Listening to Eight to the Bar is a lot like driving along a time-warped highway precisely halfway between Count Basie’s Kansas City and Fats Waller’s Harlem, where the car radio picks up everything from Jumpin’ at the Woodside to The Andrews Sisters. Their material, like their outlandish wardrobes and onstage choreo, is a colorful mix of forties jazz and swing, fifties jump blues, and their own swing-influenced tunes. With their female vocals, saxophone (their sax player, Collin Tilton is the original sax and flute player In Van Morrison’s band, and appears on Morrison’s quadruple-platinum-selling Moondance album), guitar, bass, keyboards and drums, this unique sextet pack a musical and visual wallop not seen in New England since the group’s inception in 1975. Since that time they have released 12 CDs and have excited audiences from Europe to the Caribbean. The band has been named “Best Band 2014” by Hartford Magazine and recently had the honor of touring the Republic of Georgia (near Russia) at the invitation of the U.S. Embassy there. Currently the group has just released its 12th CD,Bring It & Swing It! (rain date / location: Tues July 26th, The Prado)
