I went back to the Lavay Smith and the fact that Chris Siebert
is part of the band shows the depth and background on these
music styles. I'm going to quote from the program notes
at length because it tells more about this cat's knowledge:

begin:

"Musical director Chris Siebert, a noted authority on swing,
jazz, and blues music, grew up in New York and Los Angeles. In
addition to founding The Red Hot Skillet Lickers with Lavay in
1989, he also played and recorded with Snooky Pryor, Taj Mahal,
Linda Tillery, and the Cultural heritage Choir, Howar "Louie Bluie",
Alvin "Youngblood" Hart, Big Bones, Los Lobos, The Turk Murphy
alumni band, Bo Grumpus, Ledisi and Surgar Pie Desanto. Chris
along with Lavay, was a special consultant to MCA records for their
re-issue of Count Basie, Lionel Hamption, Jimmy Lunceford, and
Ella Fitzgerald with Chic Webb."

What I found sort of funny at the Lavay site was the
fact that Lavay Smith won a San Fransisco Blues award on 2004
for being 'Best Dressed.' I wonder who got it other years. ;-)

If you want to chat about the music you can mail me too.

lon@athenet.net