How the rhythm section swings

[Christian Miller]

I think it's because balboa is better adapted to how swing bands actually liked to play.

Beginner lindy hoppers are most comfortable around 110-130 bpm, and are taught a footwork known as the "triple step" which is basically swung eighth notes (they call it syncopation, which annoys me) and most of the figures are in open position with only a hand connect most of the time. But as I understand it, before swing music there was "sweet jazz" somewhere down around 90-100 bpm, and "hot jazz" up at 180-200 bpm if not more. Sweet jazz is too slow for those open-position moves, you need to stay close to each other and move together (lindy hoppers would probably associate the too-slow-for-lindy tempos with "blues"). Hot jazz is too fast for triple steps unless you're an athlete and it just looks like you're trying to dance to a rock and roll song which isn't what they're playing (depending on how old the song is, maybe there isn't actually a swung eighth note rhythm coming from the hi-hat, because the hi-hat hadn't been invented).

The hi hat was a common feature of drum kits by the swing era. You can hear Papa Jo Jones playing the ride pattern on the hi hat on prewar Basie sides, for example.

You may be thinking of the ride cymbal which is an innovation of the bebop era.

Lindy hoppers might switch to "lindy charleston" with kicks rather than triple steps but they'd almost certainly do it really badly. (Even after years of lessons I doubt your average lindy hopper could keep up with Lindyhopper's Delight by Chick Webb let alone dance at that tempo for a whole evening. On the other hand, in his lessons at Swing'n'Milan, Alex McCormack said something like "this song isn't even that fast, it's only 200 bpm". One of my missions as a dance teacher is to get people to dance the actual song which is playing, so if it's a faster tempo but a relaxed feel, that means learning how to stay relaxed at that tempo. One of my missions in the band I'm in, is to try to find the right feel and tempo to make the "dixieland" songs as danceable as possible for swing.)

But if the music is around 120 bpm all night it honestly just gets a bit depressing. And if we think that 160 bpm could be a good compromise, actually it can feel like it's not comfortable for either style.

But balboa really starts to work at the faster tempos, and more recently there's awareness of the existence of "slow bal" which works when things are nice and slow and elegant/romantic.

Shirt Tail Stompers played in Milan and Catania last year but I saw Steven in August in Prague at Bal-Love.

Instagram from Milan, and I think you can just about see me dancing near the stage wearing the same green t-shirt, suspenders/braces, and boater as the other "staff".

That’s interesting. I was a founder member of the Shirt Tails btw, but haven’t played with them for a long time. There’s a fairly rotating membership with that band. When they use a guitarist Honey Boulton plays with them now I think? He’s an exceptional player.

It was apparently common for dancers to cut the time in half back in the day. Barry Harris said that’s what they used to do during the bop era (he heard Bird play at a Detroit dancehall) but then that takes us into the choppy waters of bop as dance music. Barry always maintained bop was dance music.

In any case I understand modern dancers don’t like to cut time for various reasons. In the other hand medium bounce is a glorious thing, and you don’t often hear it in the clubs. 130 is what you might call an ‘adult tempo.’ But yes a whole night of it gets a bit much especially in the average dance gig that seems to be at least three sets. A lot of shades of grey.

It was about that time that I started practicing with the metronome set to odd tempos like 123, 139 or 157, say. This is something Peter Bernstein suggested in fact.


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[shpalman]

The hi hat was a common feature of drum kits by the swing era. You can hear Papa Jo Jones playing the ride pattern on the hi hat on prewar Basie sides, for example.

You may be thinking of the ride cymbal which is an innovation of the bebop era.

I was actually thinking of the early-20's with the use of the choke cymbal technique and "clangers" attached to the bass drum. Does the use of hi-hat overlap with tuba basslines? It feels like a style more associated with double bass and somehow I have in mind the 4-beat thing coming from Kansas City.

That’s interesting. I was a founder member of the Shirt Tails btw, but haven’t played with them for a long time. There’s a fairly rotating membership with that band. When they use a guitarist Honey Boulton plays with them now I think? He’s an exceptional player.

I don't think they had a guitarist with them in Italy.

It was apparently common for dancers to cut the time in half back in the day. Barry Harris said that’s what they used to do during the bop era (he heard Bird play at a Detroit dancehall) but then that takes us into the choppy waters of bop as dance music. Barry always maintained bop was dance music.

In any case I understand modern dancers don’t like to cut time for various reasons.

