Alley or melting pot black music adapted to white tastes, such as swing or the blues.

Regarding the generation gap, this article goes on to say,

Teens in the 50s became more private, secretive, clannish, sullen, defensive and at times disrespectful. Years later this behavior would be recognized as the "generation gap" that had grown out of their new affluence and parental indulgences. Music, though only a symptom, was easiest for the parents to focus on.

With newfound economic power, free time and an attitude of rebellion, teenagers embraced the music their parents feared:

This new music was heard on their radios, on television and danced to at parties. The music was easy to dance to, a feature that appealed to a younger generation. It allowed them to get the energy out of their system and show their athletic prowess. Fast dances were a variation of the Lindy or Jitterbug. Slow ballads were included because a fair number of male teens didn't have the guts or coordination to dance fast.

Teenagers voiced their musical preference by purchasing Rhythm & Blues records. A market trend that did not go unnoticed by record producers, publishing companies, and store owners. It was a record store owner who, after making such an observation, set in motion the chain of events that led to adopting Rock'n'Roll as the name for this new wave of popular music and dance.

Rock'n'Roll Acquires its Name

In 1951, a record shop owner in Cleveland, Ohio by the name of Leo Mintz noticed that increasing numbers of white teenagers were purchasing Rhythm & Blues records. Mr. Mintz mentioned this observation to a local Disc Jockey named Alan Freed. On July 11 1951, Alan Freed adopted the on-air name Moondog and became one of the first DJs to program Rhythm & Blues music for a white teenage audience.

By 1951, the terms "rock" and "roll," used both individually and in conjunction with one another, had been appearing in Rhythm & Blues song lyrics and titles for some time. Alan Freed picked up on these recurring terms and began referring to the music he was playing as "Rock and Roll" music, supposedly to avoid using the racially charged term Rhythm & Blues. Recall that in the early 1950s issues of race were palpable and dividing. Moreover, the parents of the teenagers who were listening to this music were well aware that Rhythm & Blues was merely a polite way to say race music.

The extreme irony of adopting "Rock'n'Roll" as a vanilla term for Rhythm & Blues is classic. Parents, while relieved that their teenage children were listening to Rock'n'Roll and not Rhythm & Blues, were oblivious to the street meaning of the term. A meaning that is best illustrated by the 1951 #1 R&B hit and #17 pop charting song "Sixty Minute Man." This song, recorded by The Dominoes, contained lyrics that left no doubt about the street meaning of the terms "rock" and "roll:"

Look a here girls I'm telling you now
They call me "Lovin' Dan"
I rock 'em, roll 'em all night long
I'm a sixty-minute man

If you don't believe I'm all I say
Come up and take my hand
When I let you go you'll cry "Oh yes,"
He's a sixty-minute man

There'll be 15 minutes of kissing
Then you'll holler "please don't stop"
There'll be 15 minutes of teasing
And 15 minutes of squeezing
And 15 minutes of blowing my top

If your man ain't treating you right
Come up and see ol' Dan
I rock 'em, roll 'em all night long
I'm a sixty-minute man

Again, from the history-of-rock.com,

Freed would name his show "Moondog's Rock 'n' Roll Party." The shows success led to Freed's March 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland. Top black acts were booked for the show. Six thousand fans crashed the gates in addition to the thousands already in the 10,000 seat hall. Two thirds of the audience was white.

Between 1952 and 1960 Rock'n'Roll would continue to flourish and challenge the mainstream popular music enjoyed by older, middle class Americans. Along the way it would be further influenced by the Gospel tradition to produce Rock Ballads and Doo Wop. White man's blues in the form of Country/Hillbilly music would lead to Rockabilly, a musical form and lifestyle that remains popular today. Were this a history of music, instead of dance, much more could be written. Suffice it to say that the history of Rock'n'Roll throughout this period is widely written about and readily available online and in public libraries.

Early Rock'n'Roll and Swing Dancing

The key point to be made is that this first generation of Rock'n'Roll represents a period when white teenagers, in defiance of social norms, embraced race music and the dance style that accompanied it: Jitterbug/East Coast Swing. This was the last era to celebrate a dance style that was intimately related to Lindy Hop. As the second generation of Rock'n'Roll ushered in, dancing of this type would all but disappear.

Music and Dance During the 1960s
What began as Rock'n'Roll in the 1950s, splintered into sub categories throughout the 1960s. During this period, Rock'n'Roll and its many descendant forms totally dominated American popular music.

In terms of dance, the lasting legacy of the 60s decade was the near extinction of partnered swing dancing in favor of non partnered, solo dancing in place.

Music During the 1960s

The 1960s began with Elvis, fresh out of the Army and appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show. The Shirelles launch the Girl Group era with their release of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow." Chubby Checker introduces America and the rest of the world to the "Twist." Motown Records produces its first big hit with "Shop Around" by the Miracles. In 1961 Soul music begins to emerge with hits by Sam Cooke, James Brown, Solomon Burke, and Ben E. King.

In 1962, Southern Soul has its first major hit with the instrumental "Green Onions" by Booker T. & The MG's. The Beach Boys and Dick Dale introduced Surf music and the Pacific Northwest became the hotbed of Garage bands. Also in 1962 after ten years in the spotlight, Fats Domino, Clyde McPhatter, The Everly Brothers, LaVern Baker, and Bo Diddley record their final major hits.

1963 was a carryover. Motown continued to score big with Martha & The Vandellas, The Miracles, Marvin Gaye and the first big hit by 12 year old "Little" Stevie Wonder. Surf music is further promoted in the form of rock guitar instrumentals and Jan & Dean's hit "Surf City."

1964 was a major turning point in the history of Rock'n'Roll and popular music. January of that year, saw the release of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" by The Beatles. In February they came to America and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Other bands from England soon followed and the term "British Invasion" was coined. The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons provide some resistance with their chart topping songs in July. Motown also struck back with its biggest hits to date by the Temptations, Four Tops and its newest group The Supremes who scored three #1's in the final five months of the year.

