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Hepcats!
Lexington, KY |
Dedicated to the original
swing
dances of the
1930's and
40's
swing-era,
Lindy Hop,
Balboa
& Collegiate Shag,
and
the great swing music
of that era! |
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Celebrating
10 years of teaching and promoting the best
in all things swing dance! |
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The Kentucky
Jazz
Repertory Orchestra |
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The
Kentucky Jazz Repertory Orchestra (KJRO), co-directed by
UK School of Music Professors
Miles Osland and
Dick Domek,
consists
of the
finest
and most talented faculty, alumni
and
musicians from Kentucky area colleges
and
universities.
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 KJRO is a
17 piece band (although the picture to the left
only shows 12 band members!) that is especially suited for
and highly
skilled at recreating authentic
swing-era arrangements. They are one of the few bands in this region
(and even in the U.S.) that captures the energy, excitement and rhythmic
feeling and pulse of the big band music of the swing-era. Close your
eyes and you may think you're back in the late 1930's or early 40's, dancing
to Duke Ellington in the Cotton Club, Jimmie Lunceford in the Savoy, Benny
Goodman in the Roseland or Count Basie in the Woodside.
At this event KJRO will play a number of songs that are considered swing-era classics.
Many of these songs are not played very often (if at all) at live music
venues in their original arrangement by your average "big band" or
"swing band" due to their technical
difficulty.
Featured vocalist
for KJRO is band member Dennis Davis. Dennis also
helps keep the rhythm section in the band humming
by playing guitar and banjo. Dennis is a
professor and Director of Guitar
Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond,
KY.
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 In 1999, KJRO
released their first CD “Ellington Celebration”, a retrospective of
Ellington’s music from the 1920’s
 to
the 1970’s (1999 was also the
centennial year of Ellington’s birth). With the
release of “Ellington Celebration”,
KJRO established
itself as one of the great jazz repertory orchestras currently performing.
In 2009,
partly as a result of their experiences at Hepcats/KJRO
big band swing dance
collaborations, KJRO released their
second CD, “Flying Home”.
The CD contains 24 tracks, many of them favorites
for swing dancers at these events (click
here
for info about the Flying Home CD).
Some of the great songs that KJRO will play at this
event include
(*=on the Ellington Celebration CD;
**=on the Flying Home CD): |
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o **Flying
Home, by Lionel Hampton.
o **For Dancers Only; **Lunceford Special; Four
or Five Times; My Blue Heaven; Baby Won’t You Please Come Home; by
Jimmie Lunceford.
o Rockin’ in Rhythm (*1930 and **1963
versions); **Jive Stomp”; *Stevedore Stomp; Take the A Train;
**In a Mellotone; *Ring Dem Bells;
*Drop Me Off in Harlem; Cottontail;
by Duke Ellington.
o **Back Bay Shuffle; by Artie Shaw.
o **Swingtime in the Rockies (the
1938 Carnegie Hall version, 264 BPM!);
**Sing, Sing, Sing; Bugle Call Rag; King Porter Stomp; **Don’t Be That Way;
by Benny
Goodman.
o Wrappin' It Up; Christopher Columbus; by Fletcher Henderson.
o **Skee; **Hairy Joe Jump; **Too Much; by
Harlan Leonard.
o **Doggin” Around; **Jumpin’ at the Woodside;
**It’s Sand, Man; Splanky; by Count Basie.
o **Chatt. Choo Choo; String of Pearls; Little Brown Jug; Penn.
6-5000; by Glenn Miller. |
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See you at the
Battle of the Big Bands
on April 14th! |
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Questions about Hepcats activities?
Contact Mike Richardson,
info@Luv2SwingDance.com; 859-420-2426. |
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