The Swing Book (23 page)

Plus: Felix and the Buzzcats,
a Prima-influenced group that’s secured the right to use the animated Felix’s trademarked mug on their bandstand; Sarasota’s
jump-blues band
Dan Electro and the Silvertones;
the rock-edged
Swingin’ Mooks
of Tampa; and Orlando’s
Johnny Cool and the Mobster Swing Band.

Los Angeles and San Diego

Alien Fashion Show:
“We didn’t set out to be a quote swing band,” says Eldon Daetweiler, the lead singer of this lounge-from-another-planet quintet.
“We came up with this concept of, ‘What if Frank Sinatra grew up in the town of Twin Peaks or hung out with David Bowie?’”
Formed in 1996, Alien Fashion Show adds a postmodern banquet of influences—from surf and rockabilly to trip-hop and Angelo
Badalamenti—to their cocktail-culture style of swing. But these sharkskin-loving guys—who even cover the Kiss tune “Detroit
Rock City” as “Detroit Swing City”—always keep in mind where it all started. Eldon and his drumming brother Jeff have a green-and-purple
psychedelic portrait of Gene Krupa hanging over their living room sofa.

Big Time Operator:
The swing kings of San Diego, Big Time Operator is a jump blues band fronted by Sinatra-esque crooner Frank Lovell, who sails
like a pro on such covers as “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Leap Frog,” and “Calloway Boogie.” But where did their name come from?
During World War II, Big Time Operator was a nickname for the B-17 bomber.

Jumpin’ Jimes:
What else can you call it but swingabilly? The Jumpin’ Jimes, a Derby favorite, made up of vocalist Mark Tortorici and six
terrific musicians, always seem like they’re having fun, whether they’re rocking it out or swinging it up. And they do a lot
of both on their high-spirited CD
They Rock! They Roll! They Swing!

Mora’s Modern Rhythmists:
Givin’ you good old-fashioned swing, Dean Mora’s ten-piece orchestra is as purist a band as they come. Covering songs from
1929 to 1936, they send dancers with the works of Fletcher Henderson, Jimmie Lunceford, and
early
Benny Goodman. They even wear tuxedos just like the old bandleaders did.

Red and the Red Hots:
Red’s got cred. A Texas-born boogie-woogie pianist, Red Young was part of a swingy jazz vocal group called the Stepsisters
that came together in Los Angeles in 1983. The group soon found themselves opening on tour for Linda Ronstadt and legendary
Sinatra arranger Nelson Riddle. That experience was so great it inspired Young—who’s also played piano for everyone from Sonny
and Cher to Tanya Tucker and Joan Armatrading—to start his own band, the Red Hots. With their distinctive sound—this big band’s
got three lead vocalists—and their effortless melodies, Red and the Red Hots know how to rev up Lindy Hoppers.

Plus:
Like a championship NBA team, dance-obsessed Los Angeles has the best and deepest bench of bands of any city in the country.
Among the city’s other hot players are the swinging jump blues groups the
Swing Sinners, Blue Plate Special,
the
Chrome Addicts,
the
Jumpin’ Joz Band,
the
Eric Ekstrand Ensemble,
and
Flattop Tom and His Jump Cats;
the nostalgic
Pete Jacobs and His Wartime Radio Revue,
who even dress in armed-forces-style khaki uniforms; two traditional groups,
Johnny Crawford and His 1928 Society Orchestra
and the
Don Miller Orchestra;
boogie-woogie pianist
Rob Rio;
and last but certainly not least
Candye Kane,
a big-lady singer who bills herself as “two hundred pounds of fun.”

The Senders:
The jump blues band the Senders, a critics’ pick of the editors of
MusicHound Lounge,
has been having a blast mixing up swing and jump blues for more than a decade. But lately they’re starting to get attention
outside the Twin Cities as well. And it’s not just because they lured legendary blues pianist Charles Brown to guest on their
album
Jumpin’ Uptown.
Their lead singer, Charmin Michelle, has an endearing Betty Boop-like voice, put to fun effect on standards by the likes
of B. B. King and Wynonie Harris.

Plus: Hot Heads,
whose influences range from the twenties to the fifties; and local lounge/swing bands the
Jaztronauts and Vic Volare.

