New Swing Bands

Everything about the swinging music we love to DJ

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michael-t
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New Swing Bands

#1 Post by michael-t » Wed Dec 19, 2007 2:20 pm

There allot of contemporary swing bands, if you find them, post them here. This thread could be a great resource for folks wanting to buy some new music, DJs expanding their collection, and event organizers who want to get live music.

Here is one from Spokane, Washington:

http://www.myspace.com/6footswing (they have song samples online, not bad!)

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CafeSavoy
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#2 Post by CafeSavoy » Wed Dec 19, 2007 2:47 pm

Brook's Tegler. Some sound clips are available.
The jazz and swing music scene in the nation's capital includes many talented performers. They often play together in different bands and combos, learning one another's style and tendencies. This CD takes 14 of these jazz masters and arranges them in 11 different ensembles, led by one incredible drummer. Call them Brooks Tegler's CAPITAL COMBINATIONS.

Marty Nau alto; clarinet (1,5,13)
Scott Silbert tenor (2,9,14), bari (2,6,15)
John Doughten tenor (10), bari (4), clarinet (3,8)
Vince McCool trumpet (1,2,5-7,9,14,15)
Marc Weigel trumpet (4,11,13)
John Jensen trombone
Chuck Redd vibes
Tom Mitchell guitar; vocal (8)
Robert Redd piano
John Previti bass (2-4,6,8-11,13-15)
Tommy Cecil bass (1,5,7,12)
Brooks Tegler drums; vocal (12)
Lynn McCune vocal (3)
Jim Stephanson vocal (15)

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wspeid
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#3 Post by wspeid » Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:54 pm

Arg! I spent 45 minutes listing bands and then the forum ate my list... but there are some great musicians (and wonderful people) who are very appreciative of DJ's playing their music amongst my My Space (froggy_and_miss_mousie) friends. Alternately, they're all on my regularly posted play lists on http://www.areyouheptothejive.com

Interestingly, Brooks Tegler is the only contemporary musician I've approached who seemed less than enthusiastic about sharng his music with new listeners. He told me to just direct dancers to the 1 song sample he'd posted on his website and people could decide from that whether to make the trip to see his band play the following month. By comparison, 4 or 5 dancers have come up to me at other times saying, "you know that cool new song I asked you about when you DJ'ed last week? I just bought their CD. Its awesome!"

There are so many talented musicians dying to get good stuff heard, I'm not going to pull teeth to get somebody to promote themselves to me or in a few extreme cases, deal with musicians who don't treat dancers with respect (even if some people think they're great musicians). I'd rather promote someone truly excited to be able to play live for a room of dancers.

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#4 Post by Albert System » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:46 am

Anyone who is a professional musician- ie. plays music for money- and especially if they do not have a "day job", would not act that way. And if they did act that way, it would be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Many musicians just do not get the fact that it is the audience- be it dancers, listeners, or people who buy CD's etc.- that are paying them. The way you interact with your audience is part of being a professional. I know a lot of really talented musicians who I would not consider a "professional" because they don't get the business side at all.

If you do not care about the money, you have less reason to care about the audience. Or you could just be a crank- like Artie Shaw.....

Paul Cosentino
Boilermaker Jazz Band
www.boilermakerjazzband.com

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#5 Post by CafeSavoy » Fri Dec 21, 2007 11:34 am

wspeid wrote:Interestingly, Brooks Tegler is the only contemporary musician I've approached who seemed less than enthusiastic about sharng his music with new listeners. He told me to just direct dancers to the 1 song sample he'd posted on his website and people could decide from that whether to make the trip to see his band play the following month. By comparison, 4 or 5 dancers have come up to me at other times saying, "you know that cool new song I asked you about when you DJ'ed last week? I just bought their CD. Its awesome!"

There are so many talented musicians dying to get good stuff heard, I'm not going to pull teeth to get somebody to promote themselves to me or in a few extreme cases, deal with musicians who don't treat dancers with respect (even if some people think they're great musicians). I'd rather promote someone truly excited to be able to play live for a room of dancers.
You were hoping he'd give you a copy of his cd?

