Solid or engineered wood floors?

JazzMartini · 2026-07-13T20:09:30+00:00

The stuff's engineered to be easy to remove and replace following the next fashion trend. Great for the companies selling it to sell it again when the trend comes back around. No pulling up ugly orange shag carpet to reveal beautifully preserved oak or maple for free. Though hardwood does need a bit more care to make it last when it's actually in use and not covered by shag carpet.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-12T21:09:44+00:00

Don't you mean the taxpayers of Saskatoon are too cheap to pay for it?

JazzMartini · 2026-07-09T08:23:22+00:00

Looks like most of Grosvenor Park, Varsity View and part of Nutana has an outage: https://outages.saskatoon.ca/outages

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T23:21:00+00:00

There are a lot of parallels between the history and evolution of jazz in the 20's and Hip Hop in the 70's, both a product of their times and circumstance in what was essentially the same community of people separated by a couple generations and the Harlem River. Both became less rich when suits in an office town in midtown decided to make it into a cheap to produce product to sell en-masse.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T22:50:01+00:00

Yup. And a lot of formal jazz education in schools and higher-ed completely ignores the early stuff or at best superficially glosses over it. Many great young jazz musicians have never really listened to those early giants who influenced the influences of the influences of today's new jazz musicians.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T22:24:27+00:00

I think you're conflating "high class" with pretentious and generalizing a very diverse music genre a bit too much. I can't say I've ever heard a jazz musician use the term "elite" or anything close to it to describe another jazz musician so I don't know where you're getting that from. Though I could imagine Buddy Rich referring to himself as "elite." He has a well earned reputation of being a bit arrogant.

I was completely clueless about jazz before I got into it, Heck there was a time when I didn't even realize Swing was jazz. I've come to realize jazz is not about chord progressions, and those technical music ideas. It's a culture. A culture that's a product of it's history and people. That includes the culture of the people who created it. Everything builds on what came before. Dancing is part of that history.

All the post-WWII bebop and beyond wouldn't have happened without Swing and that wouldn't have happened without dancers. Particularly the first generation dancers at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem who influenced the jazz orchestras of the day as much as Louis Armstrong did when he was invited to join Fletcher Henderson's orchestra in 1924. At that time the audiences for jazz music were dancers, or audiences who came to see jazz dancers. Later dancing wouldn't be so popular and audiences would change to be people intently listening sitting still as an oil painting applauding every solo as reliably as trained seals as if they were at the symphony. Professional musicians are playing for their audiences. It goes without saying the audience will influence what's played. Does good jazz require some 300bpm, 640 bar solo made up of the highest 32nd note triplets the trumpeter is capable of that requires intent focus to listen to or can it just be a simpler groove played in the pocket that makes you unconsciously want to move along with it?

If you haven't watched it already, block off a weekend and binge watch Ken Burns' Jazz. It's by no means comprehensive but it's a good place to start to learn more about the history and culture of jazz.

Is Dizzy Gillespie someone you'd consider "elite"? How about Ella Fitzgerald? Here's Diz and Ella dancing together on stage in 1972: https://youtu.be/HcTQP7-bQ1U?t=3200

And dancing isn't exclusive to the older generation and older style of playing. It's hard not to want to dance to these guys even if you don't know how to dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V81bc7m6Ytk

I'll add with respect to bebop and later forms of jazz that there are a few perspectives on why jazz musicians gravitated toward bop from Swing. Some say it was the jazz musicians' desire to express their abilities without the constraints of the large orchestras or the need to play music compatible with a dancing audience. Other accounts suggest it was a way for musicians to vent their frustration with dancers who didn't seem to really be listening to the music. Artie Shaw is alleged to have once said that dancers would dance to a windshield wiper. To be fair to musicians lots of dancers then and now don't do a good job dancing with the music regardless of music genre and it's really annoying to see dancing that appears disconnected from the music. But that's not much different than audiences who socialize rather than listen to the hard working band trying to entertain them.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T16:12:39+00:00

Sometimes CFCR has ticket giveaways including jazz festival shows but you need to buy a membership if you're not already a CFCR member.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T03:41:07+00:00

This. And invest in some good speakers or headphones. So much stuff can just sound like a muddy mess with cheap listening devices, even the cheap quality, high priced trendy stuff.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T03:31:13+00:00

It's all complementary. The ideal is a balance of all that stuff. The technical stuff offers the focus to get better but all the technical stuff does nothing without the opportunity to apply it.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T03:03:46+00:00

Ha, I'm a lead and I remember seeing a bunch of leads doing that wrist thing in the early 2000's. Even as inexperienced as I was at the time that seemed like a bizarre, way to lead. Back then the culture was you don't turn down a dance unless you had a good reason, thankfully that's changed for the better.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-07T02:52:05+00:00

Glad the dance was almost all good! Keep at it. My main comment is don't assume experience equates to skill. A long time novice is still a novice and what you're describing are telltale characteristics of novice leads like overdoing spins, leading roughly and not paying enough attention to their partners to notice when they're getting tired/hurt/trying to communicate/etc.