The remainder of the decade played out in similar fashion, with both Pop and Rock music (as it was now called) evolving and splintering into various niche forms. By the end of the 1960s Rock'n'Roll in its various forms included,

Rockabilly

Doo-Wop

Girl Groups

Dance Music (Twist, Peppermint Twist, Freddy, etc.)

Merseybeat (Music of the British Invasion)

Hard Blues Based Rock

To finish out the decade, in 1969 "Kick Out The Jams" by The MC5 introduces the prototype for what would later be called Punk Rock.

Perhaps the best indicator of the dominant impact Rock'n'Roll had on music during the 1960s, is the fact that an entire day of Internet research would have you believe that there simply was no other kind of music recorded or performed during that decade. Listed below are the few non Rock'n'Roll music milestones that were reported to have occurred during the 1960s:

Note: If you agree this is tedious, skip ahead to get the underlying point.

1960, January: Johnny Cash played the first of what will be many free prison concerts.
1960, December: Frank Sinatra recorded "Ring-A-Ding-Ding" and "Let's Fall in Love" during his first session with his very own record company, Reprise Records.
1961: Patsy Cline's popularity peaked with "Crazy" and "I Fall to Pieces."
1961: A thriving Mariachi scene formed in Los Angeles.
1961, December: Former Big Band singer Mike Douglas began a variety TV show from Cleveland, Ohio.
1962, May: The King of Swing, Benny Goodman, turned 53 and led the first American Jazz band to play six concerts in the Soviet Union.
1963, October: Buck Owens topped the Country chart for 16 weeks with "Love’s Gonna Live Here."
1963, December: Merle Haggard first appeared on the Country chart with "Sing a Sad Song."
1964: New Age Music was introduced by the release of "Music for Zen Meditation."
1964, March: Barbra Striesand appeared on the cover of the NY Times magazine section.
1964, May: Hello Dolly! became the nation’s top Pop record, putting Louis Armstrong on the Billboard music chart in the top spot for the first time in his 41 year music career.
1965, May: Roger Miller received a gold record for "King of the Road." This song was #1 on the Country chart, went as high as #4 on the Pop charts and remained there for 12 weeks.
1965, September: Duke Ellington performs his first concert of Sacred Music at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral.
1966, January: Duke Ellington’s concert of sacred music, recorded at 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, was broadcast on CBS-TV.
1966, July: Frank Sinatra hit the top of the Pop album chart with "Strangers in the Night." It was the first #1 Sinatra LP since 1960.
1967, December: A sad day for Jazz fans, as the Dave Brubeck Quartet formally disbanded after sax man Paul Desmond left the group. Desmond was a fixture with the quartet for 16 years and can be heard on all the immortal Brubeck standards, including "Take Five."
1968, September: The Vogues received a gold record for "Turn Around Look at Me" on the Reprise label.
1969, June: Jazz musician Charles Mingus came out of a two-year, self-imposed retirement to make a concert appearance at the Village Vanguard in NY City.
1969, June: 50,000 attended the Denver Pop Festival.
1969, July: 78,000 attended the Newport Jazz Festival.
1969, July: Barbra Striesand opens for Liberace at the International Hotel, Las Vegas.
1969, August: 110,000 attended the Atlantic City's Pop Festival. Later that same month, over 500,000 attended the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in New York.
1969, December: "Hello Dolly" with Barbra Streisand premiered.

The preceding list is indeed tedious, but it illustrates the immense hold that Rock'n'Roll music had on American popular music. The list above represents nearly all of the non-Rock'n'Roll milestones two American popular music timelines listed for the entire decade! Combined, these timelines would list at least this many (in most cases more) Rock'n'Roll related milestones for each individual year!

Dance During the 1960s

Interest in partnered, connected, lead/follow dancing reached an all-time low during the 1960s. Make no mistake, it still existed, but for every couple doing a Fox Trot, Ballroom Swing, or sophisticated Western Swing dance there were probably hundreds of individuals doing the Twist.

One colorful writer, Robert Fontenot of oldies.about.com, summed up the 60s dance phenomenon this way,

[Dancing] all changed in the early sixties as a nation desperate for fads, and able to buy armloads of 45's, discovered the thrill of making an idiot out of yourself, all by yourself, on the dance floor. If you were around then, you know the names by heart: The Twist, The Hully Gully, The Watusi, The Jerk, The Fly, and there were dozens of others.

It all started with the "Twist." The song was written and first recorded by Hank Ballard in 1959 with his group called The Midnighters. The idea for the song came from the way his backup singers moved as they sang. This original version of the song was the B side to "Teardrops On Your Letter," a song that was covered by many Country artists.

To make a long story short: Dick Clark failed in his attempts to talk Hank Ballard into introducing the song on American Bandstand. So instead, he duplicated the song (exactly, same key and tempo) with the singing talent of Earnest Evans, an unknown professional chicken plucker/amature song stylist impersonator. Before releasing the song, Dick Clark's wife recommended that Earnest adopt a stage name, perhaps something similar to Fats Domino. After some thought, they came up with substituting Chubby for Fats and Checker for Domino and bingo! the man who would make the Twist famous acquired the name Chubby Checker.

Part of the popularity of the Twist was that it was so easy to do. It could be performed by young and old alike, regardless of their sense of rhythm. In a social context where an attitude of immediate gratification prevailed, it is easy to see why the nuance and skill of a Lindy Hop swingout would take a back seat to the easily mastered Twist.

The "Twist" went to #1 twice: during its first release in the summer of 1960, and again during its second release in the winter of 1961. Earlier in 1961 "Let's Twist Again" was released and this, no doubt, led to the re-release of the original version later that year. In 1962 Chubby Checker released "Slow Twistin" and later went on to release other dance songs that included: "The Mess Around," "The Hucklebuck," and "The Fly." Other artists and groups also recorded Twist related songs: Isley Brothers (and The Beatles) "Twist and Shout," Joey Dee And The Starlighters "The Peppermint Twist," and Sam Cooke "Twistin' The Night Away."

