Customer Reviews

Let's Dance : The Best Of Ballroom Swing, Lindy, Jitterbug & Jive

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What a waste. Is this bad music? Not really. Is it the best choice for Lindy Hopping? No! It is one of the worst compilations out there in fact. This is a result of people that teach at a general dance studio trying to be cool and find music you can swing to--while not being swing music. Or perhaps they couldn't secure the rights to anything else??? Could you dance to these songs? I guess. Do I want to? No way.

An excellent collection of 16 songs. The first 8 are Swing, including Think, Chain of Fools (Aretha Franklin); Ability to Swing (Patti Austin); Hot Coffee (Carl Anderson). The next 3 are Lindy, including My Boyfriend's Back (Melissa Manchester). the last 5 are Jitterbug and Jive, with Jive After Five (Carl Perkins), Trickle Trickle (Manhattan Transfer), and Why Do Fools Fall In Love (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers).

4 stars
This is a fine collection of vocal music for various kinds of swing dancing. All 16 tracks have been digitally remastered and they are reasonably clean of noise, pop, hiss, etc. I can't say I love every track, but it is a useful collection for dance DJs and party hosts / hostesses.

The first eight tracks are listed under "swing." They are slow-between 29-31 measures per minute. Single rhythm swing would not be much fun to these, but they are great for triple rhythm swing. If you are adventersome, and this is not a stretch if you love it, dance West Coast swing and slink up the hall!

Tracks 9-11 range betweem 33-37 mpm, and they are fun if your knees will let you dance Lindy-hop to them.

Tracks 12-16 are listed as jitterbug or jive and range from 38-54 mpm.

Here are the titles, durations, suggested dance, measures per minute, and artist:

Ability To Swing, 4:51, WCSwing, 31 (Patti Austin)
Think, 2:20, WCSwing, 28 (Aretha Franklin)
Who told you? 4:09, WCSwing, 29 (James Cotton, et al.)
Destination Anywhere, 3:12, WCSwing, 30 (Commitments)
Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me, 2:50, WCSwing, 31 (Nina Simone)
Hot Coffee, 4:54, WCSwing, 30 (Carl Anderson)
Messin' With The Kid, 2:15, WCSwing, 30 (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
Chain Of Fools, 2:48, WCSwing, 29 (Aretha Franklin)
Rocket 88, 2:51, Lindy, 37 (Buster Poindexter)
My Boyfriend is Back, 3:27, Lindy, 33 (Melissa Manchester)
Ol' Man River, 3:26, Lindy, 34 (Earl Grant)
Jive After Five, 2:22, Jive, 38 (Carl Perkins)
Walkin Blues, The, 5:22, Jive, 40 (Royal Crown Revue)
Trickle Trickle, 2:22, Jive, 46 (Manhattan Transfer)
Jack, You're Dead, 2:48, Jive, 54 (Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive Band)
Why do fools fall in love, 2:17, Jive, 44 (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers)

As the first reviewer said, this is not Lindy Hop music. Aside from the Royal Crown Revue track, it is maybe West Coast Swing music at best. Great for WCS, but not for Lindy or even East Coast.

This album is a compilation of competent cuts of good classics which individually and collectively appear to represent the title, but in general, each piece is far from the center as a representative of each genre. To an accomplished dancer this may work or even be exactly what you are looking for. To a novice this album is the pits.

Yes, some of it is jazz, but is it Lindy Hop/Jitterbug music? No

The CD is just okay, it is not what I expected.

We recently had our office file cleaning day, when everyone dresses down, cleans out our filing cabinets, and brings in their favorite cd's to make the task more bearable. This was the hands-down favorite. You don't have to dance to love it--just like good, diverse music.