Associated Press
Cherry Poppin' Daddies made an isle appearance
recently, and are hot on '90s swing scene.
Swing time
Star-Bulletin news servicesThe joint is jumpin'.
The undersized dance floor inside the midtown mecca of swank is jammed with jitterbuggin' hepcats dressed to the nines and doing their swing thing to the '40s-era sounds of the sizzling San Francisco ensemble Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums.
All twirling dresses, swinging wallet chains and furiously flying legs, the dancers, perhaps a dozen couples strong, are poetry -- no, pulp fiction -- in motion.
Or maybe they're just a dusty old Life magazine photo come to life -- gals in stylish velvet dresses and open-toed pumps with Barbara Stanwyck hairdos and guys decked out in high-waisted pants, hand-painted ties, black-and-white spectator shoes and porkpie hats, Lindy Hopping together like it's 1943 New York.
Of course, it's not; it's just Friday night at Harlow's in Sacramento. But swing is everywhere, from The Masquerade in Atlanta to The Spanish Ballroom in Washington, D.C., where the 16-piece Tom Cunningham Orchestra performs. It's at The Supper Club in New York City, The Derby in Los Angeles, and Cafe du Nord in San Francisco.
Swing is the thing, says Steve Perry, leader of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, a neo-swing group that's currently packing venues across the country. "We had a show last night in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour from Philadelphia. It's pretty rural; it's not exactly the hub of culture. But there were all these people swing dancing. They even had cool vintage (clothes) stores there.
Island swingers may Lindy, jive and jitterbug at The Shelter, a club at 1739 Kalakaua Ave. Get into the swing of it all
Every Wednesday from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., promoter Tim Wolf presents "Sugarfoot Swing" with music ranging from Big Bad Voodoo Daddy to Glenn Miller.
Last Wednesday, the third week he's put on "Sugarfoot Swing," patrons came in dressed in zoot suits, bowling shirts, wrap dresses and full skirts, Wolf said.
"It's really catching on," he said.
The club also offers informal dance lessons, he said.
Admission is $5. No alcohol is served, but patrons may bring their own. There is no age limit but minors are separated from older people who may be drinking, he said.
Information: 735-7676.
Star-Bulletin staff "It's all pretty surprising. I felt the swing thing coming, but I always figured it would be a blip on the screen on the underground, not something mainstream."
It's no jive: The music of 1930s and '40s big bands and jump combos, and the dancing and culture that went along with it, are now being rediscovered by the suddenly swingin' under-40 set.
Swing is mainly an American invention, evolving out of ragtime and jazz dancing. Unlike a tango or a waltz, swing is more improvisational and comes in many styles: jive, jitterbug, Lindy, push, whip, shag, East Coast swing, West Coast swing, imperial, Jamaican and Bop.
"When soldiers from World War II came with the Service to the major port cities of New York and Chicago, they would see swing and take it back home to Oklahoma, Carolina, Los Angeles and it would mutate," said Randy Atlas, president of the South Florida Swing Dance Association.
That's why in California there's West Coast swing. In Texas it's called push and in the Carolinas it's shag. Each is a slightly different take on swing, kind of like a regional accent.
The 1990s resurgence of swing is grounded in the '30s music of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, and the jump swing of artists like Louis Prima.
"The Lindy Hop or the jitterbug, that's what the swing kids are doing now," Atlas said.
"Real swing is more like Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. That's what we play," says Perry whose Cherry Poppin' Daddies have started a retro riot on the radio waves with their zippy tune, "Zoot Suit Riot."
Those suits, along with cinch-waisted, full- skirt dresses, two-tone wing tips and all things gabardine, are flying off the racks at vintage clothing stores.
Swing bars and clubs -- most of them 21-and-over establishments, despite the youthful nature of the neo-swing movement -- are popping up nationwide and finding that "hi-de-ho" and "cha- ching" can be used in the same sentence.
Madison Avenue apparently has discovered this, too: Recent commercials for The Gap, Acura and Coca-Cola have featured elements of swing.
Hollywood also has gotten into the act -- and the acts. Jon Favreau's 1996 film, "Swingers," celebrated the Los Angeles swing subculture and included a performance by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, while the Jim Carrey hit, "The Mask," included a ssssssmokin' cameo by the kings of neo-swing, Royal Crown Revue.
Even "Today Show" co-host Katie Couric is getting into the swing of things: During a recent segment, she did an acrobatic swing flip with a dance partner.
"There have been a lot of little things like that that have put swing into people's subconsciousness," says Scott Steen, who plays trumpet with Royal Crown Revue.
The Los Angeles group formed in the late '80s -- long before jump- jive and wide-brimmed fedoras started becoming re-embraced by the masses -- and is widely credited with starting the slow- building neo-swing movement that is just now emerging from the underground.
"Swing never really went away," Steen says. "It's been around forever. And it's still got places to go. I think the country is ready for something different, and swing is pretty much it."
V. Vale has arrived at a similar conclusion.
A sort of subcultural anthropologist who has previously documented the underground worlds of punk and modern primitives, Vale recently wrote the book on the swing revival, "Swing! The New Retro Renaissance."
"This just had to happen," he says from his office in San Francisco, the epicenter of the neo-swing movement. "There had to be a rebellion against rock. When the status quo becomes dressing down and becoming depressed -- as it did with grunge, where both sexes were wearing clod-hopper Doc Martens and flannel shirts -- there's got to be some reaction.