The Twist caught on in England in 1962. Eventually, Chubby Checker recorded versions of the song in Italian, German, and French. While literally hundreds of solo dance styles were conceived during the 1960s, none surpassed the Twist in terms of widespread popularity and longevity. Some of the more popular of these styles include (in no particular order),

Pony
Jerk
Funky Chicken
Fly
Boney Maroney
Mashed Potato
Watusi
Hitchiker
Hully Gully
Monkey
Bugaloo
Freddie
Hucklebuck
Swim

To put things in their larger perspective and re-group with respect to Lindy Hop swing dancing:

Lindy Hop enjoyed its Golden Era roughly between 1935 and 1945.

Between 1945 and 1955 Lindy Hop declined and entered a period of remission, replaced by its direct and intimately related descendant dance styles Jitterbug and East Coast Swing.

These partnered dance styles were able to hang on throughout the first generation of Rock'n'Roll, but they too soon disappeared after the introduction of the Twist in 1960.

Here it should be mentioned that during the 1960s, the West Coast Swing style openly embraced Rhythm & Blues, Funk, and popular club style music. These West Coast Swing dancers still practiced partnered lead/follow dancing, as opposed to the solo freestyle dancers who remained faithful to popular culture. Most likely older than the Rock and Pop Rock fans (and certainly in much smaller numbers), these West Coast Swing dancers kept the fire of connected lead/follow dancing alive while Lindy Hop fell into total remission.

During the decade of the 1970s, West Coast Swing will have its turn in the spotlight as popular culture reconnects on the dance floor to the sound of Disco.

Meanwhile, Back in New York City...
It is 1970 and Frankie "Musclehead" Manning, now 56 years old, will celebrate 15 years with the US Postal Service. Destined to be the man who will again take Lindy Hop swing dancing around the world, he has no idea what the future holds in store for him.

Music and Dance During the 1970s
Music during the 1970s was a continuation of what was seen in the previous decade - continued morphing into different genres under the broad heading of Rock and Pop Rock, with the most significant new category for dancers being Disco. As before, music categories of secondary popularity such as Country, Jazz, Gospel, etc., continued to grow and develop in their own right.

In terms of dance, a non partnered solo style continued to be (and remains) the preferred dance style of popular culture, but many will defect back to a partnered style of dancing as Disco gains popularity that challenges Rock and Pop Rock music.

Having established the hold that Rock and Pop Rock had on American pop culture in the preceding section, there is no need to continue a 70s version of that discussion. This section will focus on the 70s Disco music and dance phenomenon that brought partnered dancing back into the spotlight of America's pop culture.

Disco Music and Night Clubs

Disco, the definition (taken from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia):

Disco is an up-tempo style of dance music that originated in the early 1970s, mainly from funk and soul music, popular originally with gay and black audiences in large U.S. cities, and derives its name from the French word discothèque (meaning a nightclub where the featured entertainment was recorded music), coined from disc + bibliothèque (library) by La Discothèque in Rue Huchette (Jones and Kantonen, 1999).

Note: "Rue Huchette" refers to one of several pedestrian streets in the heart of the Latin Quarter of Paris.

Mainstream Rock music into the 1970s showed more concern for serious social commentary and the celebration of the drug culture than it did for creating a positive and fun environment for dancing. Funk and Soul music, on the other hand, provided uplifting music with solid rhythms that not only inspired, but demanded that people dance and party. In the days that preceded the widespread use of the term Disco, the only place to hear Funk and Soul dance music were in metropolitan black and gay dance clubs, and after hours private clubs and partys.

The Roots of Disco:

The writer Piero Scaruffi, in his book The History of Rock Music (www.scaruffi.com) describes the roots of Disco this way:

The foundations of funk music had been laid in the second half of the 1960s by James Brown, the MG's, Sly & The Family Stone, the Meters, Dyke & The Blazers, etc. The syncopated polyrhythm, the groovy bass line, the metallic guitar timbre, the falsetto wail were all introduced in the 1960s. However, funk music had to wait until the age of re-alignment before it became a genre on its own.

The age of re-alignment mentioned here refers to the Disco boom that was about to break in the next few years. This author lists some of the following artists and songs as early examples of what would evolve into Disco music:

Rare Earth, with "Get Ready" (1970) and "I Just Want To Celebrate" (1971).
War, with "Spill The Wine" (1970) and "The World Is A Ghetto" (1972).
Jackson Five with "I Want You Back" (1970), "ABC" (1970), "The Love You Save" (1970) and Berry Gordy's "I'll Be There" (1970).

This was the music that started, "a dance mania that had not been seen since the Twist of the early 1960s"

As important as Funk and Soul music was to the evolution of Disco, another key element was the way DJs began to mix the music into a continuous (some would say monotonous) thread of music that never seemed to begin or end.

Tom Moulton, Mixing Music and the 12" Single

Tom Moulton (Born 11/29/1940 in Schenectady, NY) is to the disco mix, what Frankie Manning is to the Lindy Hop air step. What follows is a portion of an interview with Tom Moulton. This interview taken from www.disco-disco.com was conducted by "Discoguy," time and place unknown:

Discoguy: So Tom, How come you started mixing stuff?

Well, I started mixing... Eh, I went out to a place called Fire Island and I went up there for a weekend 'cause I had never been there and I watched these people dance. All these white people dancing to black music - I was so amazed. I said 'Oh my God, there are other white people that like black music.' I was really stunned. And... Especially seeing that many of them.

And of course all the songs were 3 minutes long and I went 'It's a shame because the minute the song is over they start mixing in this other song and they don't know whether they should dance to the new song or keep dancing to the old one.' And then people would just walk off the floor. That's when everybody would change and you could see that they were trying to get more intense and more involvement. I said 'There's got to be a way to make it longer where you don't lose that feeling. Where you can take them to another level.' And that's when I came up with this idea to make a tape. - So that's what I did.

I spent like 80 hours to make this 45 minute tape and then I gave it to them and they told me 'Don't give up your day job.'

Discoguy: Oh, that was cruel!

