May 24, 2010 at 12:05 am (Frankie95 Review, Lindy Hop, Personal)
It’s a shame a more formal Thank You didn’t go out after the Frankie Manning 95th Birthday Festival, so I’ll repost the one I did on my own on June 3, 2009.
The following list is by no means complete, and it’s not the official list. I only had a small part in this event, so I’m sure there are quite a few other unsung heroes of Frankie95 out there. However, I wanted to thank everyone that I came in contact with over the weekend or otherwise helped out that I can remember.
First off, even as a big fan of live music I can say that 14 bands in 5 days is probably too much. Figuring out a plan for getting then on and off the stage and transitioning the sound equipment in a prime time venue like the Manhattan Center is no easy task especially when you have to juggle the MC, contests, videos, and performances. If you think that sounds hard then multiply the difficulty level when you’re handling 4 bands in one night or three big bands sharing the stage all at once. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 21, 2010 at 12:06 am (Dance, Frankie95 Review, Lindy Hop)
Next to last stop on my Frankie Manning 95th Birthday Festival Retrospective. I actually wrote this note first before the others and went back and forth between re-posting it or not, and whether it should go at the beginning or the end. A few weeks ago I thought it was appropriate to end, but reading it now makes me think it should have gone first. Oh well. This note was originally posted on May 31, 2009.
I have a hard time explaining why I left last weekend with such strong feelings of despair, anger and betrayal. I spent my train ride home formulating a plan to go after a person even if it meant burning down the entire Lindy Hop community around me. To be clear, I got set off over a misunderstanding which has been since cleared up. Still, as much as I thought I wasn’t invested in the event, I was ready to start a war. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 19, 2010 at 1:24 am (Dance, Frankie95 Review, Lindy Hop, Personal)
Tags: F95, Frankie Manning, Frankie95
Almost there. Part nine of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap. Technically the end, but I’m going to add a couple other notes after this, including one that should have been at the beginning. You can see a compilation of all videos from the weekend here on my site. This note was originally posted on July 8, 2009.
I’d like to say I decompressed on the ride back, but I just sat on the train and stewed, making myself angrier. I started writing a summary of my weekend experiences, but that turned into a litany of threats, culminating in a step by step plan to take on everyone I held responsible for pissing me off. I was pretty much prepared never to step into another Lindy Hop dance again, but fortunately a few people stepped in to pull me from the edge.
Skye gave me a call while I was on the train. We only had a chance to chat very briefly at the event, but he knew I was upset. He had an interesting take on things. Among his observations was his thought it was a good thing that the event was big enough to absorb individual people’s bulls#!t without messing it up for everyone else too much. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 17, 2010 at 12:33 am (Dance, Frankie95 Review, Lindy Hop)
Tags: F95, Frankie95
Part eight of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap. In addition to a few grammatical edits, I’ve added a video of the last jam that was uploaded after my video recaps were done last year. You can see a compilation of videos from Monday here on my site. This note was originally posted on July 8, 2009.
I think I got the most sleep all weekend on Monday morning; about 4 hours worth. Then it was back to 424 W 34th street. We cleared that space of regular workshops and decided to schedule the rest of our presentations there.
Sakarias Larsson and Peter Loggins trade tap steps on Monday morning in front of the Manhattan Center while waiting for rides to their respective classes.
We started off with a showing of a short documentary that dancers Tim Collins and Malou Meyenhofer put together to go with their Shim Sham submission. They both currently live in India where they teach dance. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 14, 2010 at 12:14 am (Dance, Frankie95 Review, Jazz, Lindy Hop, Personal)
Tags: F95, Frankie Manning, Frankie95
Part seven of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap with a few grammatical edits from the original. You can see a compilation of videos from Sunday here on my site. This note was originally posted on June 24, 2009.
The rest of Sunday evening went pretty smoothly.
Sitting through the Jack & Jill semi-finals reminded me why these things are usually scheduled in the afternoon of most events. We were originally supposed to do it right after the show and before the bands took the stage to give people time to go eat dinner or otherwise freshen up. Unless you’re in it, prelims and semi-final dance contest rounds aren’t the most riveting things to watch. Thanks to Joel Domoe, Aurelie & Tony Tye and our DJ, Ryan Swift for moving things along as quickly as possible.
