swing saga(warning, long)

Date: 4 Jul 2003 20:50:48 -0400
Newsgroups: soc.singles.moderated
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I posted the following to a swing dancing mailing list and it was
pretty well received, don't read it if you're not interested: Once upon a time in a distant land known as America a baby boy
was born. At that time there was only a rumor of something called
television and music was either live, on AM radio, or distributed on
discs of black plastic impressed with grooves. These discs were
called records and they were played by dragging a rock through the
grooves. The resulting mechanical motion was transduced into
electrical information which was shaped and amplified by devices made
from evacuated glass envelopes containing electrodes. The British
called them vacuum valves but we Americans called them tubes. But I
digress.
At that time a form of jazz called swing was the popular music of the
masses. Popular music began to change for several reasons, but one of
the biggest reasons was economics. Small groups were easier to deal
with and cheaper than large jazz bands in the live music venues.
Blues made a comeback as radio stations catering to the newly, just-
barely, racially integrated society sprang up, and combined with
swing, it became jump-blues which then combined with another stream
of jazz-derived music called rhythm and blues to become proto-rock
which then combined with influences of the hillbilly and bluegrass
music favored by many of the rural white listeners and became rock
and roll.
During all this time our young boy was growing up listening to music
on the radio and on his parents' phonograph. His parents had a mix of
popular music from the 30's, 40's and 50's that had been re-issued
onto 33 1/3 rpm discs called LP's. They were quite proud of their
newly purchased, mahogany cabinetted, "Hi-Fi" system. The radio DJ's
played the currently popular music and the young boy was fortunate to
be able to receive many AM radio stations from very distant cities.
So, the young boy was able to listen to all these diverse and
influential forms of music. The young boy was also able to observe
his parents dancing to swing on the hardwood floors of their living
room. He thought his dad was silly when he called one type of move a
"Lindy".
Then the young boy met another influential person. This person was a
young woman of about sixteen years. She was a family friend and on
occasion served as a baby sitter for the young boy and his two
younger sisters. This teenager's name was Betty Lou (true name) and
she loved to dance but didn't have anyone to practice with, so
although the young boy was not yet a teenager he was tall enough to
be drafted into service as Betty Lou's dance partner. Well, much to
his surprise she taught him the "Bop" and the "Lindy Hop" and other
popular partner dances of the era. The young boy loved dancing with
the pretty teenage girl and did his best to accommodate her every
whim. The young boy was quite saddened by the fact that Betty Lou
professed her love for Butch, the 17 year old bully from the next
block, but he got over it.
The years went by and the young boy danced other popular dances but
eventually as he became a young man, non-contact dances such as the
"Twist" and the "Watusi" became the rage and opportunities to dance
the lead-follow dances he'd learned from Betty Lou became scarcer and
scarcer. Then, even worse, the pot-smoking, free expression, "do your
own thing" 60's arrived and partner dancing to popular music almost
died out completely so the young man relegated the wonderful feelings
he'd gotten from dancing those partner dances to the dim recesses of
nostalgic memories. Years went by. Marriages came and went. Homes
were purchased and sold. Careers were nurtured and abandoned. A child
was born to our young man and the song made famous by "The Byrds"
called "Turn, Turn, Turn" kept playing in our now adult man's head.
But during all those years, the man collected records from artists of
those bygone years when jazz was the popular music and he never
stopped listening to the music.
Then a wonderful thing happened. In a city called Portland a
wonderful ballroom had a grand re-opening. This ballroom was called
the Crystal Ballroom. Our hero went there and saw people doing the
partner dances he remembered from his youth. A flood of feelings
overwhelmed the now-divorced man and he signed up for dance lessons.
It was serendipitous that the opening of the Crystal Ballroom
coincided with a nationwide resurgence of interest in all sorts of
partner dancing and especially a resurgence of swing dancing and
music. Well the man found he couldn't remember the dances he'd
learned as a young boy but with much diligence and practice some
modicum of skill gradually returned to him.
Our protagonist began to go out dancing at every opportunity and made
friends with other dancers of many ages and interests. He made and
renewed friendships with the musicians that played for these dances
and maybe even influenced by a small amount the music that was played
by the musicians and DJ's at those events. Now our hero has a group
of friends and dancers that are an important part of his life and he
loves them all dearly.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
--
Brock
"Put a $20 gold piece on my watch chain so the boys'll know I died
standin' pat"