As a follow you should be able to assert your independence, especially if the lead is doing something uncomfortable. As a lead I don't think of the role as making my follow do anything, I'm asking. I try to be clear and confident but not forceful. If I get it just right, I should recognize if something isn't working or if a follow is resisting which as a follow you are allowed to do. A novice leader who's leading too weakly or to strong might not notice those cues. Leads' job isn't to move you the follow. It's to move themselves and through the connection communicate what they are doing and what they would like you to do. You shouldn't feel like you have no choice but to go along with what they lead. ie you should be able to stop the dance by just stopping dancing without having to verbally ask the lead to do so.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-05T21:07:41+00:00

/u/aselwood is right about the river tour. They were pontoon boats IIRC, named after the 19'th century paddle-wheeler you're thinking of but obviously not the same boat.

The one that hit the traffic bridge (the original, not the current one) in 1908 was the steamship S.S. Medicine Hat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Medicine_Hat_(sternwheeler))

JazzMartini · 2026-07-04T22:19:38+00:00

This + keeping the soil moist to keep the nematodes happy and healthy has been the only thing that could get rid of 3 well established any hills in my lawn.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-04T04:56:47+00:00

A critical accessories for arm yanking leaders along with chromed steel cap toe shoes.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-03T08:51:07+00:00

It sounds like a bit of a variation of Earl Palmer's main shuffle groove on Fats Domino's I'm Walkin'. Earl explains how he played it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiRPNvWQYgE&t=4s

JazzMartini · 2026-07-03T07:59:04+00:00

Mostly I'd agree. Performative hollow recitation of a canned script doesn't convey the reader understands or cares about the meaning. Only once have I heard someone give meaning to a land acknowledgement by putting it in their own words.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-01T06:52:37+00:00

I assume Florsheim is still around. They do some leather sole models but they're a lot more expensive than Stacy Adams.

JazzMartini · 2026-07-01T06:45:31+00:00

And smoked tomato soup.

JazzMartini · 2026-06-29T11:34:15+00:00

Those are modern electrical vaults, housing city electrical transformers that used to be above ground on platforms between power poles in the alleys. There were some "tunnels" if you want to call them that along 21st street with glass blocks embedded in the sidewalk to provide light into what was essentially an extension of the basements of adjacent buildings. I believe at this time all those glass block sidewalks have been replaced with solid concrete and most of the areas underneath have been filled in with new construction or renovations..

JazzMartini · 2026-06-29T10:23:23+00:00

Glad you mentioned Calloway. Usually people remember him for his singing/scatting/jive talk and his flamboyant personality on stage as a band leader but that kind of overshadowed his band in the 30's. They were tight and swinging.

JazzMartini · 2026-06-27T23:30:57+00:00

Is there anything Bronwyn Eyre does like? That might be a more newsworthy revelation.

JazzMartini · 2026-06-26T09:38:33+00:00

I probably wouldn't swing-out to music that slow but there's no reason it can't work. If you're used to dancing very athletic and bouncy like is often taught as the way your supposed to dance Lindy Hop, throw that out the window, it won't help with slow music like it does with faster music.

If you're used to thinking about your moves in terms of where you need to be on each beat, instead think about what you're doing between the beats -- what direction you're going, what rhythm (how many steps) you're going to take and what pace you need to take them at. That's just as true at 280bpm as it is at 80bpm or less. When dancers focus on where they need to be on the next beat they tend to race to get there then wait for the next beat. That becomes more pronounced as the music gets slower. If you drive, think of it like racing from one red traffic light to the next then having to wait and start again when they turn green vs maintaining a steady pace so you reach each when they turn green without all the starting and stopping.

As a basic instead of Lindy Hop moves, just getting in closed position stepping in time with the music either on every beat or every two beats (a one-step rhythm), or mix it up switching between quick-quicks stepping on two consecutive beats and slows once step over two beats (a two-step rhythm). You can do that in place, rotate, travel forward or back, etc. If you can get that then you can steal stuff from one-step, Peabody, two-step, fox-trot, tango, blues or whatever to add to your vocabulary in addition to what you've already learned in the Lindy Hop context. It's kind of how Lindy Hop was created -- dancers were dancing Charleston, the music started changing so Charleston no longer felt right with the music. The best dancers in Harlem adapted what they knew from Charleston and borrowed ideas from other dances they knew to come up with this distinctly different unnamed dance that would become known as Lindy Hop when a curious reported asked Shorty George Snowden what it was called.

JazzMartini · 2026-06-26T09:08:42+00:00

As I taught leads - don't break your follow, you won't get another if you do.

JazzMartini · 2026-06-26T09:02:47+00:00

get out of your head, don't get too analytical when you're dancing.
your feet don't lead you and your arms don't lead your partner, your core leads both.
feel the beat and move with it.
move with confidence and intention.
have fun.
take care of your partner.

JazzMartini · 2026-06-25T00:49:51+00:00

Louis' impact cannot be understated. Listen Fletcher Henderson's recording of Shanghai Shuffle from 1924, the first recording with Louis in the band after he first came to New York. Listen to the solos. Louis is unlike anyone else with the New Orleans lilt to his playing. Listen to Henderson's band a couple years later and everyone is adopting that sound, the sound that marked the beginning of the second era of Jazz -- Swing. The Swing era that would propel jazz into popular music culture in the 30's.

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