Well, but it was true and then I was so depressed. I was waiting for the boat and then this guy came over to me and said 'I got to say something - You look soo down. What's the matter?' I told him what happened, I said 'Well, the guy who has this place down the boardwalk here, he is also a model and I was invited out here and I made a mistake.' But he said 'Well, you know, we own a place here - the Sandpiper. How bad can a tape be?' I said 'I think it's incredible. It took me 80 hours to do it.' He said 'If you like, I'll give it to Ron here and let him play it and let him see what he thinks of it. He'll tell you! And if he says - Don't give up your day job - Then I guess it must be true.' I gave him the tape and I gave him my phone number and a couple of weeks later they called me at 2:30 on a Saturday morning and said 'Oh, can you make another tape - the people are getting wild for this tape!' And that's how I really got started into that side of it.

Thus was born the first Disco mix. The next significant contribution Tom Moulton would make would be the 12" single. Unlike 12" LP (long playing) record albums that held 5 or 6 songs per side, these 12" singles held only one song per side. Typically, one long dance version that, due to the size of the disc, could be produced with richer tones and a heavier bass making them more suitable for night club play. These records appeared during the mid-70s and were distributed exclusively to disc jockeys. Returning to the interview, Tom Moulton tells how this came about:

Discoguy: A while ago I was speaking to Mel Cheren, the owner of West End Records, and he told me that the 12" single was all your idea. How did you come up with the idea of the 12" single?

OK, Well - You have to remember something - so many great ideas are accidents... I mean - I thought it [the 12" single] was a great idea AFTER the fact. You see, this is going back now to the early 70's, when I first started I took my records to Media Sound to master. And I came in with a new Trammps record and this was on a Friday, so I said 'Dom...' - Dominic was the guy - I said 'Dominic, I really got to get a test of this.' Dom said 'Well, I don't have time and I'm leaving - I'm going away.' I said 'Oh my God, I can't believe this... I really got to get this, I really got to get some acetates cut of this thing.'

So, I said 'What about your assistant there?' He goes 'Oh, you mean the Puerto Rican sweeper!' I was SO offended by that, so I went over to that guy and I said 'Hi, I'm Tom Moulton' and he goes 'I know who you are.' And I said 'Well, what's your name?' He says 'José' I said 'José, do you know how to use this?' he goes 'Sure!' And I said 'Well, can you cut me some acetates?' He replied 'Oh, well. I think so.' I said 'Well, let's do it!'

So, you know, he did everything I wanted... I told him I wanted this, I wanted more bottom or I wanted more top - whatever! And he did exactly what I wanted to do. And I said 'This guy's amazing!' So, from that day he was the guy who mastered all my records. I took it back to Atlantic and I said 'I want it to say "A Tom Moulton Mix", but I also want it to say "Mastered by José Rodriguez".' They went 'Oh, we don't do that!' and I said 'Well, you're gonna do it now.' So I started putting his name on everything and everybody was like absolutely stunned.

So, the thing is - one day I went in there to José - José Rodriguez - and I had "I'll Be Holding On" by Al Downing and I said 'José, I could really use some acetates.' And he said 'Tom, I don't have any more 7" blanks. All I have is like the 10".' And I said 'Well, if that's the only thing - we're gonna do it, what difference does it make?' So he cut one, I said 'It looks so ridiculous, this little tiny band on this huge thing. What happens if we just like... can we just like, you know, make it bigger?' He goes 'You mean, like spread the grooves?' and I said; 'Yeah!' He goes 'Then I've got to raise the level.' I said 'Well, Go ahead - raise the level.' And so he cut it like at +6. Oh, when I heard it I almost died. I said 'Oh my God, It's so much louder and listen to it. Oh! I like that - why don't we cut a few more?' So it was by accident, that's how it was created.

But for the next song we cut, we went for the 12" format instead of the 10" and the song was "So Much for Love" by Moment of Truth. That was the birth of the 12" single.

And so was born the 12" single. Tom Moulton would go on to invent another classic disco trick called the break. A disco break is a method of blending two musically dissimilar songs by fading out the musical portion of song A, while amplifying and adjusting the rhythm portions to match song B, then amplifying the musical portion of song B to seamlessly continue the music.

Disco Fever

Two elements came together to give birth to Disco: Soul/Funk driven music, with its steady heavy bass rhythm, and the club scene DJs who could seamlessly blend one song into another to provide continuous dance music. Disco was taking off and giving Rock and Pop Rock music a run for its money. In 1977 a disco called the Warehouse opened in Chicago and Frankie Knuckles became the resident DJ. This was the same year that Saturday Night Fever promoted Disco beyond the gay and black community and launched disco fever around the world. Again, in the words of Piero Scaruffi,

"Millions of kids stopped dreaming of becoming guitarists and started dreaming of becoming acrobatic dancers"

The Return to Partnered Dancing

In 1975, as Disco was beginning to make an impact, it had been a full 15 years since Jitterbug/East Coast Swing dancing had been popular. To a person 25 years old in 1975, that form of partnered dancing would, at best, be only a faint memory. Moreover, the music they danced to back then was nothing like Disco music. Disco had a strong, steady pounding beat; not the swing/shuffle rhythms they danced to in the old days. Disco was new and hip, it required its own dance style that would fit the modern club culture and attitude.

There is little doubt that, in the beginning, Disco dancing was in the individual/solo style. After all, it was the the dance style of the masses during the mid 1970s. But Latin music and dance was also influential to early Disco and a contributing factor in bringing couples back together in a partnered dance format. In 1975 Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony released the "Hustle" which, on its own, became an international dance craze that many regard as a sub category of Disco. By the time Saturday Night Fever was released in 1977, partnered Disco dancing was rising in popularity. After the release of this movie, it literally exploded. If you were hip in 1977 and tuned into the dance club scene, you simply had to learn to partner Disco dance.

Disco Dance Instruction

Like all emerging dance styles, in the beginning there was the street version where people simply went to dance clubs and taught one another things they learned from someone else, who learned from someone else, etc. Remember, these were people to whom partnered dancing (to up-tempo music anyway) was something you only saw on TV, or maybe at a wedding reception when older people had a little too much to drink. It stands to reason that most soon learned that partnered dance was a little (probably to some, a lot) more difficult to learn than ordinary solo dancing. There to answer the call of those seeking to become above average dancers, perhaps even competitors in local Disco dance contests, were professional and semi-professional dance instructors.

