If you’re in a dancing mood, or if you just like ’40s swing classics such as ‘You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To’ or ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, here’s a band for you.
Victoria’s four-piece Swingkey has an extensive repertoire of swing and Latin tunes that has drawn fans to a variety of venues on the South Island.
The quartet will strut its stuff on Sunday, March 3, at Pat’s House of Jazz in the Osborne Bay Pub in Crofton, which boasts a hardwood dance floor in front of the stage.
The band’s trumpeter, Corrine Painter, and its saxophonist, Jonnie Bridgman, perform vocal duties as well. They’re backed by pianist Bryan Mestelman and drummer Michael Clement. Painter and Clement played together while with Victoria’s Commodores big band, of which Clement is still a member.
Swingkey got into the dance-band genre by playing at Red Hot Swing in Victoria, a dance school that gives lessons in Lindy Hop, swing, Charleston, Balboa and other swing dances.
Painter has been playing the trumpet and various other instruments since she was very young.
She played and sang in choir when she was in Hong Kong, but she found her passion in jazz when she started playing with the Shawnigan Lake School jazz combo and jazz band in high school.
She also plays with Martini ’65, which plays ’60s tunes re-covered as bossa nova, swing and jazz, along with drummer Clements.
Bridgman, who teaches band at Royal Oak Middle School, plays in a number of other local bands, including Ajna, Kariba Surprise, and The New Groovement, a genre-bending mash-up of funk.
The New Groovement has made its mark on B.C.’s music scene. Music lovers may well have seen them performing at Laketown Ranch last year. Pianist Mestelman began playing in grade school, always with a musical focus on various forms of jazz.
Drummer Clement started banging on pots and pans as a baby, forcing his parents to get him a set of real drums and turn over their garage to him, he says.
The show, presented by the Chemainus Valley Cultural Arts Society as part of its weekly jazz series, begins at 2 p.m. Reservations are recommended.
Admission is $15. For reservations, call 250-324-2245. Tables will be held until 1:30 p.m.
The Osborne Bay Pub is at 1534 Joan Ave. in Crofton. For more information, visit http://osbornebaypub.com.