swing music
Swing began in the 1920's & 30's as bands began to trade the tuba & banjo for a plucked double bass and guitar and grew out of New Orleans Jazz & Blues. Swing covers a spectrum of music from 7-piece jump blues music to big band music - generally speaking, it is rythmic up-beat, feel-good music (hot jazz) or slower ballads with an emphasis on melody (sweet music). The best 'swing' to dance to is the 'hot jazz variety.
Modern jazz (Charlie Parker, Miles Davis etc) definitely does not 'Swing' and inherited the Jazz name mostly because it was developed by disillusioned swing jazz musicians in the 1940's. Modern jazz intellectualises music and is probably best appreciated by fellow musicians. For dancers, the irregular beats and frequent tempo changes that often occur are too much of a challenge.
The swing revival of the 1990's brought along many great new bands across the world (Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Jive Aces, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Steve Lucky's Rhumba Bums, Blue Harlem, Swingerhead, The Big Heat, the Fat Cats, King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys to name just a few)

swing dance styles
There's lots of different styles of swing dance... theres the original LindyHop but also West Coast Swing, Balboa, Shag and the simpler East Coast Swing.
We teach straight-forward Savoy-Style LindyHop at Nottingham which is as easily danced to blues (slow) to big-band (medium - fast) and to jump blues (fast - smokin').
LindyHop developed right alongside Swing music - drummers & dancers exchanged phrases, Cab Calloway & Ella Fitzgerald both started as dancers, many songs were written about lindyhop, the Savoy Ballroom & the dancers.

There's a great independant book by Christian Barnard This Thing Called Swing that no swing dancer or musician should be without...

lindyhop
LindyHop is the root of all swing dances and began in Harlem NYC during the jazz age and is mostly associated with the Savoy Ballroom. The dance style is irreverent and fun but nontheless spectacular to watch with fast turns, kicks, jumps, pecks and flailing hands - LindyHop is the most filmed Swing Dance in the movies from the 1920s, 30s & 40s to today... (see 'the Mask', 'Malcolm-X', 'Blast From The Past' even 'Chicken Run').
LindyHop is danced throughout the world from America to Scandanavia to Europe (that includes the UK). Huge annual events are held such as Swedens Herrang Dance Camp & the UKs Jumping At The Woodside in Gloucester.
Frankie Manning, a much revered figure, was there at the Savoy at the beginning, appeared in numerous 'soundies' and world tours back in the 1930's & 40's and is still teaching workshops at these big events today at 90!!!

hollywood style AKA smooth-style lindyhop
inspired by Dean Collins and can be seen in many 1940's films & clips. It began in 1930's / 40's from LindyHop & re-gathered momentum in the 1980's/1990's.
is a "slotted dance" with 6 / 8 Beat patterns, very stylised & good for crowded dance floors

west coast swing
a fun to dance and fun to watch, its playful, often sexy, complex, and varied enough that it's never the same twice. its a fairly complicated 'lead & follow' dance to learn where the partners do not mirror each other ie: their footwork is completely different

east coast swing
is easier to learn than the former styles, essentially using only 6 beat patterns its simpler but also quite limited. essentially, its lindyhop with the good stuff taken out

jive / rock'n'roll
Similar to east coast swing with a limited variety of 6 beat moves, very good for up-tempo music like rock 'n'roll (which is still huge in the UKs midlands and north)

balboa
Originated from Balboa Island, California where the dance floors were so overcrowded a 'closed' dance-style with lots of footwork (although the feet hardly leave the floor) the upper body remains still and the dance doesn't travel much around the room similar in style to shag but without such exuberant foot-work

shag
In actual fact there is 'St Louis Shag', 'Carolina Shag' & 'Collegiate Shag' but 'Shag' increasingly refers to Arthur Murrays development of 'Collegiate Shag' style Best done to fast tempos. The upper body and hips hardly move as the legs do convoluted kicks and fancy footwork without reciprocal movements the foot patterns were a fast kicking 'slow, slow, quick, quick, quick ...'

hip-hop swing
Like all dances (that aren't stifled by a controlling governing body) lindyhop continues to evolve - hip-hop swing, funky swing, jive-fusion are all names that describe an emerging style that has grown from a fusion of hip-hop street dancing and lindy

ballroom jive / modern jive / french jive
Typically taught by large organisations such as ceroc or blitz etc. Not strictly a Swing Dance and employs a mixed bag of 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9... beat moves and a walking style that works quite well to modern music. modern jive is often described as being a development of french jive, but is really ballroom jive with bits of salsa added in. The French dance RocknRoll, LindyHop or Balboa, so be prepared to be disappointed if you go to France expecting to be able to dance modern jive with the locals. Still the style (as typified by ceroc) is very popular in the UK (but nowhere else other than Australia) and attracts large numbers to the classes. Its lack of a clearly identifiable style makes it very easy to incorporate other styles of dance, its absence of any footwork makes it easy to learn
end