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#6 Post by Albert System » Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:24 pm

Actually, giving away some CD's can lead to selling many more.

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wspeid
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#7 Post by wspeid » Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:41 pm

I gotta admit, George Gee made me feel like a celebrity when he sent me a copy of one of his CD's to play for dancers. I still remember my wife's stunned look as she said, "why would he send YOU a free CD? He doesn't even know you!" It was as if it were a priceless golden gift from the heavens. But now Virginia Beach dancers can expect to hear some George everytime I DJ.

Since then, many musicians I've contacted have graciously sent me a copy of a CD to DJ from, others have sent shortened demo CD's. One put down the phone and I could hear him huff and puff down into his basement to pull out an old box he said he hadn't looked in for years and he wrote me up a sales slip on the spot for the original sale price and shipped them out.

My favorite story is one European musician who was stunned anyone was still interested in finding their long out of print CD. He rummaged around to find one last one in the bottom of his closet to ship over to the "States". Their singer contacted me a week later to say they'd been so intrigued to get the request out of the blue they'd gone back in the studio for the 1st time in 5 years and were kicking around the idea of starting to work on another album. I still get choked up hearing that little old us, the listeners, actually motivate musicians.

So, yeah, I now enjoy the story of how I acquire a CD as much as anything else and I frequently share the details with dancers who really enjoy hearing how approachable and nice the musicians they're dancing to are. And I've got a nice picture of me and George to boot.

In return for a moment's consideration to build a familiarity, it guarantees I'll buy any future releases. Plus, it means I've shared promoter/contact/venue information with about a dozen bands who didn't know a soul in the mid-Atlantic region. As a result, I've had one group come stay at my place for a weekend when they gigged, am eagerly looking forward to roadtripping up to DC to catch 2 others in the next 4 months and may have get to see another perform at a concert sponsored by our city in 2008. So its a win/win that just goes to show how much one silly little music listener can do when he's bored.

I just didn't feel like Brooks was open to establishing that dialogue on any level when I approached him; but who knows, maybe I caught him on an off day.

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#8 Post by Albert System » Sat Dec 22, 2007 2:16 pm

I give my CD's free to DJ's who play them at dances, and to radio stations who play them. To me, it is simply good advertising!!

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#9 Post by CafeSavoy » Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:32 pm

wspeid wrote:I just didn't feel like Brooks was open to establishing that dialogue on any level when I approached him; but who knows, maybe I caught him on an off day.
I agree that it is good advertising to gift some cds and I like free stuff as much as anyone. But I'm not adverse to paying for good music and don't mind supporting local musicians by buying their music. I can't really comment on Brooks reaction to you since i've never asked him for cds. I bought the cd i have and don't regret it. Maybe Artie Shaw is his model, he does have a couple of his songs on the cd.

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#10 Post by wspeid » Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:37 am

Don't get me wrong; good small musicians are rare gems to be nurtured. Heck, we're even planning a trip down to New Orleans to catch Linnzi Zaorksi this spring.

My dilemma is I'm now in a small city with an extremely limited pool of swing musicians; with rare exception most here play exclusively from the Glen Miller song book or play cool jazz (or jazzy R&B/hip hop) and call it swing.

I'm sure we've all bought far too many CD's over the years only to be sorely disappointed when they sound nothing like the single (anyone else own Andrew Gold's 1976 stinker 'What's Wrong with this picture?" because Lonely Boy was a great one hit wonder that summer?").

In one case I got home and found one local swing musician was being backed by his son's junior high school swing band on all but 1 tracks and was just sitting in on someone else's band for the cut he was promoting.

Sadly, finding "good" swing musicians to support usually means at least an 8 hour round road trip to either DC or Raleigh/Durham. Most times that's worked out very well; but we've also made a couple marathon road trips only to leave partway through someone's second set or been wallflowers stubbornly waiting to hear at least 1 song to dance to before driving the 4 hours home. Those certainly don't earn me any brownie points with the wife... lol. I sorely miss being in NY where it used to mean just walking a couple doors down to the next venue.

