Marty Klempner and the Big Apple at ILHC 2008
by Alain Wong
A comprehensive review of the International Lindy Hop Championships will be up shortly. In the meantime, watch Marty Klempner in a bright red zoot suit truckin’ skating his way into the semi-finals in the Solo Charleston contest on Friday night.
For those who were at Camp Jitterbug in Seattle this past May, you probably remember Marty doing the same thing there in the Solo Charleston contest. This time around, we get both Marty and the Big Apple!
Note - this year Camp Jitterbug will be held a week after Memorial Day weekend in order to accomodate Frankie Manning’s 95th anniversary in New York City.
Marty Klempner and the Big Apple, photo by Ryan Swift
…and he’s all ours.
Wow. Now that is pure awesome.
This comp was so much fun. I was so nervous however that I didn’t notice Marty truckin’ the whole time. I’m so glad I got to see this vid. The Big Apple was especially fun.
Marty is definitely entertaining; I had to avoid trucking whenever I saw him cause it’s nearly contagious.
[...] by the crowd; the energy was overflowing. You can check out the video in Alain’s post about Marty and the Big Apple. Hurley Francois (Florida) swept the finals with a glowing face. Second place went to Emily [...]
I hate to be a nitpicker (actually i dont) but what Marty is doing and has been doing is emphatically NOT truckin. Truckin is a specific step that was started by the waiters in Harlem.
Saying what Marty is doing is truckin is like calling an apple jack a suzy q. It will only serve to confuse and distort history.
Marty is simply skating with his finger up.
Thanks for the chime in Michael, although I have heard others refer to what Marty is doing as truckin’. Where do you think the confusion of the term comes from?
My guess? Marty was skating around at Camp Jitterbug and one ignorant person called it truckin and apparently that was enough to convince everyone that he is doing a step that he is not.
The closest i can come to the confusion is the finger. in truckin, the finger is up like that, just like you are spinning a tray on it (not to be confused with “im #1!” finger). From the waist down though, there is nothing truckin about what Marty is doing.
Thanks for some clarity.
From Ralph Giordano’s “Social Dancing in America volume 2: Lindy Hop to Hip Hop”:
Truckin’ was described as “the shoulders are often hunched up, one above the other, the hips sway in Congo fashion, and the feet execute a variety of shuffles while the index finger of one hand wiggles shoulder-high at the sky. The movement tends to be more or less straight ahead” (Stearns and Stearns 1994, 41).
Actually, I remember you (Falty) making the distinction between skating and trucking very clear at a past workshop. Point taken. Btw, Mumu does some pretty good truckin’. I wonder who she learned it from
I love Ina Ray Hutton and the Melodears! Nice clip Alain. Thanks for sharing. Too bad there wasn’t any truckin in the clip.
Just to add fuel to the fire, I did hear Marty himself call it “Truckin’” several times.
A few years back I was taught truckin’ in my first lindy class and it was the same as in the clip.
It wasn’t until I worked with Nathan Bugh somewhat recently that I learned it wasn’t. The instructor was good, but nowhere near as knowledgable as somone who’d actively studied the solo jazz dances for years.
I’d say the term being misapplied goes back much further than Marty’s doing it. All it takes is one misinformed instructor along the way to start spreading incorrect information - suddenly a few years down the road new instructors are using the terms they learned albiet inappropriately and everyone is “truckin’” with out actually truckin’.
First off…I’m responding to this cause I think it’s awesome (and hilarious) that my truckin’ in a few contest can cause so much talk about what actual step I am doing.
In all of the contest that I was in, I was truckin’ for some (Falty’s definition), and skating for a lot (Falty’s and my definition). Go ahead and read below about why I think I was truckin’ for the entire contest.
Secondly, (no fuel to the fire Swifty) I did say that I was truckin’ to anyone that asked. I believe it to be truckin’, and I could be wrong. I’m just enjoying myself, and entertaining people. It was funny to see the number of people that came up to me to correct me and say that I wasn’t truckin’, and some would even say “beause Falty said so”….or something like that.
So that’s why I started asking around to some of the people that should or would probably know.
To continue on with the quote from Jazz Dance: “Truckin is a highly individual dance with as many fine versions as there are dancers. Everybody has his own style, although the dance is usually based on short steps forward, turning the heel in after each step. Thereafter, almost anything goes. Every good dancer who “trucks” recognizably is trying to create a unique impression.”
So, thank you Alain for posting the beginning of this quote, which to me was enough of an explanation to show that what I was doing is a form of trucking. Anyway…
None of this really matters as long as we’re having a good time.
No one reference is good enough to create a concrete conclusion.
1. I was skating a lot in the contests that I’ve been in lately. To me, and to a couple of other dance historians that I respect (and the book that we quoted), Skating can be a form of Truckin’, when the skating involved includes a finger in the air. Simple as that. Mind you it’s not just the finger in the air that causes it to be truckin’, it’s also the shuffling (which skating includes). Skating doesn’t have to truckin (if you don’t have your finger up, it’s just skating), and truckin doesn’t have to be skating (you can truck without the skating movement).
From Falty: “Marty is simply skating with his finger up.”
Yes, I was…and therefore it could also be called truckin’… if you go by what I’ve presented.
2. From Falty: “Saying what Marty is doing is truckin is like calling an apple jack a suzy q. It will only serve to confuse and distort history.”
Not at all. First off… If you take Falty’s definition of truckin’ and you were to change the footwork slighty (as the quote from the book says you can, especially if you read even furhter on that same page), then you would be doing our (Falty’s too) definition of skating (along with a finger in the air).
Secondly, there is no simple way that you can make an apple jack become a suzy q, with a simple change like above. But….
Here’s a question: What if I Apple Jacked with my finger in the air? Is that Truckin’???
Just my two cents…
Oh, and I also talked to Juan V, who told me that there were all kinds of different variations on Truckin’ and that there was an unbelieveable clip on youtube that I had to see. I haven’t seen it yet, since I couldn’t remember what he told me to search and now I can’t find it… but he said it’s out there. And ya, Falty, you might just say, that’s great dancing, but that ain’t truckin’….
First Truckin’ contest is to be held at Swingtime in the Rockies!!!! July 23-26, 2009, Denver, CO
http://www.SwingtimeInTheRockies.com
Marty! thank you for sharing your perspective.
I think we can agree that this is a street/vernacular dance that is in constant evolution, and having a good time is definitely the major contributor to keeping this dance alive.
From my experience dancing in different countries, moves are moves and people give them names so that they are easier to identify - but what one might call an “underarm” here maybe be called something completely different elsewhere. Aleix, a friend who has taught in Barcelona, Paris, and Montreal, told me he has had to re-learn the lingo of the dance many times because he’s taught it in Catalan, Spanish, French and English, and in each geographic location, moves and steps had different names and meanings.
I also understand the need to “preserve” the dance by being accurate with the terms we do know, and I think people like Peter Loggins and Falty are great ambassadors for the preservation of the history of the dance. Maybe someone who was alive at the time period would be willing to chime in?
In any case, even today on TV we see “swing dance” that we don’t consider swing (refer to Punk Rock Lindy Hop choreography by Benji Schwimmer on So You Think You Can Dance Canada) so there is a lot of misinformation that we are fighting against, as Christina stated. I don’t think it’s necessary to have an absolute truth on everything as long as, like you said, we’re having a good time, but there are also times when clarifying and discussing historically terms is warranted.
I’m glad we had this discussion, and I’m hoping Juan Villafane can share this clip with us soon.