Frankie Manning is Dead!

Watch this man dance! (And make sure you watch the video!!!!!)

Or watch him here. Less crazy, but so smooth.

I crossed paths with him only once, but seeing him dance was one of the highlights of my life. I swear to you!

I was a swing dance addict back when I lived in Ventura (there was nothing else to do!) and I loved nothing more than the Lindy Hop. I loved it so much that before I even knew the lindy existed, and good dancers would slip a lindy move into their regular swing repertoire I would shout out, "What is that? Show me!" I didn't know it, I had never seen it or heard of it, but I could pick out the lindy style.

In the height of my swing madness I went for a four day Swing Camp on Catalina Island. We took over the town of Avalon--thousands of swing dancers--many living in 1940s style--whether they were dancing or not. They closed down every available space in town--halls, gyms, empty rooms--and filled them with swing workshops. In the evening they opened up the grand old Catalina ballroom, put in a swing band, and it was like being transported back in time.

There on the island, shipped in from New York, was Frankie Manning--a living, walking, dancing piece of history. He must have been 88 when I met him. He would creak out to the middle of the floor--like the old man that he was. But when the music came on he just turned smooth as molasses. I have never seen anyone else dance like that. You just wanted to do what he was doing. To be his partner! There he was, a black man from Harlem, once the star of New York, then an anonymous postal worker for thirty years, until some crazy swing dancers came and dug him out of obscurity in the 1980s.

He was light. He was grace. He was about how to treat a woman. "Gentleman, you must treat your woman like a queen," he would shout out. "I don't care who she is, I don't care how beautiful she is, for that three minutes you are with her you treat her like she is the most beautiful woman in the world! You look in her eyes! You drink her in! You dance with her! Don't pay attention to your own moves, and definitely do not let your eyes follow some other woman!"

Put on your Count Basie, your Nina Simone, your Indigo Swing, your Big Bad Voo Doo Daddy. Put on your music, put on your shoes, and do a little lindy for Frankie Manning! He made my world a better place!