Every year, I write my words or praise over Stompology… and this year is no different. Why?  A bunch of reasons:

1. Rochester. I spent 6 years of my life there and made some really great friends. All of whom I get to see again when I go back. It feels like going home.

2. The vibe. The energy over the weekend is so freakin’ high. Everyone’s excited and inspired. And everyone feels comfortable. There’s no -I’m at a big event and there’s such big name people here, oh I feel awkward -- feeling. The instructors are approachable, and just as silly as the rest of us.

3. Solo Jazz. Well, solo jazz just always makes me happy. It feels like I’m really working on something. Particularly when it’s something out of the norm. Making my body move in ways it’s not used to feels great.

My personal highlights of the weekend:

1. Sharon and Juan’s Ballin’ the Jack routine class. It was a recreation of a Gene Kelly performance. I can’t wait to see a video of the end of class performances. But here’s a clip of the man himself:

2. Bethany’s Chi Chi routine. That was very different from the standard jazz movement we’re all used to -- by that I mean it was flowy motion, instead of sharp, and rhythmically was kind of like hip hop. It made me work hard, mentally and physically. I liked it.

3. Jams at the late night. As usual, lots of dancers have ventured into musicianship and a jam broke out in Mike’s room. It was nice to hear and sing along, and have a chance to chill out away from the crowd.

4. Baby Soda. They absolutely killed it at the Saturday night dance! I wanted to never sit down. Wish I could hear them more often.

5. Grill Jam. Always a great way to wind out the weekend. Grillling, haning out, and spontaneous sing-alongs? Yes, this year there was some spontaneous piano bar style karaoke involving jazz standards, classic rock, and even showtunes. In addition, Juan wowed us with some sweet card tricks, and Mike presented some rare clips he recently acquired. The night ended with a few of us sharing stories, and other random happenings. What a great night.

This is why I try to never miss a Rochester event. They’re always my favorite.

*Edit: 6/14/10*
Here’s a video of the post-class performance of Ballin’ The Jack!  

I love being in Austin. And last night was awesome. The Fed had a great DJ lineup for the night: Heather, Brooks, and Mike. So much fun dancing. But the night wasn’t over then. Some of my favorite musicians were playing at East Side Showroom till 2am. So we went, and danced like mad. Here’s the best thing. It made me feel super nostalgic for Banjo Jims. It felt just like Banjo Jim’s. Small, intimate, high energy. The band was rockin’.

After East Side Showroom, a bunch of us headed over to Kerbey Kerbey for some Kerbey Queso and other yummy snacks. I think it was about 4am when we finally made it home.

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention. We have a new dancer in town, at least for the next three months. Lindsay, an RIT student and member of swing club is here for a co-op. Daniel Son accompanied her on the trip down. I was stoked to have them both in town and to show Dan the awesomeness that is the Austin scene. And Teni was also in town! It was a really fun night.

Can’t wait till next Thursday.

Except it wasn’t!

For those who don’t know, Thursday night is Austin’s usual weekly dance night over at the Fed. It’s usually a pretty good time. But tonight was a particularly amazing night, at least for me. Allow me to explain…

Sometimes a lot of dances means I’m having a really good night. But, me solo-ing? That means it’s a fantastic night! I haven’t much felt the joy of spontaneous solo dancing since I left Rochester. I loved having a group of peers, with different styles, who would inspire me to be silly within the dance. It just seemed to happen naturally. And since I left, I felt like I had to make myself do it. Tonight, and here’s the magical part, towards the end of tonight’s dance, when more than half the people had left, and Eric was planning on winding down his set, he played something (I don’t remember what) that made me want to move. I was ridiculously happy, and the dancing just happened. I don’t know, or care if it was bad or good. But it was fun. He followed that up with about three more bad-ass tunes and so, I continued to dance. It was invigorating. When the night ended I was sweating like crazy and red in the face. Best feeling ever.

Went to a coffeehouse tonight (Flipnotics). They pretty much had the best band ever jamming out there tonight. They played every style from gypsy jazz to old time surf rock. I only wish there was actually room to dance to the swing-able tunes.

Moments of note:

1. The waltz. They played a waltz in a minor key that made me wanna cry. I love, love, LOVE the sound of a violin.

2. The bassist played so hard he broke a string. And he kept on playing…. compensating for three rather than his four strings, and it still sounded awesome.

