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Big Bad VOODOO Daddy

Dig the music of ‘the greatest swing band in the entire world’ Tuesday at the MACC

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theater in Kahului. Tickets are $12, $45, $55 and $85 (plus applicable fees) and are available at the box office, by calling 242-7469 or online at www.mauiarts.org. Orchestra-level patrons have exclusive access to the dance floor.   DON MILLER photo

Anyone who loves swing music should not miss Big Bad Voodoo Daddy making the band’s Maui debut at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului on Tuesday evening. How good are they?

“They’re currently the greatest swing band in the entire world,” raved a recent review in Missouri’s St. Joseph News-Press. “Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is one of those rare bands that you have to see in person to truly appreciate, and one of those even rarer bands that sounds better in person than it does on a polished recording. That’s probably why the Los Angeles group got such a rousing ovation.”

With the band known for legendary high-energy shows, it will undoubtedly be one of those memorable nights when the dance floor will be jammed, and the rest of the audience will have a hard time staying seated.

“We try and play places where there is a dance floor,” says the band’s founding drummer, Kurt Sodergren. “People tell us they had a really hard time sitting still.”

Performing a vibrant fusion of classic American jazz and swing with a taste of New Orleans, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s core lineup includes Scotty Morris (lead vocals and guitar), Dirk Shumaker (double bass and vocals), Andy Rowley (baritone saxophone), Glen “The Kid” Marhevka (trumpet), Karl Hunter (saxophones and clarinet) and Joshua Levy (piano and arranger). Joining them on the road are Anthony Bonsera Jr. on trumpet and Alex Henderson on trombone.

The Maui Chamber Orchestra will perform Saturday and Sunday at the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku. Photo courtesy MCO

PopMatters notes: “A performance by BBVD should be considered an all-encompassing cultural experience, where pizzazz oozes out of the fedora hats, zoot suits, and black-and-white spectator shoes that together package the eight hep cats and their (mostly) original swing music.”

Formed in Ventura, Calif., in 1993, the band took its name from an autographed poster made out to Morris by blues legend Albert Collins. Following a concert, Collins signed it to “Scotty, the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.”

“My grandpa played in big bands my whole life,” says Sodergren. “He had a lot of records he passed down like Benny Goodman’s ‘Live at Carnegie Hall,’ and that was the first time I heard (drummer) Gene Krupa. Scott and I first played together as a duo, then we had a trio and we added some horns. It was really exciting and loud and filled with energy. The more we did it the more nuanced our interests became.”

Primary influences included the music of legends such as Goodman, Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan, and there were contemporary retro-swing influences like the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

“We used to go see the Royal Crown Revue at the Derby (in L.A.) before we had the residency,” he recalls. “We were seeing contemporary bands and we obviously loved Wynton Marsalis, and we would go to New Orleans’ Preservation Hall.”

One of their first big breaks came when the cult film “Swingers” included two of their songs on its 1996 soundtrack. Releasing their Grammy-nominated, self-titled “Big Bad Voodoo Daddy” album in 1998, a year later they performed at the halftime show at Superbowl XXXIII, along with Stevie Wonder and Gloria Estefan.

Some of their acclaimed recordings include “How Big Can You Get?,” BBVD’s 2009 tribute to Cab Calloway.

“Josh (Levy) was able to get hold of a lot of the original charts,” Sodergren explains. “It’s hard to hear a lot of the arrangements on his recordings, so Josh got hold of the family and got some of the arrangements.”

Drawing from classics of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, their repertoire includes original compositions and interpretations of more recent songs like Randy Newman’s “It’s Lonely at the Top,” featured on their last studio album, “Rattle Them Bones.”

They have just completed work on a new album project, “Louis, Louis, Louis.”

“It’s a celebration of a lot of our big influences, a tribute to Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima and Louis Jordan,” says the drummer. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we played three or four of those tunes at the show on Maui.”