Professional dance instruction then was no different than it is today. Options for learning included local independent dance studios, the chain or franchised dance studios, the free-lance instructors and, of course, the skilled dance instructors who were themselves immersed in the Disco dance scene and eager to teach others. The question becomes, what did they teach? Disco had just arrived on the scene; it certainly wasn't a recognized dance style defined by a sound teaching plan. They could have dusted off the East Coast Swing syllabus, the one that "refined" the "cavortings" of Jitterbug. But that died 15 or more years earlier when the music was entirely different. The Latin dance styles fit to a degree, but Disco needed something more, it needed its very own dance style.

In an earlier section that discussed the impact of race on music and swing dancing, the point was made that "Later on, white culture and its sophisticated Western Swing would openly embrace Rhythm & Blues and change its name to West Coast Swing."

Therein lies the answer:

West Coast Swing embraced Disco music, and did so with a vengeance.

West Coast Swing and Disco

West Coast Swing had been around since the 1940s. As Rhythm & Blues Music began to gain acceptance among white culture in the late 1950s and 1960s, West Coast Swing adopted this music and stayed with it through all its permutations including Swing, Soul and Funk. It should be understood that again we are referring to the population of dancers who still studied and practiced partnered dancing while the rest of the world solo danced. These dancers kept partnered swing dancing alive long after Lindy Hop, Jitterbug and East Coast Swing went into full remission. It was now West Coast Swing's turn to be in the spotlight.

A Brief History of West Coast Swing
When the Disco craze swept the nation (and world) during the mid 1970s, it launched West Coast Swing from the relatively small cocoon of dance culture into the spotlight of international pop culture. It was precisely the right dance style at the right time. A dance style that had kept pace with America's changing music and dance rhythms. It was the dance style that answered the call when America wanted to return to partnered dancing.

As right as West Coast Swing was for the disco boom, it was not Lindy Hop swing dancing. That is not to say that it was in any way less or more than Lindy Hop. It had simply evolved into a dance style that embraced the contemporary music and rhythms of Soul, Funk and Rhythm & Blues. Rhythms that would be as foreign to a 1940s era Lindy Hopper as Be-Bop was to Frankie Manning when he returned from the Army in 1947.

Introduction

During the late 1920s and 1930s, the western shores of America were subject to much of the same popular music as the East Coast. But the West Coast did not have Harlem, the Savoy Ballroom, or the same concentration of black urban culture that the East Coast had. The style and manner of dancing on the West Coast was born of European culture with a degree of Latin influence.

During those days, dance instruction meant ballroom dance instruction. The popular styles being the Quickstep, Waltz, Fox-Trot and Peabody. Dance styles that would have been recognized by early European caucasian plantation owners who found African dance to be so different. Latin dance styles were also popular on the West coast and played a role in developing the West Coast Swing style. These Latin examples would include Argentine Tango, Samba, Merengue, Mamba and Cha Cha.

The point here is that these European and Latin dance styles were (and remain) very different from the African influenced original Lindy Hop style; and it was dancing in this tradition that prevailed on the West Coast during the 1930s and early 1940s as dancers adapted it to Swing/Jazz music.

Arthur Murray Dance Studios

By the 1940s, Arthur Murray Dance Studios (the second oldest franchised organization in America) were having a big impact on American dance. With dance studios, a strong mail-order business, and instructors on nearly every first-class cruise ship, Arthur Murray was the man who taught America how to dance. In 1942, singer Betty Hutton recorded "Arthur Murray Taught Me To Dance In a Hurry" with the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra. This song was featured in the 1942 movie The Fleets In. By 1946 there were 72 Arthur Murray Dance Studios in America.

During the 1930s and years prior, the Arthur Murray syllabus remained in-step with nationally recognized dance styles. In the early 1940s, Arthur Murray studios began teaching swing dance styles that were common to each studio's local region. Understand, these would have been Arthur Murray trained dance instructors, under the heavy influence of the traditional European/Latin dance technique, attempting to teach local vernacular swing dance styles.

Laure' Haile and Western Swing

Ms. Laure' Haile, at the time a well known competitive dancer, is often cited as one of the first to observe and document the West Coast style that was "being danced by the white community." This was during the early 1940s, as Dean Collins was beginning to influence the West Coast with Savoy Style Lindy Hop. Her research was done in the night clubs and dance competitions that were held in Southern California. Noting the difference between the swing style of Southern California and Harlem's Savoy Style Lindy Hop, she distinguished the West Coast style as Western Swing.

Note: The term Western Swing as it is used here, refers only to this dance style. It bears no relationship to the Western Swing style of music popularized by Milton Brown and Bob Wills during the same period.

Ms. Haile began teaching for Arthur Murray in 1945. In 1951, she published her dance notes for the Santa Monica Arthur Murray Dance Studio. These published notes became the Western Swing dance syllabus that was taught in Arthur Murray dance workshops all across America. This Western Swing syllabus is known to have been taught by Arthur Murray dance studios into the early 1990s, with only minor revisions.

Myrna Myron and Sophisticated Swing

Also in the 1950s, roughly the same time period when Laure' Haile's Western Swing syllabus was being taught, the term Sophisticated Swing was sometimes used to refer to the West Coast style. The following is taken from an article on the history of West Coast Swing by Sonny Watson, an article that is widely published and referenced on the Internet:

Myrna Myron of Myron's Ballroom in Los Angeles, California coined the term Sophisticated Swing in a conversation to Arthur Murray describing what she saw being done around Los Angeles in the 1950's. West Coast did not look like the reckless abandon of the previous swingers and looked much more polished and stylish. Murray used this term quite frequently to describe West Coast Swing.

Recall that this would have been during the early days of Rock'n'Roll when racial issues affected all manner of popular culture. A period when issues of race were palpable and dividing, especially in the areas of music and dance. The term Sophisticated Swing sought to add emphasis to Western Swing. An emphasis that some might consider an elitist exclamation point to what was already an adequate term. In 1959, this swing style would take on yet another name. Presumably, to again differentiate itself from a music and dance style it felt was less sophisticated.

