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SUNDAYS AT VIC'S
The band Sundays at Vic's came together in a weekly Boulder, Colorado
cafe jam session from diverse places and backgrounds - a NY studio
musician pianist whose credits include writing and producing the track
Magnetic for the band Steps Ahead featuring Michael Brecker and Diane
Reeves, and recordings with Carly Simon, Mariah Carey and many others;
a female violinist from Krakow, Poland, who has performed with major
orchestras across Europe and at Carnegie Hall in the US; a Vermont
clarinetist who tours the States playing contradances. A female
vocalist from the music theater world, a bassist and drummer who've
played together since high school marching band, and a vibraphonist
from Arkansas round out the group.
SUNDAYS AT VIC'S, a DVD/CD double disk set, filmed and recorded live
at a top Denver recording studio has just been released. The discs
capture the essence of the weekly Sunday afternoon coffee house jam
sessions where the band came together and continues to thrive.
Bret Saunders writes in the Denver Post review that Sundays at Vic's,
"plays jazz from the '30s through the '50s with enthusiasm and obvious
affection, and while everyone in the septet holds his own, clarinetist
Bill Tomczak and violinist Dominka Dancewicz make for a cheerful front
line of higher-pitched instruments, helping to make the project
unique. And it's encouraging to hear and see a younger generation of
musicians (most of them appear to be in their 20s and 30s)
effortlessly breeze through "In a Sentimental Mood," "They Can't Take
That Away From Me" and other songs that were popular long before they
were born."
Committed to the joyous, swinging music and sense of community between
the band and the audience that can be seen and heard in clips and
recordings of the Jazz at the Philharmonic tours of the 1950s
featuring Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Petterson and others, Sundays at
Vic's reinvigorates the concept of what a jazz band can be today.
Along with a rarely heard authenticity to the feel and spirit of
'30s-'50's jazz, Vic's is devoted to true Latin music grooves and
ecletic pop reworkings.
Audiences are thrilled by Sundays at Vic's, witnessing live perhaps
for the first time, the reason why classic jazz was America's pop
music for several decades and why it still is - when Vic's is in the
house! It's refreshing in today's music scene to see a band get out
of the way, so to speak, and let the music play itself, free of hype,
free of attitude, free to create a timeless experience connecting
people together.