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John Cruz, joined by Tony Cruz, will pay tribute to the music of their late brothers, Guy Cruz and Ernie Cruz Jr., at the Lahaina Restoration Foundation’s free monthly Hawaiian Music Series concert this month.

In one week, we lost two Cruz brothers. Former Ka’au Crater Boys founder Ernie Jr. died on Sept. 20 at the age of 56, after being pulled from the ocean at Sandy Beach on Oahu. Performing with Troy Fernandez in the popular Ka’au Crater Boys, he later pursued a successful solo career, winning Na Hoku awards for Best Male Vocalist and Island Contemporary Album of the Year. Ernie’s wife, Kahelelani, and son, Kailoa, shared a message: “Per Ernie’s request, there will be no public funeral. As Ernie wrote, ‘The way I see it we’re all together whenever we want.’ “

A former member of the group Colon, Guy passed away at the age of 49 in Hilo on Sept. 23. Colon, which included Jake Shimabukuro and Lopaka Colon, won a Hoku in 2001 as Favorite Entertainer. “I loved playing music with him,” Shimabukuro reported. “The guy had so much soul, so much heart in his music.” Guy released the memorable Hoku-nominated album “Judgment Time” in 1998, which included a reggae-style remake of Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio.”

Born into one of Hawaii’s great musical families, John Cruz is best known for his soulful vocals and unique acoustic style. He has released two widely popular Hoku Award-winning albums, “Acoustic Soul” (1996) and “One of These Days” (2007). Honolulu Magazine recognized his second album as one of the Top 25 Greatest Hawaii Albums of the New Century. Along with a solo career, he currently performs with Henry Kapono and Brother Noland as the Rough Riders. Preparing to release a new CD, he is currently featured in a new Playing for Change video singing the classic “Hi’ilawe” with Peter Moon Jr. and Greg Sardinha.

* The free concert will run from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 in front of the Baldwin Home Museum at the corner of Dickenson and Front streets in Lahaina. Limited seating is provided. Blankets, mats and low beach chairs are welcome.

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Every now and again a relatively unknown artist will perform on Maui and amaze his or her audience. Such is the likely case with Martha Redbone, who will present “Bone Hill: The Concert” in the MACC’s Castle Theater on Oct. 27.

Supremely talented, Redbone, who is of mixed Native American/African American heritage, has been hailed as “a true original, the kind of woman who sets trends” (Billboard), a “powerful blues and soul singer” (The New Yorker) and “a charismatic neo-soul diva (New York’s Time Out).

Her latest album, “The Garden of Love: Songs of William Blake,” fuses the poetry of the 18th-century visionary artist with Appalachian mountain music. AllMusic lauded it as “a truly hypnotic and eloquent roots Americana exploration.”

Redbone and her band will trace her evolution from her Kentucky mining community with traditional chants and bluegrass to contemporary soul and funk.

* Martha Redbone will perform at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 in the MACC’s Castle Theater. Tickets are $35 (plus applicable fees) and are available at the box office, by calling 242-7469 or online at www.mauiarts.org.

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The Maui Chamber Orchestra will present its Fall Concert at the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku on Saturday and Sunday. The concert will feature Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No.1; Telemann’s Concerto for Viola TWV 51:G9 in G major with soloist Teresa Skinner; Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048 in G major and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5, in B flat major, D.485.

Few musical works are performed as often as Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Esteemed musicologist Arthur Hutchings called the third concerto the greatest stroke of originality in any concerto grosso.

Schubert’s hauntingly beautiful Fifth Symphony, composed when he was 19, is acclaimed for representing the composer’s closest approach to complete mastery in the works of his early period.

Handel’s majestic Concerti Grossi contain some of the finest orchestral music of the 18th century, and Telemann’s stately Concerto for Viola in G major is among his most famous concertos.

* The Maui Chamber Orchestra will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Historic Iao Theater. There will be a “Conversations with the Conductor” discussion at 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets range from $27 to $55 and are available by calling 242-6969.

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