Those cool cats in the SwingCats Orchestra played their hearts out at the Big Band Bash Saturday night at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex.
And after weeks of practice, it was their debut concert in front of an audience for some.
“This would be the first performance for a lot of people in the band, about five,” said conductor Reg Silvester. “We have a lot of new people in the band, and I got tired of relearning the same stuff over again, and I could tell other people were as well so I got a whole bunch of new stuff for everybody.”
Although the audience was small – about 20 people – the music was big with tunes from the big band era, from the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, the Gershwins, as well as more modern hits from Disney, Brian Setzer, and Pharrell’s “Happy.”
“We’re one saxophone, two trumpets, and two trombones short of a real ‘big band,’ so I thought we’d try it and have fun to stretch things,” Silvester said. “In the previous version of the band, we were doing 60, maybe 70 per cent with vocals and few instrumentals. Now we’re doing a little more combo music, a little more upbeat, and a maybe a little more popular.”
He said the band started about six years ago for someone who had wanted a jazzy band for a Rotary Club function. Since then, the band has carried on with many new musicians cycling through, and many who also perform in the Athabasca Community Band.
“You get a swing section in orchestra and you don’t really get that in the Community Band,” he said. “The trumpets have to stand on their own, the trombones have to stand on their own.”
However, because the SwingCats was in the process of refining itself, the group missed out on their sixth annual performance at the Magnificent River Rats Festival.
“This summer was the first time we didn’t play there in a long time,” he said. “I didn’t ask to play because we were doing a rebuild.”
But with the band’s first show under its belt, the group is ready to take on the next one at the Lion’s Club’s 50th anniversary on Sept. 17.
Silvester said the show might also include two more vocal performances. Stay tuned.
