djing once again

this time for beginners.

zot's discussion of djing for beginners reminds me of things i posted in this entry, but also of things i'd been thinking about the very same issue.

i had decided on the things zot discusses in his pot a little while ago:
djing for beginners:
- don't need to play neo/rnb because it's familiar
- do play stuff that has a clear bass/rhythm and melody
- do play lower tempos

it makes sense, and it's actually not too difficult to find music like this.

if you're anything like me, this is the sort of stuff you started out your collection with (i came to swing dancing via the music and a passion for ella fitzgerald - a passion echoed in my cd collection, which brian noted had "a lot of ella". yes).

but if you're the sort of person who came to swing dancing by other means, you might have a collection heavy on the neo (esp if you did start 5 years or so when it was popular in the mainstream).

i do think that we should play properly swinging jazz in classes (as i've noted in that post linked to above), and i also think it's important to use swinging jazz for performances. this point was really brought home to me when i went to a community festival recently where dancers from the big swing patrol school were performing. i noticed that not one of their choreographed performances (of about 3 or 4), nor their casual lesson, used swinging jazz music.
my one feeling - as a civvy - is that this seems a bit naff. neo is kind of... skanky.
as a jazz nerd, i'm confused.
as a dancer, i'm surprised. and i'm disappointed. performances and gigs like this are promotion for the school (and, effectively, the community), so the music played promotes a particular idea of what swing dancing (of all types) is like.
is it also a self-fulfilling prophesy? if we play it, will people who dig that stuff come?
personally, i dance because of the music, for the music. i love to dance anway, but i dance lindy hop and other swing dances because the music really gets inside me (but also because they're complicated dances). i think the history of the dance is important because it helps you understand the aesthetics of lindy hop and the things you can do with it. and the music is an absolutely essential part of that.
swing dancing is tied to jazz. jazz and afro-american verncular dances including swing dances prioritise improvisation and innovation within a given structure. so dancing lindy hop to swinging jazz teaches you that improvisation = good.

but aside from those socio-cultural themes, there's also the matter of dance technique and its relationship with the music. the swingout - the fundamental lindyhop step - involves syncopation and a 'delay' at the beginning of the step, where partners 'hover' in open for a couple of beats. this 'hovering' really makes being 'behind the beat' visible - it is in fact made possible by the behind-the-beat-ness - the swing of swinging jazz music.

how can we really lindy hop, then, unless we're lindy hopping to swinging jazz music?