Skippy Blair and West Coast Swing

Perhaps the most respected pioneer of West Coast Swing, Skippy Blair is a dance performer, instructor, instructor's instructor, sponsor and judge of national dance competitions. She is credited for popularizing the term West Coast Swing in place of Western Swing.

By the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Country and Western music was gaining widespread popularity. Moreover, since the 1930s a totally unrelated musical style known as Western Swing had grown from a southwest regional style, to a nationally recognized musical genre. This music, common in southern honky tonks, dance halls, and juke joints inspired dancing in a style that mirrored Jitterbug, East Coast Swing, and Lindy Hop; the very dance styles that Western Swing sought to separate itself from. To confirm the disassociation, the term West Coast Swing was adopted to mean the style of swing dance that evolved on the West Coast, not the genre of swing music made famous by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

Dean Collins, Hollywood Style Lindy Hop, and West Coast Swing

Dean Collins arrived in Los Angeles around 1938 and by 1940 had made quite a name for himself as a skilled dancer, dance instructor and choreographer. Dean Collins introduced the West Coast to Savoy Style Lindy Hop swing dancing. The West Coast introduced Dean Collins to their own European/Latin influenced styles of swing dance. This blending of styles and, to some extent, technical filming limitations imposed by the movie industry, resulted in what the Lindy Hop community now recognize as two separate and distinct dance styles:

The Hollywood or smooth style form of Lindy Hop; and

West Coast Swing, a style influenced by, but not a form of, Lindy Hop.

An article from the June, 2001 edition of dancespirit.com titled "The Dean of Style: The dancer who taught Hollywood to swing," had this to say:

By the early 1940’s Collins had developed a distinctive style of Lindy Hop captured in films such as Buck Privates, the signature move is known as The Whip. According to Dean Collins historian Peter Loggins, The Whip is a regular swing-out done in a narrow slot and when the follow comes around the lead, he uses his hand to push her out, creating quite a bit of momentum for the follower.

This technique makes the follow look like she is smoothly and effortlessly gliding and allows for a whip executed to fast tempos. Dean’s widow, Mary Collins, thinks the main contribution her famous husband gave to swing dancing was a unique, smoothed-out style that eliminated the bounce. This smooth style...has been subsequently dubbed Hollywood Style, a term originally coined...to denote all swing in Hollywood movies, but now refers to the style associated most closely with Dean Collins.

For the hard core lindy hopper, the above passage may be hard to swallow. While the Dean Collin's smooth style is openly embraced, and widely practiced as a bona fide form of Lindy Hop, whip is a West Coast swing term not a Lindy Hop term. This subtle observation speaks volumes about Dean Collins role in the morphing of Savoy Style Lindy Hop into West Coast Swing and Hollywood smooth style Lindy Hop. Simply put, the transition that occurred during this bifurcation of styles is a blur. Precisely who contributed what to the overall outcome of this East meets West encounter is not clear to this writer.

What is clear is that the outcome was West Coast Swing and Hollywood smooth style Lindy Hop. However, some argue that both are one in the same, at least in terms of the original form of West Coast Swing. This may be the case, and is supported by a statement attributed to Annie Hirsch and Skippy Blair. The following is taken from www.swingcraze.com's article titled "West Coast Swing:"

Both Annie and Skippy agree that the big difference between west coast swing then and now is that now both partners dance more upright to slower music, allowing time for interesting footwork variations called syncopations.

One principal difference between vintage Lindy Hop Swing and contemporary West Coast Swing is posture and style. Specifically, today's West Coast Swing is danced with an upright posture in the European/Latin dance tradition. Lindy Hop is danced into the floor with knees bent and elastic in the classic African dance tradition. Dean Collins' smooth style that includes this classic Lindy Hop posture may have indeed been the prototype for West Coast Swing. If so, over time West Coast Swing has reverted back to the European/Latin posture. One could see how this may have taken place during the years of tension surrounding race music and dance. Recall that during that time West Coast Swing worked hard to establish a clear distinction between its sophisticated Western Swing style and what it regarded as the "reckless abandon" demonstrated by east coast dancers, particularly those who hailed from Harlem.

It is widely reported that Dean Collins avoided debates involving the relationship between Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing. While many point to him as the father of West Coast Swing, he was never known to accept this title. His widow echoed this position in the article taken from dancespirit.com:

Loggins notes that Dean’s personal style evolved and changed over the many decades that he danced, coming full circle toward the end of his life, to the Lindy Hop that he first learned at the Savoy Ballroom in the ’30s. When asked whether her husband was also responsible for the emergence of West Coast Swing, Mary Collins says Dean insisted that there were 'only two kinds of swing dancing: good and bad.'

Dean Collins died in 1984. To again quote from the dancespirit.com article:

Dean Collins passed away just before the swing renaissance [that] brought his beloved dance back out into the mainstream, but he was hopeful till the end that what he called the 'most American of American dances' would always live on. Two months before his passing, he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, 'Swing has been around a long time. I don’t know what the future holds, but there are going to be people who continue to want to do it for a long time to come.'

To split hairs, the "...swing renaissance [that] brought his beloved dance back..." following his death in 1984 was the renewed interest in vintage Lindy Hop swing dancing, not contemporary West Coast Swing. By 1984, West Coast Swing had enjoyed almost ten years in the spotlight as America's most popular form of swing dancing. This was due to one of the defining attributes of West Coast Swing: the ability to adapt and redefine itself to fit contemporary popular music.

West Coast Swing and Contemporary Music

West Coast Swing's ability to adapt to contemporary music has kept it at the forefront of partnered dancing in America since the 1970s. The same cannot be said for Lindy Hop Swing.

In the late 1940s, the clear shuffle/swing rhythm of Jump Blues delivered by Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner, Roy Milton and others literally flooded the dance floors with Lindy Hop, Jitterbug and East Coast Swing dancers. And, no doubt, some sophisticated Western Swing dancers were on those dance floors too. But what brought the lindy hoppers to the floor was the shuffle/swing rhythm that is the heart and soul of Lindy Hop swing dancing. This distinctive rhythm remained strong throughout the transition of Jump Blues Swing into Rhythm & Blues, and continued on into the early years of Rock'n'Roll. But in the early 1960's as Rhythm and Blues began to mature, the shuffle/swing rhythms were replaced by funk and soul rhythms that were aimed at the solo dancers.

