The Legendary George “Shorty” Snowden and his partner Big Bea in 1937. He was a first Generation Lindy Hopper first captured on film in the 1920’s in the short “After Seven”.
Shorty George is not only credited for giving the dance it’s name “The Lindy Hop” but also the name in which the Jazz vernacular step “the shorty george” came from.
for more information:
http://jassdancer.blogspot.com/
Joel Plys, Gina Helfrich, Crista Seipp doing the Tranky Doo at Swing Dance USA 2010
This commercial for Gap Khakis from 1998 helped propel swing music back into the mainstream and publicized the swing revival of the late 90’s (of which we are currently a part of).
www.CvilleLindy.org
Swing music began as a form of jazz developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States. Big Band Swing uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for a lead section of brass instruments such as trumpets and trombones, woodwinds including saxophones and clarinets, and sometimes stringed instruments such as violin and guitar, medium to fast tempos, and a “lilting” swing time rhythm. Large ensemble Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of bandleaders such as Benny Goodman and Count Basie became the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1945.
The term “to swing” is praise for music with a strong rhythmic “groove” or drive.