A Great Swing Band

I don't think they are well known outside of Chicago where they are from, but IMO The Rhythm Rockets play the finest contemporary swing music. 8)

I'm familiar with them since the studio I attend has their recordings and plays them a lot.

A local Pittsburgh band that is large on the East Coast with dancers, and they always attract a crowd of non-dancers as well whenever they play are the Boilermaker Jazz Band:

http://boilermakerjazzband.com

They play a small combo swing with a large portion of early era selections and playing styles, you can hear a few samples on their website. In my opinion, they are one of the best modern bands at improvisation in their solos if you ever get to see them play live.

-FF

A couple of good bands from Tucson - Kings of Pleasure and the KGB Trio. The latter is no longer together since one of them moved to L.A. last year. The former has only one original member. The KGB trio was made up of original members from KOP.

Both bands played at a lot of the swing dances here. KOP plays a mix of swing, blues and rockabilly and KGB did jazz and swing.

Cool information!

Speaking of information, the Brooks Tegler Big Band played at one major Lindy Hop event recently, and really impressed me as he has others for many, many years. In between tunes, they gave a short history of the next selection they were playing, it was really fascinating - made all the better by the way they delivered the actual song.

There are reduced samples off of his CDs on Barnes & Noble here and here.

-FF

The most common local band nowadays is one known as Misbehavin'. They play a mix of very good material; the knock on them is that many of their songs are quite long at times.

funkyfreak said:

Cool information!

Speaking of information, the Brooks Tegler Big Band played at one major Lindy Hop event recently, and really impressed me as he has others for many, many years. In between tunes, they gave a short history of the next selection they were playing, it was really fascinating - made all the better by the way they delivered the actual song.

There are reduced samples off of his CDs on Barnes & Noble here and here.

-FF

Click to expand...

Funk, have you seen this month's edition of National Geographic? There is feature on Pittsburgh with a photo of interest on the last page of the article. :wink:

Yeah, pretty neat stuff to see dance in all sorts of places you don't expect!


Caption reads:
Sounds of Sinatra lure patrons into a lindy hop while they wait at Enrico's Biscotti Co., where bakers make 1,200 pounds of the headliner cookies every day. "We cook, talk, dance, drink," says owner Larry Lagattuta. "Sometimes pandemonium breaks out."


The story behind it from one of the dancers in it:

We went to this restaurant around 1:30 (just before they close) and they were setting up for a birthday party so the normally crowded floor was clear. AND they had a Sinatra CD in the music system, so after we ordered we just started dancing to spend the time. Well, this guy with a big camera started taking pictures and I'm thinking "All right! I made it to the big time. He's probably from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette!"

The song ended and our food came up (you can see it in the background on the counter. Looks like a plate of pie) Then the guy with the Camera asks if we could do that again. Hmmm, I'm still in one of my favorite restaurants, with one of my favorite follows listening to good music... SURE!

So, we danced another one and when it was done he asked us a couple of questions and eventually told us he was a photographer for National Geographic. So, that was 13 months ago, but there's our picture and now you know the exciting story behind it.
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-FF

National Geographic ought to do a feature on dancing around the nation. 8)

If we could just get the entire nation up on their feet to dance . . . the "over-weighted epidemic of the country would melt away."

Eight to the Bar is an outstanding swing band based out of CT. They have toured on the West Coast and in Europe as well.

www.eighttothebar.com