The Camaros:
“Our female fans are the ones who really get it. They’re rabid,” says lead singer Jen Jones, who founded this “swingabilly”
group in 1997. But who really needs categories anyway? The Camaros’ lyrically entertaining songs take a stance on love with
which anybody can identify: if you get burned by romance, hang tough. And while Jones won’t reveal which certain someones
in the New York scene inspired the sardonic tunes on the Camaros’ debut CD
Evil,
she will say, “It’s what female blues singers have done all the time, which is not take any shit and not let yourself be
beaten down. You come back with some wit and some humor and create a space to say it.”

Flying Neutrinos:
Breaking out of the jump blues mold, the Flying Neutrinos came to the Big Apple from the Big Easy in 1992 and have carved
out a real niche for themselves playing New Orleans-influenced swing. “If I could clarify one thing, it’s that New Orleans
music can swing just as much as jump blues. Swing isn’t any particular style of music, it’s a certain type of feel,” says
the band’s Billie Holiday-influenced lead singer Ingrid Lucia. No argument here. On their album
I’d Rather Be in New Orleans,
the Neutrinos get just the right mix of the sultry and the swingin’.

George Gee and His Make-Believe Ballroom Orchestra:
Billing himself as the only Asian-American bandleader in the business, Gee fronts a seventeen-piece orchestra that pridefully
recreates the jump swing of Count Basie. And boy do they have the chops. Boasting a slew of veteran musicians (who’ve played
in the bands of Basie, Goodman, Xavier Cugat, and Hampton), this orchestra hit new peaks in 1999. They faced off against Bill
Elliott in two high-profile battles of the bands, swung the crowd at Frankie Manning’s eighty-fifth birthday party, and even
toured Japan. “For someone who’s been in the business twenty years,” says Gee, who started a band while in college at Pittsburgh’s
Carnegie-Mellon University, “I’m living in a fantasy world now.”

Jet Set Six:
Many bands claim to mix lounge and swing, but the Jet Set Six may be the one band that most truly
melds
the two. Yes, they’ve got a suave sophistication that does justice to their foremost inspiration, Tony Bennett. But this
isn’t sit-back-with-a-martini music. It makes you want to get up on your feet and dance. And while the band began back in
1989 under the name Beat Positive, they thankfully aren’t changing their style just to ride the zoot suit bandwagon. As lead
singer John Ceparano told
Swing Time
magazine: “We’ve always been a sharkskin band.”

Ron Sunshine and Full Swing:
With zero irony and on-the-money musicianship, the experienced band Full Swing—formed in 1991—plays swing from the other
side of the tracks. Not sophisticated nightclub stylings, the songs on its album
Straight Up
sound like they were laid down at a modern-day roadhouse. The honky-tonk feel gets a great boost from Ron Sunshine’s inspired
harmonica playing.

Yalloppin’ Hounds:
With a barking big sound, the Hounds have torn up New York City in the last couple years like a pack on the hunt. They’ve
not only got three musicians who’ve played with sax legend Illinois Jacquet, they’re pioneering a compelling new hybrid: swing
with rap elements (not as much of a stretch as you might think, considering how much both Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan are
deemed forerunners of rap). “They are the only band I know of right now that not only deeply care about pleasing dancers,”
promoter “Lo-Fi” Lee Sobel has enthused, “but [are] also willing to risk everything to infuse hip-hop into some of their material.”

Plus:
The original pioneers of swing in New York City,
Nick Palumbo and the Flipped Fedoras;
the jump blues faves
Set ’Em Up Joe,
the
Blues Jumpers,
and New Jersey’s
Crescent City Maulers; Bim Bam Baby,
featuring blond chanteuse Shawn Sobel; the gangster bop boys
Dem Brooklyn Bums;
the traditional swing of the
Blue Saracens;
and the jazzy R&B group the
Delegates.

Wolfgang Parker:
Columbus’s most devilish swing bandleader, Wolfgang Parker turns swing into a full-out head-bangers ball. He’s even coined
his own term for his heavily punk-influenced music: “acid swing.”

Plus:
Columbus’s
Honk, Wail and Moan,
from big band to Sun Ra and Miles Davis, and the classic swing outfit
Tenors Head On;
Cleveland’s jump blues groups
Dukes of Wail
and
Blue Lunch;
Cincinnati’s best dance band,
Rich Uncle Skelton;
Toledo’s the
Mighty Meaty Swing Kings
and
Hepcat Revival;
and Indianapolis’s
Kelly Jay Orchestra.