"So men are taking pride in finding short, fat, hand-painted ties and wearing them. Women are enjoying looking really feminine again and having these hairstyles that haven't been seen since the '40s. Everybody just looks so great and sexy. And they feel good, too."
The cinematic music and expressive, occasionally acrobatic dancing of swing also tend to bring out the same reaction and, too, are indicative of an anti-rock rebellion, Vale says.
"It's a return of good, witty songwriting and punchy, syncopated arrangements that use more chords than rock," he says. "Most of us never were exposed to jump blues and swing. It sounds so forceful, so gutsy. The horns sound so new and exciting, because we've never really heard them before live. And, of course, everybody is working up a sweat, dancing, which is really what's keeping this movement going.
"People are instinctively attracted to this wild partner dancing because we don't meet other people at churches anymore or at rock clubs, which are too loud. But in a swing class, which everyone is taking now, you dance with everybody there. And you can also go up to anyone at a swing event and ask them to dance -- yet there aren't any creepy, possessive assumptions being made, that just because I held you close, I have a claim on you.
"It's very healthy."
"When the dancers hear music in shuffle time, that's 110 to 125 per minute, they are just as happy as hogs in mud," Atlas said.
At Man Ray's, which offers evening classes for beginners, a few couples performed highly complicated moves -- called aerials -- leaving observers to wonder if anyone ever gets hurt.
"Usually, I catch her," said Jeremy Cottrell, 18, of his dance partner.
Says Sacramento swing dancer Kimberly Goldsmith: "This is really about people wanting to be closer socially. We grew so far apart that we weren't supposed to talk to anybody anymore. You couldn't even talk to the person next to you in the elevator. Now, if you know how to dance swing and you go to a place where dancing is going on, you're instantly among friends, even if you don't know anybody."
Goldsmith is 26 years old. She has been partner dancing for seven years and teaching swing locally for the past few.
She is not, however, what Cherry Poppin' Daddies leader Perry refers to as "one of those lifestyle people" -- a hardcore swinger obsessed with taffeta and tulle, art deco artifacts and vinyl 78s, Chrysler Imperials and just about anything else associated with the era.
"I tried to get into the lifestyle, because the people I love dancing with are into it," she says. "But I like my modern lifestyle and I like my modern clothes. Vintage clothes are uncomfortable and hard to dance in, and you ruin them, anyway. I also have a very economical car.
"That all seems to be a real big fad to me, the whole lifestyle part of it. The dancing and the music will always be there. That's what I like about swing. They go together, too: The more into the dancing I get, the more into the music I get."
And that music is not your granddaddy-o's swing.
Most '90s neo-swing bands do not play straight Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman or even Cab Calloway-style swing.
Theirs is modern music that contains elements of traditional swing, jump blues, rockabilly, hot jazz and Western swing, along with, perhaps, a dash of ska, a touch of gritty R&B and a dose of punk-rock intensity.
"If Cab Calloway or Duke Ellington listened to the Sex Pistols, Madness and James Brown when they were growing up, what would swing have sounded like in the '30s and '40s?" asks Royal Crown Revue's Steen. "That's kind of where we're at. Not to put us on the level of Duke Ellington or Cab Calloway by any means -- that's just the hybrid that's going on now."
Says Perry, "We're not trying to be nostalgic. There are obvious hints of nostalgia in trying to play swing, but we're trying to infuse it with this punk mentality so it feels real. If you're trying to sound like 1949, the music loses its impact. It's just a blast from the past instead of something contemporary."
Neo-swing is also something best experienced live. Listening to a CD simply does not provide the same escapist experience as does donning a wide-brimmed fedora and going to a swank club to swing along to live music.
"You can become this whole different person," Steen says. "It's like you're in a movie or something."
Swing sensations
These are the groups making waves across the country with swing music, helping it wash up everywhere from the Billboard charts to MTV. Besides three- and four-word names, they all have hectic tour schedules in common.SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS -- The surprise hit of last year and the ones who landed swing music in MTV's Buzz Bin with their hit "Hell," these seven North Carolinians play a quirky, Tin Pan Alley sort of swing that echoes Cab Calloway more than Glenn Miller. They return to Austin to play the Backyard on Aug. 13, a week after their new album, "Perennial Favorites," hits stores.
ROYAL CROWN REVUE -- This lively seven-piece is the hottest of the L.A. swing scene. Based on a classic, bluesy jump sound and Louis Armstrong-like gruffness, RCR has a new album coming out Aug. 24 to follow up their hit Warner Bros. debut, "Mugzy's Move."
CHERRY POPPIN' DADDIES -- The band most responsible for bridging the gap between swing and ska music, this large Oregonian swing band relies heavily on horns, sped-up rhythms and pure machismo (hence the name). Young fans love them, which is why their independently-release "Zoot Suit Riot" album has passed the 500,000 sales mark.
BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY -- "As seen in the movie 'Swingers.'" That's all that was needed to earn this L.A. outfit a major-label deal and large following. Its song "You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight" is right up there with Squirrel Nut Zippers' "Hell" as a '90s swing classic, and it exemplifies BBVD's boozy, loose, hepcat style.
Cox News Service