3. John Doyle, this awesome clarinetist we heard at a different venue with a different band the night before, sat in for the last few tunes. Man, I wanna learn to play the clarinet like that. He also plays sax and is apparently going on tour with Willie Nelson later this year… again.

This was such a great way to end our last full day in Austin. Tomorrow we fly off to Denver. It’s time for Swingtime In The Rockies!

We’ve been in Portland about 4 days now but haven’t seen much more than the Waterfront Blues Festival downtown. It’s been keeping Eric preoccupied this weekend and I don’t blame him. Last night there was a fireworks display over the river to celebrate the 4th of July. We had great seats (the barge where the fireworks were being launched was basically right in front of where we were sitting).

After the fireworks, along with a bunch of other dancers, went to get coffee. The neighborhood looked super cute. I want to go check that out once the festival is over. We all sat in the back room and played pictionary for a while. It was the first time I ever played… I liked it. Some clues are really hard to draw though.

After coffee we made our way to the late night dance for the night. I was happy to hear there were separate rooms set up for both Blues dancing and Lindy Hop (I bet you know which room Brooks and I were in). To top it off, the Lindy room held a DJ battle throughout the night. Two local DJ’s (Richard and Binky), and Chance (from New Orleans) duked it out spinning awesome tunes that made me with the room wasn’t so damn empty! The venue had a great floor and ambiance for a big dance. And I think at most, last night, I saw about 5 couples on the floor at a time. Either way, we danced till Brooks tore a hole in his pants and the sun came up. It was my favorite night of dancing in Portland so far.

Today was nice and relaxing overall. We slept in, went for a walk, got some coffee (yum!) and got NY style pizza (double-yum!). Later on we walked from Capitol Hill (where we’re staying) to Pioneer Square to go to a bar called the New Orleans. They had their house band playing some some sweet trad jazz. Then we walked over to another bar, Buckley’s, to hear the Syncopators. It was a good fun day.

Tomorrow we’re headed back to the New Orleans for the Holodtradband. Yay!

• I went to a college-town dive bar on Friday night and had a killer Mai Tai (still felt it the next morning).
• The Olympia Dixieland Jazz Festival on Saturday was frickin’ sweet! I wish more dancers would have come out. The music was fantastic. Met some cool Seattle and Portland dancers there too.
• Went to the Redhook Brewery and sampled about 5 of their brews for $1
• Danced at Century Sunday night

So Thursday night Brooks and I went to hear this band he heard once before, One Leg Up. They’re a gypsy jazz band from Asheville, NC and they are AWESOME! They were playing a free town something or other in Decatur and Brooks and I turned out to be the only dancers there. We began dancing on the side out of people’s way but were soon encouraged to dance in front of the band. It was a lot of fun. They played in town again on Saturday night and this time we brought more dancers to the show. It was a lot of fun. Hope to hear them at a dance sometime in the future.

So Brooks shared some new music he got with me which included a whole ton of Fletcher Henderson. I swear, It’s like I’m newly in love with jazz. I started going through my newly attained music – rating it for future DJing purposes and putting in the bpm count per song. But that quickly just went out the window. I kept blanking on the rating or the bpm count because I was just enjoying the music so much. It was so awesome I pushed a bunch of my random junk out of the way a bit in my room and started dancing.

This was one of my favorites to listen to today

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So last night after Brooks got back from work we went to hear Gaucho, a gypsy jazz band performing at a total dive bar in hippy-ville. It was awesome. There were two guitarists, a percussionist, an accordion player, bassist, and an “I play everything” guy. The drummer was awesome. At one point he played the drums with his foot while playing the washboard as well. Then there was the “play everything” dude. He played alto sax, cornet, clarinet, piccolo, sang, and played the sweetest instrument ever… the stick. That’s what they called it anyway. It was two pieces of wood, attached at one end and inserted into what I think was a clarinet mouthpiece. Different tones were made by squeezing the curved piece of wood toward or away from the other piece of wood. Sounded a bit like a mix between a soprano sax and a kazoo. It was awesome. I really enjoyed this band. They were also totally danceable. It made for a great first night in San Francisco.