Vargas Swing:
A favorite of
Swing Time
magazine, the eight-piece band Vargas Swing, fronted by soulful singer Pete Bold, has its roots in funk. Now they are swinging
themselves and the city up with such hot, jumping numbers as “Fire” and “Satan.”

Jellyroll:
Jellyroll, a stylish six-piece combo, goes beyond just Louis Jordan jump blues. On their well-liked album
Hep Cats Holiday,
and in their great live shows, soulful singer Belinda Blair brings back lesser-known gems by such early R&B singers as Helen
Humes, Tiny Bradshaw, Ella Mae Morse, and Big Mama Thornton.

New Morty Show:
Morty Okin and his extroverted band put on one of the best live shows in the business. With po-mo abandon, they excel at
swinging up hard-rock classics, making you sway instead of grind to such songs as Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” or Poison’s
“Unskinny Bop.” Says Okin, the bandleader and trumpeter of New Morty Show, “We’ll do a straight-ahead tune and in the middle
of it we’ll put in a ripping metal part or a punk part and then go back into swing.” But don’t worry, this Louis Prima-inspired
band’s got real musical chops too. Their trombonist Van Hughes has recorded with Ellington and toured with Woody Herman. And
both Okin and vocalist Vise Grip were in a band called St. Vitus Dance during the early days of the swing revival in San Francisco.
Says Okin: “We live in the nineties and it’s nice to incorporate lots of different music with a backbone of swing.”

ACME Swing Company:
Unlike some swing bands, the guys in ACME Swing Company don’t sound like they’re trying too hard. On the CD
California Premium Hops!
bassist and singer Tom Beyer and his six sidemen kick back, have fun, and create a real party album with twelve all-original
tunes.

Plus:
The Goth-inspired showstopper
Lee Press-on and the Nails; Ambassadors of Swing,
a Cab Calloway tribute band; Mitch Woods and his Rockets 88’s, led by boogie-woogie pianist Woods, who’s played with both
Joe Liggins and John Lee Hooker;
Blue Room Boys,
hitting all the right Ellington and Basie notes; local jump swing crowd pleasers
Swing Session, Chazz Cats,
and the
Johnny Nocturne Band,
with fabulous singer Kim Nalley; and retro pioneer
Connie Champagne’s
new band the
Magnum Brutes.

Casey MacGill and the Spirits of Rhythm:
You certainly can’t accuse Casey MacGill of jumping on the bandwagon. This accomplished songwriter and keyboard/ukelele player
had a swing band way back in 1971 in Southern California. “We used to open for Lily Tomlin at the Ice House in Pasadena,”
he recalls. In the early eighties he fronted a second swing group, a trio called Mood Indigo, that showed up in the thirties
period piece
Frances,
starring Jessica Lange. Now, after what he calls a few years of “oblivion” in the Pacific Northwest, MacGill has emerged
in his most successful incarnation yet. His band’s new swing and boogie-woogie CD
Jump,
featuring jitterbugged-out songs like “Git It (In the Groove)” and “Jump Up,” has been one of the most buzzed-about releases
of 1999. He’s also written an original number, “Kitchen Mechanics’ Night Out,” for
Swing,
the Broadway musical. The tune is inspired by the Thursday evenings at the Savoy, the night that black chauffeurs, maids,
and cooks tended to have off from work. “‘Kitchen mechanic’ was the nickname they used for the cooks,” says MacGill, adding,
“I love the energy of fifties rock ’n’ roll done with the style of thirties music. That’s where I’m at.”

Plus:
The dancer-friendly
Lance Buller and the Monarchs;
the Sinatra-esque
H. B. Radke and the Jet City Swingers; Jump Up!
from classic swing to bebop and rhumba; and the jumpin’ blues of
New York Jimmy and the Jive Five.

8½
Souvenirs:
Austin’s vibrant “roots” music scene counts the 8½ Souvenirs quintet as one of its brightest stars. Founded by Olivier Giraud,
a French guitar player and singer, the band plays swing music with an international flair. Not surprising, given that their
greatest influence is Django Reinhardt, the Gypsy guitarist who was one of Europe’s jazz pioneers. The band describes their
music as “cosmopolitan swing pop,” and you can tune in to their sophisticated stylings with their CD
Happy Feet,
which includes four classic Reinhardt tunes.