Thankfully, more local musicians are putting multiple samples online. I see Brooks now also has a Myspace page with more selections available. CDBaby is also an invaluable asset in letting me preview CD's before buying them.

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#11 Post by Lawrence » Mon Dec 24, 2007 12:13 pm

Albert System wrote:I give my CD's free to DJ's who play them at dances, and to radio stations who play them. To me, it is simply good advertising!!
Yes, but it is still not mandatory that any musician do so; it might be bad business, but his unwillingness to give out freebies to some random guy who approached him at a show is not something to which we should take offense. For all we know, he might have thought that wspeid was just pretending to be a DJ so as to cop a free CD.

Unless someone else has similar experiences, it does sound like an isolated incident; so, to presume he is an unappreciative jerk from just one encounter seems a bit hasty.
Lawrence Page
Austin Lindy Hop
http://www.AustinLindy.com

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#12 Post by Albert System » Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:56 am

Agreed. I understand that it is not an obligation for any musician to give away stuff to random people. However, if he was so gruff as to put someone off to the point that they started a thread about it.... that's bad busniess any way you slice it.

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#13 Post by remysun » Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:34 pm

Remember, free for you does NOT mean free for him.
Albert System wrote:Actually, giving away some CD's can lead to selling many more.
The word is CAN. There are no guarantees.

He's probably kissed goodbye a lot of hard earned money to have the CD produced, and with the availability of CD burners, pirating personally hurts him. Everything's about trying to recoup the out of pocket. If you were gonna buy the CD, you were gonna buy the CD. If you were gonna promote it, you were gonna promote it, so why should he cut his profit?

The co-owner of one of my favorite used CD shops told me a story of a prominent local radio DJ, and he was incensed that the guy was trying to get his stuff below cost. As the owner put it, retailing was his bottom line, while the DJ was a day job accountant.

Free stuff is easier through a relationship. If he never saw you before and never will again, what's the point? There's two ways around this. When the artists see you supporting them, promoting them, it's easy to see the value and loyalty in that relationship. I get great deals at the shop, because I've shown no qualms about dropping over $200 in cash, and my friend who got me into the relationship comes in from out of state to do the same thing.

The other is from the word amateur, and its etymology relating to love. The first celebrity I ever drove was this local guy who got picked as The Bachelor. I knew he used to have a local band and a CD, so without ever alluding to the TV show, I asked if I could buy a copy. Instead, he just gave it to me, 'cause you know he could, and the fact that I brought up his band was very gratifying. It's about a passion for music. Unless, of course, it was just to buy me off cause I knew where he lived. :)

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#14 Post by CafeSavoy » Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:09 pm

Another local musician i like, although he's no longer local since he's moved to southern california, is John Cocuzzi. He's a regular in the DC scene and used to put on the Crystal City Jazz Festival that has included some excellent musicians including a bunch of Nagel Heyer artists. He has recorded with a bunch of them including Ken Peplowski, Warren Vache, Allan Vache, Joe Ascione, Johnny Varro, etc.

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#15 Post by Toon Town Dave » Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:31 pm

While I appreciate it when musicians give me a free CD, I by no means expect it. For me as a DJ in a smaller scene/region, I'm just influential enough to generate sales. Most dancers I DJ for are not music collectors. While they may enjoy the music I play, few seek out recordings. It's usually teachers and other DJs that come up and ask me about the music.

Teachers may be a better marketing tool. Beginning dancers are often looking to source music to practice to. Having easy access to purchase on impulse (eg iTunes) is great. I tend to choose teaching music for my beginner classes that is available on iTunes and list the artist/title in the class notes I e-mail to everyone after the class.

On a semi-related note, it would be really cool if some of the contemporary bands (Paul, George, Jonathan and others) and some of the top teachers got together and produced a compilation CD that would be great practice music for beginning dancers.

As a music buyer, the two things that encourage me to buy music are audio samples to help me decide is a CD is promising and easy access to purchase. I regularly shop with Amazon, CD Baby and a couple of other vendors. If I can buy a disc through them, I'm several times more likely to buy than buying only through the band's web site.

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