I've heard that cutting the time in half was a thing and it also seems like it's not taught as a thing now. But there are some dances which look like they've cut the time in half compared to lindy hop. For example, peabody is just walking around with a step every two beat, and I think there's a triple step which comes from foxtrot which is actually a swung quarter note rhythm (rather than swung eighth notes) and this is sometimes used in balboa (but for specific moves, not all the time as part of the basic). Something like Beethoven Riffs by John Kirby calls for a creative approach since the melody is so floaty while it's actually up near 240 bpm. Special Delivery Stomp by Artie Shaw would instead get the full energy. Pity that nobody plays Traffic Jam. Actually there's a band here who have Carioca in their repertoire.

In the other hand medium bounce is a glorious thing, and you don’t often hear it in the clubs. 130 is what you might call an ‘adult tempo.’ But yes a whole night of it gets a bit much especially in the average dance gig that seems to be at least three sets. A lot of shades of grey.

It was about that time that I started practicing with the metronome set to odd tempos like 123, 139 or 157, say. This is something Peter Bernstein suggested in fact.

I need to rethink my playlists because they're divided up 100-120 bpm, 120-140 bpm, etc., but it seems a lot of songs sit exactly on those boundaries. Sorting songs into the tempo-based playlists with a tap-tempo metronome was good training since otherwise you never know how it's going to feel to dance a song until you start trying. Now I've got a better sense for knowing what bpm a song is when I hear it, or for calling a tempo which will be danceable.

Our normal dance nights have two 45 minute sets from the band, with a DJ in between and after. Festivals and special occasions can of course have three sets, or even two sets from one band and then two sets from another.

At Sicily Swing Fest in Catania in September we had Hot Sugar with Nicole Rochelle on the Friday night, and they carried on playing until very late. Hot Swing Sextet did Saturday and Sunday nights, with a faster more balboa-friendly playlist on Saturday and a groovier lindy-friendly playlist on Sunday. The slowest song which I feel like is comfortable for lindy is Woke Up Clipped, and I danced it with Sharon Davies, which was fun...

Towards the end they did a ska version of Take The A-Train and got the entire dancefloor into a conga line.

[Hep To The Jive]

Towards the end they did a ska version of Take The A-Train and got the entire dancefloor into a conga line.

Ska version, wow, I would kill to be in that band! I love ska and I love swing, and I've never heard a proper swing band doing anything ska related. The opposite happens of course. Many ska jazz ensembles in US and Europe. Unfortunately nothing of this kind in China.

Speaking of dancers, I played a gig here once for blues dancers, and I didn't know it's a thing before lol! Thery were so adamant about slow tempos, I was like wow, why do you want everything slow, what's the fun of dancing all night to slow tunes? Anyway, my idea of slow apparently different, I played songs like Hoochie Coochie Man, and on the break the dancers group leader came to me and said sounds great guys, but please can you play some slow songs?

[shpalman]

Ska version, wow, I would kill to be in that band! I love ska and I love swing, and I've never heard a proper swing band doing anything ska related. The opposite happens of course. Many ska jazz ensembles in US and Europe. Unfortunately nothing of this kind in China.

Speaking of dancers, I played a gig here once for blues dancers, and I didn't know it's a thing before lol! Thery were so adamant about slow tempos, I was like wow, why do you want everything slow, what's the fun of dancing all night to slow tunes? Anyway, my idea of slow apparently different, I played songs like Hoochie Coochie Man, and on the break the dancers group leader came to me and said sounds great guys, but please can you play some slow songs?

Blues means two things to swing dancers, one is that style of (mainly) slow close-in dancing, and the other is the 12-bar blues structure which a lot of swing songs have (e.g. One O'Clock Jump, Woodchopper's Ball).

For dancers, blues has a different bounce/pulse than lindy hop.

I went to a local blues dance night, where the teacher explained that usually at these sorts of things the second set from the band is even more slow, quiet, and intimate.

I know it seems strange to want to dance like that all night but there's something hypnotic about it.

[shpalman]

Hello from Toulouse. I've been at the European Balboa Festival this weekend, featuring live music from The Dancing Pepa and Hot Swing Sextet. The lead guitarist from the latter band was playing an ES-125, which amused me because the new Sigma archtop I bought is based on the Loar which was based on that Gibson. (Having a rhythm guitarist who sits and plays la pompe on a Selmer MaccaferrI style guitar helps a lot with their swing though, leaving the guy at the front to do the Charlie Christian thing.)

Dancing to Airmail Special (also known as "Good enough to keep" apparently) while watching him play it because I want to figure it out too.

