Swingtime Jazz Band Schedules Free Concerts
By Space Coast Daily // July 13, 2012
Picnic-Like Setting
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – “Come In and Cool Off” is the theme of the Swingtime Jazz Band’s free concerts July 18 and 19.
The concerts begins at 6:30 p.m. each night at the Melbourne Auditorium, 625 E. Hibiscus Avenue and is a “Not-In-The-Park Picnic” concert with the audience invited to bring family, friends and a picnic dinner to enjoy.
A breezy summer program will feature such favorites as Limehouse Blues, I Could Write A Book, Come Fly With Me, I Got It Bad, Yesterdays, Northwest Passage, Perdido,and many more. Popular local vocalists Sally Hart, who performed with Lawrence Welk, and Len Fallen, also well known on the Space Coast, will be featured.
The band is under the direction of Conductor Art Martin, tenor and baritone saxophonist, who has performed with Warren Covington, the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie and The Platters, to name just a few.
Dinner And Show
Instead of traditional concert seating, long tables will be set up to enable a ‘dinner and show’ experience and audience members can bring along their picnic dinners. Drinks, ice and snacks will be available for purchase at the concession table.
Swingtime, part of the Melbourne Municipal Band, is a 20-piece jazz band, playing music from the 1920s to the 1970s. The for-hire band features saxophones, trombones, trumpets, a piano, guitar, bass and trap set, along with two vocalists and a conductor/announcer.
The Melbourne Municipal Band was established in 1965 and plays free concerts for the citizens of Brevard County nearly every month.
Entertainment
It also contributes to the community by playing at parades, patriotic concerts and ceremonial performances.
Some 30 percent of the band’s 80-plus members are professional musicians. In a typical year, the band serves 69,000 concert attendees, and its members give 27,000 hours of community service in the form of rehearsals and performance time.
There is no charge for the July concerts and tickets are not required. Doors open at 5:30.
Call 321-724-0555 or visit www.mmband.org for more information.
