It always amazes me with the dynamics of folks within a band, especially with respect to set up and pack away. there are essentially three categories 1. Those that get there early and help set up as much as possible as well as their own kit. They are always there at the end and help take other bulky kit out as well e.g. drums, lighting etc 2 Those that put in effort to help and do bits and pieces at the beginning and help at the end to varying degrees - sometimes seamingly managing to slope away at the end with the hope that no one has noticed, but of course everyone has in fact noticed as they carry on soldiering on 3 and last but not least, the 'chosen' who turn up sometimes early but make
Well well, The Kalamazoo Dance Band returned to Wicksteed Park for yet another Blitz ball - and what a night that was, some seriously good dancing - primarily a night of ballroom, sequence, latin and swing and some brilliant moves from Anton Bazin who is a professional Tango dancer, but boy could he knock out a mean charleston as well. The band once again performed like demons and some great video footage from folks posted onto Facebook
The Kalamazoo Dance Band played last weekend at the Oakleigh Lodge Nottingham - hosted by Terry. This guy (wheelchair bound following a severe accident) came up and sang Buena Sera with us - he absolutely loved it and drew such a massive applause from the audience - was simply wonderful!! As well as that performance, we played a swing set all afternoon and he was simply beaming from cheek to cheek - what a superb and lovely afternoon it was. next one coming along June 24th.
Blimey, it can be soul destroying at times - you get new arrangements and hope they'll sound great and of course some do, but the issue is in many case when you try to shoehorn a big band arrangement into a little big band set up and you run the risk of 'gaps' and exposed bits leaving a feeling of 'oh whats happened there' which is easily picked up by other musicians and of course the audience who, in many instances might not necessarily know the reasons for the gap, but do of course sense something wasn't quite as they expected. Aside of that, however you do have to run these numbers so as to at least see what is potentially good to put out there. All interesting times hey what
Coming up the weekend, we will be heading back to Wicksteed Park in Northampton - a lovely venue and we'll be there again later in the year for the Wicksteed at war 40's dance, but first this coming saturday we will be playing a lovely mix of ballroom, sequence, Latin and Swing for the Charles Kruger and Lauren Dance events - I understand around 250 tickets have so far which should make for a lovely lovely night. We played for the good folks last year and that was a sell out as well which always makes for such a fab evening. I shall report back as soon as ...
I've played in big bands and smaller bands since the late 80's and have always been very mindful of what is required to make for a great night of entertainment. I formed The Kalamazoo Dance Band a few years ago with the main aim of bringing great music (guided by you, the very people who will dance to this music) great atmosphere and entertainment as well as immaculate stage presentation. I have never ever lost the focus that we are playing for you and our continued success is only ever continued by the good folks making recommendations to others or rebooking us and also passing across essential feedback upon which we can steer our act. We are fortunate to now play across many of the UK lar
We recently played a lovely ballroom dance for Karen Bailey (Dance Teacher) at Willington Chimneys - a fantastic afternoon vintage tea dance and crikey all the names of the sequence dances - i thought she'd sent me a cake recipe - was many sequence dancing and what a fantastic afternoon it turned out to be and playing to a full room of dancers all resplendent in vintage gear and The Kalamazoo Dance Band look suave in their Glenn Miller uniforms - what more could you ask for - well perhaps tea and cake - but we got that as well - so all in all - bosh, a grand afternoon :-) and here is the little video as well in case you want topics up on what we did https://youtu.be/yhIbpc5cGdw
What a superb night for Gary and Sue Richardson who invited The Kalamazoo Dance Band to travel up and play a night of Dancing for everyone - we played a balanced mix of ballroom, Sequence, latin and Swing (plus a few numbers from our Kal's Kats - Vintage swing Band library) A full house and what a gorgeous venue - we sure enjoyed ourselves and was great to get a call from Gary a few days later to rebook us for a spring ball in 2018. Take a look at a few of the pics below