We were incredibly fortunate to be working with Jonathan Stout and Paul Cosentino that night. I usually get the impression from most bands that they feel like they’re slumming when they play a swing dance. However, Jonathan and Paul genuinely love playing for dancers, and they were incredibly accommodating for all the delays and changes that happened that evening. They were super generous by giving up playing time so everything could be done in a reasonable time. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 12, 2010 at 12:05 am (Frankie95 Review, History, Lindy Hop, Personal)
Tags: F95, Frankie95
Part six of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap with BONUS found footage of the Hellzapoppin recreation from the Sunday Show in addition to the regular grammatical edits from the original post. You can see a compilation of the rest of the videos from Sunday here on my site. This note was originally posted on June 23, 2009.
I grabbed a radio and headed upstairs to check out how everything was progressing. That’s when I found out that we were in more trouble than at any other time in the festival.
It was a little before 6:00 pm, our scheduled time to open the house for everyone to get their seats, and the Frankie Show crew had not made much more progress from where I had left them a couple hours earlier on my printer quest. I figured that the house doors would be delayed in opening, but no one knew for how long. 20 minutes? Half an hour? Longer? They were still figuring it out. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 10, 2010 at 12:10 am (Frankie95 Review, History, Lindy Hop, Personal)
Tags: F95, Frankie95
Part five of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap with a few grammatical edits from the original. You can see a compilation of videos from Saturday and on Sunday here on my site. This note was originally posted on June 23, 2009.
George Henik reminded me that the Saturday night didn’t end with the live music. Anyone paying attention will note that the Saturday late night was the only time when we featured an extended DJ set. The reason was simply because we didn’t want to put the pressure on musicians to try to follow the show that preceded it that night. However, I think we left the night in the good hands of Jesse Miner and Rayned Wiles.
They kept the crowd going so well that they didn’t want to stop dancing even after they left the ballroom after 4:00 am. This was obviously not late enough for the 100+ dancers who loitered in front of the Manhattan Center until someone got the bright idea to just start clapping hands and get everyone dancing again. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 6, 2010 at 12:58 am (Dance, Frankie95 Review, Lindy Hop)
Tags: F95, Frankie95, Lindy Hop
Part four of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap. Again just a few grammatical edits. You can see a compilation of videos from Saturday here on my site. This note was originally posted on June 11, 2009.
You would think everything would have gotten easier after we settled into the Hammerstein Ballroom, our home for the last half of the event, but not so much. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 4, 2010 at 12:28 am (Dance, Frankie95 Review, Lindy Hop)
Tags: F95, Frankie Manning, Frankie95, Lindy Hop
Part three of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap. In addition to some grammatical edits, I also added a bonus video at the end. You can see a compilation of videos from the Friday daytime activities and the Friday Night activities here on my site. This note was originally posted on June 8, 2009.
On Friday we did it all over again because we had to move everything from the Grand Ballroom to the Hammerstein Ballroom downstairs. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to skip out on the memorial service and the dance at Central Park. It was a tough decision especially after David had detailed the line up to me earlier in the week. The speaker and musical guest list was loaded, a testament to Frankie’s influence.
How many memorial services have a warm up band consisting of Count Basie alumni like Benny Powell and Frank Weiss? Major props to Lana Turner for putting that memorial service together along with the funeral just a few weeks previous.
I consider this memorial one of the main pillars of the event. I hope everyone who could was able to attend. For my part, after the near mishaps from the day before, I thought it would be wise for one of us to be on site to trouble shoot problems. Read the rest of this entry »
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April 30, 2010 at 12:09 am (Frankie95 Review, Personal)
Part two of my Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Festival recap. Again just a few grammatical edits. You can see a compilation of videos from Thursday night here on my site. This note was originally posted on June 8, 2009.
The week of the event, I pretty much hit the ground running when I got in on Wednesday. I arrived in NYC by bus a little after 1 pm, checked into my hotel and then got a text that some people were starting a meeting at 2 pm in the Manhattan Center. It was off to the races.
It kept going that day until about 3 am. I should have taken a cue from Chester Whitmore who I caught napping during our first and last all hands staff meeting that night. I was impressed by his ability to doze off, be awakened by a question directed at him, and then promptly fall back asleep when attention went on to something that didn’t concern him. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that luxury because everything concerned me.
The Hammerstein Ballroom about midnight on Wednesday night, sans dance floor and fancy light and sound equipment. Waiting for almost 2000 dancers to be inside of it.
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