The Mainstay’s December 6th concert program marks the final “First Friday” of the year with resident piano impresario and accompanist Joe Holt. Joe and his invited bandmates, spotlighting swing drummer and vocalist Jimmy Lawlor, will pay tribute to the 1940s/1950s classic jump swing tunes made famous by Louis Prima and Louis Jordan
Joining Joe and Jimmy on the bill will be Dave Schiff on sax, Max Murray on bass, and a special guest appearance by vocalist Sharon Sable (a.k.a. Keely Smith).
Louis Prima was an American jazz musician and bandleader best known for his exuberant personality, raspy voice (and for writing the swing music classic “Sing, Sing, Sing”). His style encompassed swing, big band music, boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues, and jazzed-up versions of Italian folk music.
In 1949 he hired singer Keely Smith, a poker-faced stage persona who served as the perfect foil for Prima’s comical boisterousness. Their version of “That Old Black Magic” won a Grammy Award for best performance by a vocal group.
In the mid-1950s, Prima and Smith went to Las Vegas and began a residency at the Sahara Hotel. The new group was dubbed the Witnesses and gained a reputation as “The Wildest Show in Vegas.”
Prima entered the most successful phase of his recording career in 1956 with hit songs such as “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “Buona Sera,” “Oh Marie,” and “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail.” In 1967 he voiced the role of King Louie, the “swinging” orangutan in Disney’s animated film The Jungle Book.
Louis Jordan was an American saxophonist-singer prominent in the 1940s and ’50s who was a seminal figure in the development of both rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
By 1942 Jordan and his band became one of the most popular recording acts in the country, with hits such as “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens” and “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”. He starred in numerous Hollywood short films and received equal billing on collaborations with Louis Armstrong. Jordan was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2018.
Showtime for the live concert event is 8 pm. Tickets are $20 in advance of the show and can be purchased online at mainstayrockhall.org. Phone reservations are accepted by calling (410) 639-9133 (tickets reserved by phone are $25 when paid at the door). The Mainstay is located at 5753 N Main Street in Rock Hall, Maryland. Its regular calendar of local, regional, and nationally touring artists features a live performance every week of the year (February through December) in a variety of music genres.
The programs and presentations of The Mainstay are supported in part with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council and The Kent Cultural Alliance.
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