By 1960 Western Swing had been uniformly taught across America for nearly 10 years and had taken on the new name West Coast Swing. Also by this time, Rhythm & Blues music was beginning to shed its negative image as race music and was fast becoming America's pop music. West Coast Swing, being the living dance that it is, kept pace with the times and adapted to this contemporary music and the funk and soul rhythms that came with it.

Understand that during the 1960s West Coast Swing was by no means pop culture's preferred dance style. That title belonged to the Twist and countless other solo dance styles that routinely came and went. However, within dance culture (practitioners of partnered dance), West Coast Swing was the preferred dance for Rhythm & Blues, Soul and Funk music.

As time marched on through the 1960s and into the 1970s, West Coast Swing continued to evolve along with popular dance music. When the Funk and Soul dance music of the late 1960's evolved into the Disco music of the 1970s, West Coast Swing was there to ride the wave of America's newfound interest in partnered dancing.

The section that preceded this brief history of West Coast Swing addressed the Disco music and dance style of the 1970s and concluded that with the advent of Disco "...it was now West Coast Swing's turn to be in the spotlight." West Coast Swing remained in that spotlight throughout the Disco Years that lasted until the end of the decade when anti-disco sentiment began to rise.

Anti-Disco Sentiment

In the late 1970s the collective Rock culture launched an all out campaign against Disco. It was during this time that the well known DISCO SUCKS remark was displayed on bumper stickers, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and every other place imaginable. Perhaps the most memorable anti-disco event happened in Chicago in 1979. An article from jahsonic.com described it this way:

On July 12, 1979, Chicago radio DJ Steve Dahl and baseball promoter Mike Veeck organized an event dubbed "officially the world's largest anti-disco rally" at Cominsky Park. Fans were invited to bring disco records to a doubleheader - to have them blown up after the first game.

Unfortunately, the explosion (and hundreds of excited fans) left so much debris on the field that the Sox were required to reschedule (and later forfeit) the second game. 'It looks,' Dahl declared of the aftermath, 'like World War II!'

West Coast Swing into the 1980s

Into the 1980s, what was referred to as Disco simply evolved into club music. Gradually, the masses of pop culture got over their infatuation with partnered dancing and returned to dancing alone or in groups like they did before the Disco boom. But within dance culture, West Coast Swing remained the most popular social dance style. In the few years that Disco reigned supreme, thousands of baby boomers got hooked on partnered dancing. These dancers continued to enjoy West Coast Swing throughout the 1980s and went on to inspire subsequent generations to continue in the West Coast Swing dance style.

The next three sections in this series will address the three principal differences between contemporary West Coast Swing and vintage Lindy Hop Swing:

Posture and Style

Music

Demographics

West Coast Swing and Lindy Hop: Posture & Style

West Coast Swing distinguishes itself from East Coast and vintage Lindy Hop Swing in a number of ways. Incidentally, ways that are easily discernible by non dancers. The posture and style of West Coast Swing demonstrates,

A well defined linear or slotted dance path.

Intricate arm choreography, wraps and twists.

Upper body, shoulder, arm, hand, and head styling.

Dancing on top of the floor with erect posture in the European/Latin style.

Complex choreographed patterns that go beyond a typical 8 count.

What makes West Coast Swing similar to Lindy Hop is the use of basic 6 and 8 count patterns, and the concept of a lead and follow moving together, rotating, and moving apart in a seamless flowing manner. Lindy Hop refers to this core pattern as a swingout; West Coast Swing refers to this as a whip. Both dance styles, when performed correctly, incorporate the lead/follow dance techniques of proper connection, frame, and transfer of momentum and energy.

Dancing in the Slot

By most accounts, dancing along a linear path is a requirement of the West Coast Swing style. Hollywood style Lindy Hop is usually danced this way, but there are no such requirements ascribed to Lindy Hop swing dancing. Savoy Style Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, and East Coast Swing are traditionally danced freestyle in the round, but may also be danced in a slot. Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, when required for movie production, danced their Savoy Style Lindy Hop in a slot.

Dancing in a slot was a requirement of the film industry during the early 1940s. The movie camera's of that period could not capture dancing from a 360 degree angle. The best way to film a dance sequence in those days, was to have the dancers perform along a path about 3 feet wide by 6 feet long. Dean Collins, being both a highly sought after movie dance choreographer and a pioneer in the art of Lindy Hop dance instruction, adopted this slotted path for his Hollywood style of Lindy Hop. This method of instruction, teaching the Lindy Hop swingout in a slot, remains a widely used method for teaching Lindy Hop today.

Another report indicates that dancing along a slot made it easier to fit more dancers onto a dance floor during the heyday of swing dancing in the 1940s. It has also been mentioned that dancing in a slot was further reinforced by the West Coast Swing community to facilitate the judging of dance competitions. Specifically, the panel of judges seated at a table could better observe the competitors if they danced along a linear path.

Arm Choreography

Arm choreography, or arm dancing, is not as pervasive in Lindy Hop as it is in West Coast Swing. Lindy Hop rarely demonstrates arm dancing, and when it does it is brief and simple. In West Coast Swing, arm dancing is not only common, it often involves very complex wraps and twists.

Upper Body Styling

Lindy Hop strives to maintain a nearly still upper body. Movement of the upper body, head, shoulders, arms and hands in a manner similar to solo nightclub dancing is discouraged. West Coast Swing often demonstrates upper body movement and body rolls when it's performed to R&B, Funk, Disco, Hip-Hop, and other forms of contemporary music.

Dancing On Top of the Floor - Posture

Lindy Hop is danced down and into the floor, knees bent and elastic; similar to the sporting stance of a tennis player. West Coast Swing tends to be danced up and off the floor. Some might say that the West Coast Swing style elicits a ballroom look and feel, while Lindy Hop would seem more at home in a bar room.

