[Dixielandjazz] "Chattanooga Choo Choo"

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi All,

I'm not a great fan of Miller's recordings, mainly because of having to play the same predictable warhorses in big bands over a 50-year period. My own band has only the one Miller piece in the pad: a reduction I made years ago of Jerry Gray's piece Caribbean Clipper, which certainly qualifies as a swinger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TewglDSKHpo

We haven't played it in years, but, as chance would have it, we're playing for the Edinburgh Swing Dance Society's Valentine's Ball on Friday and they want the music of the big bands, so we'll give it an airing along with Fletcher Henderson's Down South Camp Meeting and King Porter Stomp, some Savoy Sultans, as well as piles of Basie, Ellington, Carter, Herman, Buck Clayton & Buddy Tate material. A night of swinging and stomping beckons!

If nothing else, we get plenty of variety on our gigs. The last concert (with a fine singer called Angie King) dipped into the Great American Songbook, with some lovely Gershwin, Hoagy, Mercer, van Heusen, Petkere and Ellington, and the gig before that was mainly Bix and Jelly.

Cheers,

Ken Mathieson