It's rare that the band with a singer such as Smith has the
clout that they did as soloists. I will not say they worked
as an ensemble with the singer as 'another voice' since
Lavay Smith is the star of the show. But the band showed its
chops and that was a major part of the enjoyment of the event.

Have any of the readers here "met Miss Thing"?

:-)

Lavay Smith et al was the big name to come out of the Swing Revival
of the late 90's. I followed this movement closely and bought a lot
product then and went to shows that featured the music.

I have Chris Siebert who plays piano and does the arrangements
listed but not a full roster.

A mail to him at the website would get you the artist list.

But these were all young players though: mixed racially and gender.
I have a fascinatiuon with all-girl bands of the 40's and other periods so was glad to see a young woman named Caroline who lives
in Beloit on one of the tenors.

The notes I have are from the program put out by the
Weidner Center for the Performing Arts. The Meyer Theatre in
Green Bay is a fully restored playhouse (from Vaudeville)/
movie theatre. This is an excellent setting for smaller draw
acts.

From the program notes, there's lots of awards and Jazz
Fests listed that the band has played but this was my
first experience of them.

Some of the things I was buying during the Swing Revival
were Indigo Swing, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Blue Plate
Special plus a reissue of Joe Jackson's Jumpin Jive from
the 80's which made it to cd. There were lots of compilations
too, most notably the Swing This Baby ! and Swing This Baby Too
collections. That was an exciting time for music but it
faded with the onset of techno. And it's more complicated than
pop music so was treated like a fad.

One last note about things on radio. They broadcast
Riverwalk Live From the Landing on our Public Radio here
and you should be able to find that. Riverwalk is mostly
Dixie but a couple weeks ago they did a feature for Women's
Month in March on the International Sweethearts of Rhythm:
an all-girl band from the 40's. Plus there's a tribute tour
forming by someone named Kit McClure is which the Sweethearts
music will be performed for live audiences again.

Posts, espcially longer ones like these can blow up in
my face, so I'll supply some links below.

Here's Riverwalk with the specifiv archive of the Sweethearts show.

I do service as a volunteer at our own Performing Arts Center so I
sent these links to the management in hopes that they would get
the Kit McLure Tour to come here.

Scroll down to program #13, the March 27 entry.

• Riverwalk Sweethearts show promo

Hereis the the link to the Sweethearts project

• Red Hot Records

I'm including this because up in Green Bay Wiscossin, they seem
to be doing all the right things as far getting acts and
making great performance spaces.

• a feature on the fully restored Meyer Theatre