What happened to swing in the 90′s?
I ran across an interesting article about teaching swing dancing in the streets of Vail during this year’s film festival. A little over midway through the article, the author asks an interesting question…
“So why did swing dancing fizzle out following the late-’90s rage?”
The instructor being interviewed responds with…
“I really couldn’t tell you,” Yannacone said. “I think it’s the popular media what determines what’s hot and not. And its not that it disappeared entirely, but to most people not in the swing dance world, yeah, it kind of was around then left.”
He is right, popular media has a lot to do with it. But why didn’t they latch on to it like they did with the current round of dance TV shows? Having danced through the boom and decline, I think I can add some to his response. It’s really quite simple. Swing doesn’t “sell”.
In the late ’90s swing was briefly snatched up by nightclubs all across the nation. It wasn’t long before they realized that swing isn’t profitable as a format. You can’t drink alcohol and spin all around the dance floor. Let’s face it, profit margins are in bar sales, not cover charges. Swing brought in the crowds, but everyone was on or around the dance floor and not building up a bar tab. Most clubs changed format while crowds were still high, leaving many to wonder “what happened?”. While Salsa can occasionally bend the rules, in general, partner dancing and nightclubs don’t mix. That’s why you haven’t seen any clubs pick up on the latest ballroom dance craze… they learned their lesson in the ’90s.
But in reality, it goes much beyond bar sales. In small pockets around the nation, swing was was an underground movement before the Gap commercial launched it into the mainstream. It was a rebellion against… well, pop fads and pop culture. In a time where people were recovering from grunge and “freak dancing” was sweeping the country, swing (and the vintage lifestyle that surrounds it) was the counterculture to counterculture. This didn’t mesh well with mainstream media. While swing certainly caught people’s attention, it wasn’t… well… sexy enough… and we all know, sex sells.
Let’s not forget about the music. There was certainly mass interest in swing music during the boom. The neo-swing “daddy bands” rocketed in the charts and people where buying up Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman CDs at music stores. Again, this didn’t fit into the mold of mainstream media. Bands are now manufactured by record and media companies (anyone watch American Idol?). The facts are that swing bands are not easy to artificially manufacture and there was no way that big media was going back to the old way of doing things.
In many ways, the swing fad of the late 90′s paved the way for the dance show craze of today. The mainstream media learned by trail and error to find what they were looking for. The latest dance shows have a sexy side and offer a variety of dances, that can be conveniently danced to whatever song that needs promotion time. Is this a slam on the current dance shows? No, not at all. In some ways, they are just reinventing a format that started way back with American Bandstand. In fact, it is probably a great win/win situation. It gives dances some spotlight time, while still allowing individual dances scenes to thrive “underground”.
However, learning from the 90′s fad, I am concerned about the “post boom”. How about you? Feel free to leave a comment.
I think we are in the post boom now. Most of the successfull swing nights have moved to a more community/grass roots agenda where local dancers or enthusiats are hosting them. There are very few if any night clubs that are offering swing now. With the many events and exchanges along with dancers putting on dances I think we are in a good position for the post boom.
The dance shows are great but of course popular music and dance makes there way into the show. It is nice when they do some of the lesser known or popular dances.
Interesting to read this. My name is David Gasten and I ran a swing dance event for two years here in Denver, CO, and started a swing band to coincide with it. I really think that swing dance had been in serious decline for a number of years, and much of that in this region at least has had to do with poor leadership. We essentially tried to give the scene a blood transfusion after it was too far gone, and once we realized this, we decided to shut the dance down while we were still ahead. I kept the band going for about six months and then that tanked too because we couldn’t get anybody to come out to the shows even though the few people who came had a GREAT time. When you’ve burned so many people with snobbery and creepiness, there comes a time when they are embittered and quit coming out. I personally have not been out dancing in nearly a year, and I used to dance as often as three times a week, if that tells you anything.
With swing revival music, what happened with the mid/late-90′s bands is that the swing revival bands did a number of things wrong and that caused the music to not stick. The first thing is that they didn’t know how to swing–”Zoot Suit Riot” and “You and Me and The Bottle Makes Three” are tough to dance to because the drums do not lay off the beat like the original swing music does. Another problem was that a lot of the groups really did not want to be doing swing–they really wanted to play rock or ska or something else, and that deep lack of integrity shows in the music. Another problem is that the bright horn sound gets on people’s nerves and comes off as hokey (I remember The New Morty Show getting on people’s nerves when they played like for this reason, for example). Still another problem is there are still a lot of cliches that people just cannot break out of; you have smarmy Sinatras and honky (Billie) Holidays listening to the same exact standards that everybody else has listened to and accepting that that’s all there is. No one does enough research to go back and listen to some of the lesser-knowns from the period to see how they might have worked and see what sticks with people today. The dynamics of what people are looking for and needing have changed and you have to be sensitive to that while remaining true to the spirit of the original music; it’s definitely a tightrope walk that few (if any) have mastered.
Let me list out some common swing music myths that have never really been debunked and which have helped to tank the music side of the Swing Revival:
Myth: In order for swing be modern, it must have hip hop or techno mixed in.
Reality: Swing largely only needs to be intense and danceable to be “Modern”. If people can feel the music and really weave back and forth to it, they’re happy.
Myth: People today connect best with 50′s rock and roll and rockabilly.
Reality: People today connect best with jump blues, the black music of the 40′s/50′s that was combined with western swing and some other white influences to become rock and roll.
Myth: Swing or jump blues sped up is rockabilly.
Reality: Jump blues played poorly by white kids is rockabilly. Swing or jump blues sped up is exactly that, swing or jump blues sped up.
Myth: To get a more intense sound in swing, you should play faster.
Reality: To get a more intense sound in swing, you play >heavier<. Playing fast wears out dancers, heavy and swinging drives them out on the dance floor even if they don't know how to dance.
Myth: If you want to intensify swing/rockabilly, listen to punk for influence.
Reality: Listen to 80's metal, 70's hard rock, and 70's glam rock (e.g. Gary Glitter or T. Rex)–lots of shuffles to be found in all three, and there is a lineage in those genres that comes directly from jump blues. But listen to jump blues first and understand it within its own context–get your priorities straight and quit acting like rock music is the only viable music style on the planet.
Myth: Louis Prima was the most intense swing performer of the 50's because mobsters loved him.
Fact: Louis Prima was the most intense swing performer of the 50's because Sam Butera was backing him and rearranged all his music in a heavy jump blues style. Listen to "Breakin' it Up", a Columbia records compilation of material from right before Sam joined them, and "The Wildest", the first LP he released with Sam, and the difference is like night and day.
And probably the most important missing ingredient of danceable music is the shuffle beat–a good shuffle that lays off the beat is the #1 ingredient for good, danceable, swingin' music.
As you can see, this is a pretty deep problem and trying to get people to think even slightly differently musically, especially these days, is like pulling teeth. The irony of it is that the demand for fun, danceable music is as high as it ever has been and so few are properly filling the void.
If all goes well, I'm planning to record a 4-song demo in March to offer a solution; I'll try to remember to come back and post when the music is ready so you can judge how we did in providing a solution. Have a good one in the meantime and keep it swingin'!
–David Gasten