The Big Band Sound

The poster for the gig in the Cincinnati entertainment district.

Using my Italian heritage family last name (Latham is too hard to pronounce), I opened my Big Band Show at Boswells in Cincinnati on Saturday. My wife, worked into the act during the past few months, did a wonderful job with our duet on Rain or Shine, and her renditions of Summertime, Cheek to Cheek, and Fever. We had some trouble adjusting our sound equipment to the room after it filled up. The background ambience, the high ceilings, and brick walls created quite an echo. Now that we know the room, we can fix any sound distortion for our return.

I performed almost three hours of my Sinatra, Bennett, Nat King Cole, and other Big Band and Torch songs. We had the Standing Room Only house rocking to swing music from the 30s to the 70s. Since real big bands are scarce, we use recorded background music with QSC speakers, Yamaha stereo board, a bank of accent spotlights, and Schure microphones. Some of my old Nashville road band players from back in the day were there and many friends I haven't seen in years.

Boswells wants us back every four weeks on a rotating basis. Most big band acts that do perform concentrate more on the music and the horns than the vocals, and that's where we are different. We concentrate on excellent vocals and timing to create a total big band atmosphere so the result is more like the old supper club acts from the big band era. All in all, we had a great time, and the club owners and patrons were very happy. I'm looking forward to our next performance.

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