Bands
Gypsy Roots
Gyspy Roots specializes in the genre known as jazz manouche. For the uninitiated, their sound is very reminiscent of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France of the 1930s featuring Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. The main trio consists of guitarists Thomas Wakefield and Jeff Powell, and violinist Larry Lyles. The Jammin’ lineup will also feature bassist Rusty Farmer, and drummer Aaron Binder. Gypsy Roots regularly plays on Friday nights at the Tap House Grill in Shockoe Slip, Richmond.
The Swiss Swank Account
jazztrombone.home.comcast.net/SwissSwank.html
Led by trombonist Pete Anderson, Swiss Swank Account is a 10-piece big band whose repertoire consists primarily of the music of the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras. This year instead of the 10-piece line-up we're going with the full-on 16-piece big band. Thanks to an excellent undergraduate jazz music program at Virginia Commonwealth University, Pete is able to get some top-notch personnel. Joining them again this year will be the smooth and silky sound of vocalist Terri Simpson.
Doctors of Jazz
The Doctors of Jazz is a Trad Jazz/Dixieland band that specializes in the traditional early New Orleans jazz typified by the Joe "King" Oliver Creole Jazz Band from the early 1920s and its later West Coast reincarnation, Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band. The band was established in 1983 by an enthusiastic group of professors at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. It has completed sevenEuropean tours, performs regularly around central Virginia, and quickly become a favorite of local dancers who frequented their monthly gigs at the now defunct Upper East Side Jazz Lounge.
