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31 A Study of the Power of Club Jazz in 1980s London Michèle Scott In the 1980s, a few young DJs began playing jazz music in English clubs and at all-day dance events. Jazz music, with its complex layering of rhythm and phrasing, presented a challenge to dancers more familiar with disco and funk. The search for a dance style that fitted the music resulted in a return and renewal of jazz dance. Street jazz dance, or club jazz, which is the term I will use, was inspired by the rhythm tap and vernacular dance that the dancers had seen in musical films of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Many of these new jazz dancers had been street dancers, and some street moves were worked into the new club jazz style. The influence of the earlier jazz forms remained, nevertheless, of fundamental importance. With choreographic ingenuity, individuals created what would become a British jazz dance style. In 1988 I was deputy head of dance at Lewisham College in south east London, one of the team running a Dance Foundation Course for sixteen- to twenty-one-year-olds. I taught jazz technique, dance history, criticism, and analysis. The state-funded Dance Foundation Course was open to students of limited financial means, unlike most dance courses, which charged large fees. Most of our male students came from the upper age range, and quite a few of them came from street dance and club jazz backgrounds. I was also an undergraduate studying anthropology and sociology at London University. I decided, as part of my studies, to research club dance, wanting to find out what it was about jazz dance that attracted this generation that was distant in terms of both time and culture from the origins of the medium. I tested 261 the water with some of my students at Lewisham College who, it became apparent , were very keen on my anthropological project. Informal interviews led to more formal ones and invitations to watch club jazz in situ. Later in the course of my study—principally at Dingwalls, a club in north London—I met other club jazz dancers, including a small group of female dancers.1 My research showed that jazz music had been the catalyst for the development of club jazz dance. When I asked my students about their interest and discovery of this complex musical form, most spoke about a sort of initiation in jazz music leading to a more and more sophisticated appreciation. For example, Clifford told me that he thought jazz music was something “you mature with. You’ve really got to listen. The more you listen the more you hear. When you’re young, it’s just like beats and rhythms—you can’t understand it. So you say I don’t want to hear it anymore. This is just a mess to me.” Mark told me that jazz music was the turning point for him and that the music “stirred something within me.” Dancing to and listening to jazz made him feel “completely different from any other style of music or dance.” He started reading about jazz to expand his knowledge of the music. Mark also found himself dancing not only in clubs but also, when inspiration grabbed him, in the street and in parks, working out ideas. Many of my students had done body popping before turning to jazz. In the clubs they were inspired not only by the music but by those dancers who had already started to find a jazz aesthetic. They also discovered original jazz dance in musicals shown on television, and among their favorite artists were the Nicholas Brothers and Fred Astaire. Clifford explained that his main interest in the tap of the 1930s for him was its free flowing, aggressive dynamic. I asked him about its aggression, and he said, “It was something to do with working-class street club life.” When I asked Gary about the aggressive element in the club jazz dynamic, he said, “It’s about power,” but quickly added, “It’s just part of the style.” Gary was the first among my informants to use the word power in his analysis of club jazz, but he was not the last. It was July 2, 1989, and a sunny afternoon when I first went to Dingwalls, a club that was a key location for club jazz dancers. My student Kole met me there and introduced me to his brother Michael, who was a business student...

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