Jive is an over-encompassing category of jazz dancing that begins with Cab Calloway and ends with rock’n’roll sock hopping. (In ballroom it’s black dancing, all that stuff African Americans did better that we want to appropriate for competetive struttin’.)
Miss Gail and the Jumpin’ Jam Band’s “Santa’s Jingle and Jive” sounds like an instructional for the impaired; it’s clear and clearly enunciated. But it has a spark.
Let’s honor Dave Rudolf with cool and beyond
for his “Santa’s Got a Zoot Suit.” This pachuco identifier isn’t the same ethnicity of jive, but it has all the symptoms. It’s jumpin’.
Much as i love discovering nuggets on the internet in addition to my collection, some are irresponsibly posted as that song without provenance. Why, that’s like publishing a paper without scholarly citations! Yet, Kelvin Pratt’s offering of “Santa Jive” is way too cool to pass up, even without who did it when. You gotta hear this one. Straight from the fridge, dad.