Choreographed Patterns

Lindy Hop minimizes both the use of the term and the practice of choreographed (ie. memorized) dance patterns. Perhaps the only recognized pattern in Lindy Hop is the basic 8 count swingout. And that is usually taught by breaking it down into the individual lead/follow dance techniques that are used to create it, and how improvised subtle changes introduced by the lead or follow can, in an instant, change it into something completely different. Lindy Hop emphasizes a lead/follow improvised form of dance that is inspired and in the moment, not memorized.

West Coast Swing certainly incorporates proper lead/follow techniques, but it also promotes the use of memorized patterns that can cover as many as 32 or more beats. The following is another quote from Sonny Watson's widely published article on West Coast Swing:

West Coast Swing is a dancers dance, it's a living dance, meaning, that this dance will always change to challenge you, with many dance styles inbred into the dance. There are over 5000 documented patterns and more are added every year. West Coast Swing has added alot of the old hustle patterns (Sw-ustle) as well. Carolina Shag (Sw-ag) footwork is being added to its already extensive list of footwork patterns.

As the above quote illustrates, West Coast Swing is a living dance that adds to its list of 5000 documented patterns every day. In contrast, Lindy Hop is a vintage dance that discourages the use of memorized patterns; a vintage dance that celebrates the music and culture that inspired and nurtured swing dancing for 35 years before the term West Coast Swing was ever used.

West Coast Swing and Lindy Hop: Music

First, let it be said that both Lindy Hop Swing and West Coast Swing can be performed to just about any noise that has a recognizable rhythm. That said, the playlists for a West Coast Swing event and a Lindy Hop Swing event will ordinarily be remarkably different. In broad terms, it is a case of contemporary vs. vintage. In a rhythmic sense, Lindy Hop playlists emphasize, or make it a point to feature, music driven by a swing/shuffle rhythm. West Coast Swing, having evolved away from classic swing years ago, has no particular allegiance to the swing/shuffle rhythm. A West Coast Swing event will usually feature non-swing Funk, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, and the the steady beat of contemporary dance club music (1970s to present). Moreover, it is not uncommon for a West Coast Swing playlist to feature this music to the total exclusion of what the Lindy Hop community would regard as swing music. When an overlap between the two dance music styles does occur, it usually comes in the form of Rhythm & Blues music that is driven by a swing rhythm.

To best illustrate the difference between a typical West Coast Swing playlist and a Lindy Hop Swing playlist, consider the following:

Ten Artists/Groups that would, almost certainly, be heard at a West Coast Swing event; and with as much certainty, would not be heard at a Lindy Hop Swing event:

Ten Artists/Groups that would, almost certainly, be heard at a Lindy Hop Swing event; and with as much certainty, would not be heard at a West Coast Swing event:

Duke Ellington
Count Basie
Jay McShan
Benny Goodman
Artie Shaw
Ruth Brown
Jimmy Witherspoon
Lionel Hampton
Ella Fitzgerald
Johnny "Guitar" Watson

It seems behind the curtain some educated guesses were being made by Houston’s Movers and Shakers about the possible changes that Urban Cowboy might have on the Bayou City’s nightclubs.

With Urban Cowboy being filmed right here in Houston/Pasadena and starring you-know-who, many Disco clubs decided to lead rather than follow - they turned Country before the movie even came out!!

In the spring of 1980, some of the less popular Disco clubs began to close and re-open as Western clubs. These clubs were obviously anticipating a shift in interest well before it happened. Once a few clubs went Country, the herd instinct kicked in. The holdout owners must have figured someone else knew something they didn’t, so now they all made the same move. Even the Disco clubs that had been packed made the switch to Country. It was absolutely crazy!! In the spring of 1980 over a dozen Disco clubs switched to Country in the span of just four months.

A very popular Disco named Mirage became the original San Antone Rose on San Felipe and Voss. The Rubaiyat on the Southwest Freeway became the Bullwhip. Foxhunter became Cowboy. Xanadu became Desparado ad nauseum...

Other Discos like Cooters and Elan tried to cover their bet by adding a side floor strictly for Country dance. The move by Elan was particularly ironic because it had been featured in a big Urban Cowboy scene hyped as the 'hottest Disco in Houston'. Now just 8 months after the filming they were changing their stripes like everyone else.

Suddenly there were Western clubs all over the place. Western apparel stores could barely keep up with the sudden demand. Practically overnight Houston had gone Urban Cowboy before the movie had even premiered!! By June 1980, the transformation was nearly complete. The movie was due out in a month and almost all the clubs were country now.

In July 1980, shortly after Urban Cowboy was released, western dance students began rolling in. Enrollment in Disco classes dried up simultaneously.

This first wave of pop culture's interest in Country music and dance was the catalyst for what we now know as modern Western Swing or Country Swing dancing. A spin off of West Coast Swing, it is nearly identical in posture and style to West Coast Swing with the principal difference being that it is danced to contemporary Country music and the manner of dress it inspires: cowboy hats, jeans, boots, etc.

Popular culture, with its predictable short attention span, soon got over the cowboy craze and fell back into the ordinary pop music/solo dance rut. Ten years later, pop culture would again embrace Country music and propel Garth Brooks into becoming what one source claims as "the most popular country music artist of all time." That infusion of interest has remained fairly steady ever since. Though many (this writer included) will argue fiercely that the majority of contemporary Country music has evolved so far away from the original genre it is no longer recognizable as Country music.

Up Next: Recent History 1983-2005

1983 was a turning point in the history of Lindy Hop swing dancing. It was during that year that names began to be dropped, names of dancers who were still around, dancers who could recall the Golden Era of Lindy Hop.

Then in 1986, a 72 year old retired postal worker in New York, a fella that some said used to be pretty well known for dancing back in the 1930s and 40s, was lured out of retirement to show some young dancers how it used to be done up in Harlem, in that ballroom they called the "SAVOY!."

The next and final page in this series will cover the rebirth of appreciation for vintage Lindy Hop swing dancing and how it has evolved into a dance style that is now enjoyed all around the world.

Ahead to Part III: Recent History: 1983-2005

Back to Part I: Early History: 1800-1945