Australian Jazz? Well. there's my own band, Greg Poppleton & his Bakelite Dance Band.
Tracks from our Phantom Dancer CD are played by Swing Djs around the world according to emails I get. The Phantom Dancer CD is available at CD Baby:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/poppleton
We mainly play for corporates and private events, but every couple of months or so, the quartet play for swing dancers at a club in western Sydney. Here's a couple of our latest YouTube clips...
The first clip is the quartet at Penrith. In the band there's myself singing. Incidentally, I've been Djing swing on my own multi-award winning radio show on Sydney's leading independent radio station, 2SER, since 1985. I post the weekly updates here at SwingDjs on another thread
On guitar, Grahame Conlon, has played in the bands of Ricky May, Billy Field and James Morrison. He has played with international jazz stars, Scott Hamilton, Eugene Wright from the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and Don Lamond of Woody Herman's "Herd". He has also backed USA divas, Barbara Morrison, Ernestine Anderson and Terry Lamond. Grahame has played at nearly every jazz festival in Australia and toured overseas with Australian jazz groups. In fact, he'll be with a few other Bakelite Dance Band musicians at the Bix Beidebecke Festival in davenport, Iowa this August.
On double bass, Darcy Wright was named by Rolling Stone in the world's top ten bassists list. He's famous locally as the first person in Australia to build and play an electric bass. His bass was copied with his permission and went into immediate commercial production. Darcy was a permanent member of many TV Orchestras including Tommy Tycho's Channel 7 Orchestra, Geoff Harvey's Channel 9 Orchestra, the Mike Walsh Show Orchestra, the ABC Radio Showband and Eric Jupp's ABC TV Showband. Darcy has played for world class artists Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, Jack Jones, Mel Torme, John Hendricks, Wayne Newton, O C Smith, Nancy Wilson, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Diahann Carroll, Dusty Springfield, Billy Eckstine, Billy Daniels, Cab Calloway and many more. Darcy also toured with Jose Feliciano, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth. He's played with international jazz artists Scott Hamilton, Warren Vache, Red Holloway, John Surman, Laurindo Almeida, Carl Fontana and Australian jazz stars James Morrison, Don Burrows, George Golla, Dale Barlow, John Nicol, Bob Barnard, Ricky May and Julian Lee. Stage shows include Singin' in the Rain, Mame, Chicago and numerous others. Darcy was a lecturer/teacher at the Conservatorium University of Adelaide and Edith Cowan University, Perth
On drums, Bob Gillespie, has played in the Glenn Miller Orchestra, deputised for the regular drummer of the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra, the organisation Frank Sinatra famously telegrammed the BBC not to shut down, and was musical director for the legendary Lovelace Watkins. It was a few tours to Australia that Lovelace made that convinced Bob to settle here
Anyway, here's the link of that informal little get together we have at a club in western Sydney, Penrith RSL, and we'll be there next Saturday, 30 April, 2 - 5pm:
Greg Poppleton & his Bakelite Dance Band - Exactly Like You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGzTLH8m ... ure=relmfu
Here's another clip which I like because the audience spontaneously sang along. It's not swing. In fact it's a waltz. The sound is awful. The Bakelite Dance Band is in the background (unseen) with Peter Locke playing a wonderfully out-of-tune grand piano. Peter Locke will also be in Iowa this August. Grahame's on guitar, though you can't hear him, likewise Dieter Vogt on double bass. Laurie Bennett is on drums. We were the support act in a 500 seat auditorium for a couple of concerts headlining yodeler Mary Schneider
Greg Poppleton & his Bakelite Dance Band - Always
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYI7q997aIU
Dieter Vogt has played double bass all over the world. Dieter was born in Basel, Switzerland, and began his musical career at the age of 12 playing the trumpet. At 17 he took up the double bass and played with the Oscar Klein Quartet. (Oscar Klein played with Lionel Hampton & Joe Zawinul.) He migrated to Sydney and became a foundation member of the Daly-Wilson Big Band. Dieter went to the USA, playing for a year with the Allan Pennay Trio. On his return he joined Winnifred Attwell for eight months touring Australia. Dieter toured China and South East Asia with the Nolan-Buddle Quartet. (Errol Buddle was one of the Australian Jazz Quartet in the US in the '50s). He also toured with Ricky May and Georgie Fame, and again toured Australia with British jazz stars, Humphrey
Lyttleton and Alex Welsh in their Salute to Satchmo. Dieter toured with Graeme Bell's All-Stars around Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Germany, China, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Japan
Drummer Laurie Bennett comes from a musical Sydney family. He has played in the bands of Don Burrows, Johnny Nicol and Judy Bailey to name a few. He was a long time member of Geoff Harvey's TCN Channel 9 Midday Show Band. Laurie has played on many tours throughout Asia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Europe and has performed throughout Australia. He has backed many international Jazz artists such as Richie Cole, The Toshiko Akyoshi Orchestra, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Buddy Tate, Eddie 'Lockjaw Davis, Joe Newman and has played for many local and international cabaret performers including Buddy Greco, Harry Secombe and Liza Minnelli
PS - Do we rehearse? No! Every performance is spontaneous. Two clips on YouTube by Greg Poppleton & his Bakelite Dance Band of Out of Nowhere and I Can't Get Started are of standards the band and I have never played together before until the film was made with a buzzy pocket camera. I made up the updated I Can't Get Started lyrics as we went along. The first line, which I don't think is too clear, is "I've floated 'round the world in a saipan. That's so I could rhyme, "I've settled whaling disputes with Japan." Ah, well
In short, Greg Poppleton & his Bakelite Dance Band is an Australian jazz and swing band where the individual members have a great international jazz history behind them. I feel very privileged that they feel I'm a good enough singer to play for. As for my own singing - the style is authentic to the era because it's the music I've always listened to. I'm also operatically trained with a 4.5 octave range by the same New York maestro who owned the famous Continental Baths in New York (with a performer roster that included Sarah Vaughan, Cab Calloway, Margaret Whiting and others) and who discovered Bette Midler
The Phantom Dancer. Swing & dance from live 1920s-50s radio. Tuesdays, 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney & 2ser.com. Presented by Greg Poppleton since 1985!