Very very good.

Swing dance festivals are probably the best places to hear swing music played in the way in which it was originally intended.

[Christian Miller]

I haven't played Airmail Special for a long time. Good one to revive.

Did I post this video here? Can't remember.

[Strat-itis]

[2bornot2bop]

worth a view! Fabulous stuff!

[Strat-itis]

You bet!

[shpalman]

Tyedric Hill and Helena Kanini Kiiru dancing to the Big Five from Berlin in Lausanne. Read the captions.

Instagram

Instagram

[shpalman]

Some more swing on Instagram, this is David Hermlin on the BBC: Instagram

And here's the teachers' show from Sicily Swing Fest, September 2025 in Catania, featuring Hot Swing Sextet playing Embryo by Illinois Jacquet. An example of choreographed swing dancing:

; note Viktor giving the band the tempo.

[RLetson]

Reminds me of performances at Augusta Swing Week of fond memory, where dance and playing interacted strongly and the staff concerts always featured the dance instructors.

[shpalman]

By the way, I listened to an interesting interview (from summer 2023) with Steven Coombe on the What A Jazz podcast (I didn't know he was a dancer too.) He quotes Peter Loggins* as saying that dancers are stupid, they'd dance to windscreen wipers. I mean, we're not that stupid... :lol:

* - well-known dancer from California who met and learned from some of the "old timers"**. He has lots of stories. On social media as "twobarbreak".

** - dancers from the actual swing era.

[Christian Miller]

Yes I was there when Loggins said that to Coombe and the rest of us haha

I was there Gandalf, 16years ago

TBF I understood this to mean dancers are at the dance event to dance. Unless you really are screwing up, they will make the best of it, but it doesn’t mean you are playing the gig as well as you could be for them

Good bit of advice

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[shpalman]

About two weeks ago I was at Tuscany Balboa Weekend in Montecatini.

Amazing music, mainly from Mauro L. Porro leading few different formations, including a big band on Saturday night, and a smaller group on Sunday afternoon playing the John Kirby transcriptions he'd spent about 200 hours preparing just for this. No guitar in that smaller group. He also found a trio for Friday night (and the Saturday after-party) from Montpellier called the Rag Messengers: clarinet (or soprano sax), piano, and drums. Very good. They played a fast swing version of Giant Steps at one point.

Saturday night:

Sunday afternoon: you'll have to look up the relevant public post from Log into Facebook "Giulio Gallina" on facebook

But on Sunday evening there's traditionally a "jam session" in which there's a backing band but people can bring instruments to join in, or just sing. Usually it's just been guest singers (one of the DJs, the organizers, the sound guy...) but this time there was me following iReal and comping on guitar, next to their proper guitarist (Mattia Donati). Great fun. I may not have even been completely terrible.

I didn't take the Sigma, I actually took the Vox Giulietta I'd recently bought, but that's another story.

[garybaldy]

Epi Joe Pass.

[PMB]

Yes I was there when Loggins said that to Coombe and the rest of us haha

I was there Gandalf, 16years ago

TBF I understood this to mean dancers are at the dance event to dance. Unless you really are screwing up, they will make the best of it, but it doesn’t mean you are playing the gig as well as you could be for them

Good bit of advice

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They're not always so forgiving. I attended a Luigi Grasso Quartet gig around 15 years ago (when his brother Pasquale was still living in Paris) at Caveau de la Huchette. One of the dancers stopped the band after a few bars of a tune and clicked his fingers to reset the tempo.

[shpalman]

They're not always so forgiving. I attended a Luigi Grasso Quartet gig around 15 years ago (when his brother Pasquale was still living in Paris) at Caveau de la Huchette. One of the dancers stopped the band after a few bars of a tune and clicked his fingers to reset the tempo.

Windscreen wipers have 2-3 different speed settings.

There may be a few songs which swing dancers are used to hearing at a certain tempo thanks to some older recordings, which modern musicians might have got into the habit of playing much faster or much slower. Tuxedo Junction is an example: Frankie Manning used to use it for the Shim Sham (now we almost always use Jimmie Lunceford's version of T'ain't What You Do) and there's a story from the 1990's (or maybe late 1980's) that the band started playing it but at a more Manhattan Transfer tempo, and he stopped them and clicked them the tempo he wanted.

I was also at a balboa festival once in which it felt like the band were just playing not quite at the right tempo to give the songs the energy they needed and everything felt meh. Songs can of course also be ruined by rushing them (listen to Charlie Barnet's Cherokee; why do modern players seem to treat it like a race?). We're trying to teach our drummer to ignore the metronome and instead we get a feel for the tempo we want together.

