'Red Hot' Combo Plays Footloose and Fancy-free

Author: Laura Isham Staff Writer

This Saturday I went to a swing dance in McCullough. Plenty of people from the Footloose Club, as well as other students who knew how to swing dance, went to this event. There were many talented dancers there, and although this was simply a fun dance, not a performance, it would have been fun to go just to watch people dance, even if the music had not been good. The dancers were obviously having a good time; one student I talked to said that this was the most fun that he had had in a month.

The primary attraction for me, though, was not the dancing. It was the band that the Footloose Club had booked for the event. Jim Branca and the Red Hot Stompin' Combo is a Vermont-based band that is stylistically based in jump blues. Whenever I use the phrase "jump blues," most people immediately say, "What?" Jump blues is heavily swing-influenced and was the precursor to early rock 'n' roll.

Two well-known songs that were originally straight jump blues are "Hound Dog" and "Jump, Jive, an' Wail," later popularized by Elvis Presley and the Brian Setzer Orchestra, but originally performed by Big Mama Thornton and Louis Prima, respectively. This band was certainly not limited to jump blues songs, though; material included "The 'A' Train," "My Baby," "Fly Me To The Moon," "All of Me" and "I Wanna Be Like You." In other words, this band could play songs that ranged from swing, to Chicago blues, to Frank Sinatra songs, to the '1930s jazz of Billie Holiday, to a song from the Disney animated movie "The Jungle Book"!

Although the performers themselves are experienced musicians, the band was formed within the last couple years. Bandleader, singer, and guitarist Jim Branca, or as he is sometimes known, "Jumpin' Jimmy Branca," was until recently the leader of the band Bloozotomy and saxophonist Lenny "The Lip" Makowski was also in both bands. This helped the entire band achieve a tight sound not usually associated with recently formed bands. Also, I could not point out a single performer that was not a talented musician—there were no weak links in this band.

Two student performers joined the band as well, each for one song. Alana Sagin '04 sang a sultry version of "Fine and Mellow," a borderline blues/jazz song made famous by Billie Holiday. Gale Berninghausen '05 performed on baritone saxophone, improvising as well as playing the saxophone accompaniment. These performances received perhaps the most applause of the entire evening. The band demonstrated its aptitude for showmanship with some creative playing: Lenny Makowski performed more than once on the "double saxophone" (alto and tenor saxophone played simultaneously), Jim Branca played the guitar behind his back, and some interesting call-and-response happened when Makowski repeated Branca's improvisations on his saxophone—by improvisations I mean vocal improvisations, with a little bit of bicycle horn thrown in. What was perhaps the most impressive, though, is that these things did not detract from the music that they played, and the sound remained as good as ever.

Jim Branca's Web site is http://www.moonfarmproductions.com and he also has a radio show on the Point, http://www.wncs.com.