Frankie Manning died this morning due to complications with pneumonia. He was one of the grandfathers of Lindy Hop, dancing and acting as de facto choreographer for the famous group Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, and revolutionizing the dance with his unique style and the introduction of the first aerial steps. I know when a lot of people think of swing dancing, they think of people doing crazy flips and tricks. Well, that was all Frankie’s doing.

He danced with Whitey’s until the group disbanded around World War II. In 1947, he started his a new group, the Congaroos, that performed until 1955 at which point Frankie started working for the postal service and was under the radar until the ’80s.

In the early ’80s, Al Minns, another member of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, was teaching lindy hop in dance studio in New York, but he died in 1985. Before passing, he told his students that Frankie Manning was still kicking around New York. Steven Mitchell and Erin Stevens tracked Frankie down and convinced him to come back out of retirement and continue teaching Lindy.

The rest, as they say, is history. Popularity grew, spreading slowly as things did before the internet, and then finally exploded in the late ’90s. While swing dancing now doesn’t have the same popularity it did in the ’90s, it’s definitely matured and stabilized into its own solid subculture and Frankie’s contribution to the dance’s resurrection is undeniable.

Frankie died one month from his 95th birthday and had been dancing and teaching the whole time. I was lucky enough to take a class with him back in December of 2002 and just seeing the joy in his face and his vitality was so inspiring. The Japanese have a word for it – genki – which I’m still not exactly sure how to put into English words but it essentially means healthy hardiness, good spirits, and a cheerful mood. Frankie was totally genki. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the man went on to live until he was 120.

At any rate, here are a few videos to commemorate the man.

This one has pretty crappy audio, but it does a good job of showing Frankie looking genki, as well as Norma Miller, another dancer for Whitey’s who’s still around. I belive this came from Ken Burns’ jazz documentary.

One of my favorite clips of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers dancing to “Cotton Tail” as performed by Duke Ellington. Frankie is the first guy to go out.

And finally one of the most famous swing dancing clips out there from the movie Hellzapoppin. Frankie’s in the overalls.

Rest in peace, and thank you.