[PMB]

Charlie Parker supposedly practised nothing but blues, rhythm changes and Cherokee in all keys after being humiliated in his teens at a jam. The bridge of Cherokee (ii-V-Is moving down by tones) was considered a challenge for improvisers. Parker based his uptempo tune, Ko-Ko upon the same changes and in a sense Cherokee became the Giant Steps of its day, a kind of litmus test for improvisational speed of thought and execution.

The difference between the two is that Giant Steps was conceived as an uptempo etude and it was really only after Pat Metheny's trio recorded it as a slower bossa that it was no longer considered imperative for anyone tackling the tune to break the sound barrier.

[garybaldy]

Charlie Parker supposedly practised nothing but blues, rhythm changes and Cherokee in all keys after being humiliated in his teens at a jam. The bridge of Cherokee (ii-V-Is moving down by tones) was considered a challenge for improvisers. Parker based his uptempo tune, Ko-Ko upon the same changes and in a sense Cherokee became the Giant Steps of its day, a kind of litmus test for improvisational speed of thought and execution.

The difference between the two is that Giant Steps was conceived as an uptempo etude and it was really only after Pat Metheny's trio recorded it as a slower bossa that it was no longer considered imperative for anyone tackling the tune to break the sound barrier.

Just as a quick fix, for M8 of Cherokee I do B maj scale for 4 bars, A maj scale for 4 bars etc, and wind up on F7. I can see everyone raising their hands in horror!

[Mick-7]

Just as a quick fix, for M8 of Cherokee I do B maj scale for 4 bars, A maj scale for 4 bars etc, and wind up on F7. I can see everyone raising their hands in horror!

Everyone takes harmonic shortcuts at really fast tempos, some just hide the fact that they're doing so much better than others.

[Christian Miller]

Charlie Parker supposedly practised nothing but blues, rhythm changes and Cherokee in all keys after being humiliated in his teens at a jam. The bridge of Cherokee (ii-V-Is moving down by tones) was considered a challenge for improvisers. Parker based his uptempo tune, Ko-Ko upon the same changes and in a sense Cherokee became the Giant Steps of its day, a kind of litmus test for improvisational speed of thought and execution.

The difference between the two is that Giant Steps was conceived as an uptempo etude and it was really only after Pat Metheny's trio recorded it as a slower bossa that it was no longer considered imperative for anyone tackling the tune to break the sound barrier.

Cherokee has a very slow harmonic rhythm.

I gather the main challenge for the tune is that horn players of the time were not accustomed to improvising in sharp keys. The middle 8 of Cherokee obviously takes the tour.

Parker was unusual in practicing thoroughly in all keys, because he didn’t realise that most pros of the time weren’t doing this.


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[PMB]

Yes, I wasn't talking In a structural sense but simply noting that both Cherokee and Giant Steps became musical rites of passage. Not just in terms of technique either - the writer for this blog connects the harmonic changes that open Cherokee to later pop tunes such as Dear Prudence:

Tonight these chords belong to me: a history of the ‘Cherokee’ progression (with ‘Washington Heights’, a tune based on the changes of ‘Cherokee’) | BirdFeed

[Christian Miller]

Yes, I wasn't talking In a structural sense but simply noting that both Cherokee and Giant Steps became musical rites of passage. Not just in terms of technique either - the writer for this blog connects the harmonic changes that open Cherokee to later pop tunes such as Dear Prudence:

Tonight these chords belong to me: a history of the ‘Cherokee’ progression (with ‘Washington Heights’, a tune based on the changes of ‘Cherokee’) | BirdFeed

Yeah it’s a 1-b7-6-b6-5-#4-4-3
Line cliche

So a bit longer than your classic Boomer descending D progression which puts the 1-b7-6-b6 in the bass (Les Fleurs, White Room, Dear Prudence etc.)

Really that 1-b7-6-b6 an evolution of the blues walk down in any case which goes back to King Porter Stomp

A tune that may have occupied that role prior might have been Tea for Two by the sounds of it. I think Charlie Christian was advised to master those changes as it was a bit of jam session menace at the time.

Rose Room too although it’s less clear to me why that would have been considered a challenging tune.

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[PMB]

Tea for Two is another tune like Giant Steps that can really open up when the tempo is taken right back. The modulation from I to III and back (Eb to G in this recording) takes on a whole different hue: