Zydeco

In the past few months, I've run some YT clips of this form of dance, pronounced Zai-de-ko, not a long way from how we say xylophone.  I also ran some Petersens from Branson, Missouri before that and Ole Charlie Daniels and The Marshall Tucker Band before that, plus Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Purpose was to enjoy and learn and it wasn't all that hard to learn, it just takes some time - the Petersens you'd expect country music from in Missouri and Tennessee but they went Appalachian and Bluegrass - all that's a little further north and east. Now, apart from devil went down to Georgia, I've not seen a lot being pumped out of Georgia and Bama the way it constantly comes out of New Orleans and Nashville.

Why is that?  Even deep south Bama seems to be a bit upmarket - happy to be corrected on that. We used to have a visitor here, James Wilson, and he seems academic north-east seaboard to me, possibly western seaboard but thought not, again happy to be corrected on that - I'm in learning mode here. 

Now this Zydeco and back to the first clip we've run before and am running it again for specific reasons. It's intriguing for those reasons.  Definition:

Zydeco is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana.

Digressing for a moment before getting into it more - that Russian girl in the first clip, a little of her culture.  The Russians know all that's needed about boisterous celebrating, vodka or cognac plastered and can be a bit frayed around the moral edges at times but one thing they're sticklers for, martinets - is when something is Official or a Dokument or a treatise or other presentation - then they knuckle down and can learn whole books.

So this girl came to Louisiana for its free and easy atmosphere, also to get away from the frozen wastes, but then she not only voraciously learnt the culture, even to wearing the mandatory cowboy boots [I hesitate to use the word cowgirl], but she became an Instructor - and that would be vitally important to her, a status thing which I'm not sure Creoles would completely "get".

Therefore, her way of dancing had to be precise in her own mind, hence the lack of smiling until out of scrutiny, zero complaining and she could have gone on for hours.  That sexual shimmying near the end of the number was not a mating call - it was very much part of the dance moves themselves, having now seen quite a bit of this form of dance.  Even oldies make all those moves.  

Toodles, watching the clip, was also looking at some of the other dancers and we could do that too, to get the overall picture.

Having said all that, there's still something "swampland" about interpersonal relations down and over that way in western La, with some interesting male-female combinations.  Nuff said on that.

As for the music itself, well let me put it this way - think of the devil went down to Georgia and let's say it's both mainstream south, plus it's frenetic in a discordant way for mine.  This ain't Zydeco - Zydeco is melodic and uses a "groove".  I'd suggest that "groove" is a fair word because that music is very 50s/60s rock 'n roll - it either precedes it or spins off from it.  It's both freeform in terms of what the different instruments are free to do, but it's also very prescriptive in the dance, surprisingly so.

That Russian girl again - she'd like that.  Russians like to know what the rules are and then break them more comfortably.

The second and third clips are something else again.  Common motif - eldest male leading, key players nearby and it seems very "family". One thing I noticed was how modestly dressed the younger ladies were.  In the third clip, she's off her brain but she's still modest.

And the music has something which DWDT Georgia did not have - joy.  Unbridled joy and fun.  Zydeco always has joyfulness to it's not meant to be a song or series of "songs" - it's an extruded "groove" where they break every so often and change it around slightly.  Toodles mentioned that there's a sameness to it which can wear [presumably after twenty such "songs" in a row, so the third clip is such a dance night.

This music is to dance to - end of.  That's it. If you walked into that room and hoped to sit and watch - no such chance - you're there to dance.  Now look, I'm still Bama and Classic City, Georgia, loyal [Lord Somber] but that doesn't mean I'm not infected by this wild people music - Yvette Landry said that from a child, everyone around plays something or dances, it only needs three of them to start playing and people are up and dancing - even in the middle of the day.

For me, sitting with my computing device - sure it can become monotonous but it's not designed for that - it's designed for people to get up and dance and dance and dance and dance.

Now look at our situation in the west, how joy is being snuffed out, how hidebound the UK is for a start.  You catch my drift here?