Swing began in the 1920's & 30's as bands began to trade the tuba & banjo for a plucked double bass and guitar and grew out of New Orleans Jazz & Blues. Swing covers a spectrum of music from 7-piece jump blues music to big band music - generally speaking, it is rythmic up-beat, feel-good music (hot jazz) or slower ballads with an emphasis on melody (sweet music). The best 'swing' to dance to is the 'hot jazz variety.

Modern jazz (Charlie Parker, Miles Davis etc) definitely does not 'Swing' and inherited the Jazz name mostly because it was developed by disillusioned swing jazz musicians in the 1940's. Modern jazz intellectualises music and is probably best appreciated by fellow musicians. For dancers, the irregular beats and frequent tempo changes that often occur are too much of a challenge.

The swing revival of the 1990's brought along many great new bands across the world (Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Jive Aces, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Steve Lucky's Rhumba Bums, Blue Harlem, Swingerhead, The Big Heat, the Fat Cats, King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys to name just a few)

 

There are lots of different styles of swing dance... there's the original Lindy Hop but also West Coast Swing, Balboa, Shag and the simpler East Coast Swing.  The 20's Charleston was also absorbed in to the newer Lindy Hop and is sometime refferred to as 40's Charleston.

We teach Lindy Hop for social dancing at Nottingham which is as easily danced to blues (slow) to big-band (medium - fast) and to jump blues (fast - smokin').

Lindy Hop developed right alongside Swing music - drummers & dancers exchanged phrases, Cab Calloway & Ella Fitzgerald both started as dancers, many songs were written about Lindy Hop, the Savoy Ballroom & the dancers.

There's a great independant book by Christian Batchelor 'This Thing Called Swing' that no swing dancer or musician should be without (though it's currently out of print... if you find a copy snap it up...and let us know where you found it!)