Our next traveling adventure will be roadtripping to Orlando, Florida for ORLX – the Orlando Lindy Exchange! We’ll be performing at the main dances on March 6 and 7, two nights of live music for your Lindy Hopping feet. Looking forward to warmer climates and we hear Orlando has some great venues. Maybe some pool time? Whatever happens, it’s going to be awesome. 🙂
As we approach the halfway mark on the Mint Julep Jazz Band album Kickstarter, we are excited that people continue to come forward to back us and to donate rewards to the Kickstarter campaign! Here are some stats, facts, and love from the past three weeks:
– As of 2/5/15 we are 65% funded with 278 backers and a total of $7,834 pledged!
– Laura’s mom donated 7 more kittens-talking-on-yellow-telephones aprons – if you’d like one, you can either pledge or upgrade your pledge, there are 2 left!
– Kim Clark of Time Machine Vintage, who makes a lot of the outfits vocalist Laura Windley wears on stage, donated a custom reproduction garment from any era, made to the backer’s specifications and measurements, inclusive of labor and materials. We are so grateful for this generous donation and it’s already been snapped up!
– Lucian Cobb and Laura Windley were featured on the internet radio talk show A Kind Voice on Music with host Tyler Wolf, talking about the Kickstarter, the new album, the creative process, and our wonderful fans! If you missed the broadcast, you can listen to the archive at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/akindvoice/2015/01/27/a-kind-voice-on-music-featuring-mint-julep-jazz-band.
If you are wondering how you can help, the easiest way to get the word out is to invite your friends to our Facebook event for the Kickstarter – Facebook automatically blocks posts that appear to be related to Kickstarter because they want you to pay for advertising, but the invite is a way to reach people directly (note: we are both paying Facebook for ads, while simultaneously circumventing them to reach even more people). Thanks so much for everyone’s help thus far, your backing us and all the “likes” on Facebook really do add up!
On January 26, 2015, Mint Julep Jazz Band members Lucian Cobb and Laura Windley will be interviewed on A Kind Voice on Music, a radio show hosted by Tyler Wolf on A Kind Voice Radio, an internet radio station that focuses on “having conversations with an eclectic group of people which include musicians, sports figures, authors, business people, film makers, philosophers and everyday heros. The common thread is they all use their kind voice to make our world a kinder, more connected place, one act at a time.”
Tune in from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EST at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/akindvoice – we’ll be talking about the new album and band shenanigans, among other things. 🙂
The Mint Julep Jazz Band will be performing at Austin, Texas’ unique and awesome event, Hot Rhythm Holiday, a weekend of dances, workshops, and live music focusing on the dances Balboa and Collegiate Shag. This is the band’s first fly-out gig and we’re excited, but hope everything goes well at the airport. Cross your fingers for no delays! Once we get there on January 17, we hope we’ll have the afternoon to explore a Austin a bit before we perform at The Fed that night. We’ll be sharing the stage with Austin’s own Thrift Set Orchestra for four sets of live music at the Saturday night dance!
We’re up and running on the Kickstarter for our new album, Battle Axe – visit our Kickstarter page to pre-order the album and pick up some great backer rewards!
We have been working diligently to get everything in place to launch a Kickstarter for our second album on January 11, 2015 – we’ll be having our Kickstarter launch party at Common 414 in Raleigh, with the full 8 piece Mint Julep Jazz Band playing from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Come join us to celebrate!
The title of the album, “Battle Axe,” is taken from a great Jimmie Lunceford tune in our book, and we anticipate that this will be a really fun album to put together, based on that title. Alexandrea Thomsen of Dtownperspective is putting together an awesome Kickstarter video for us and we have lots of new and interesting rewards in the works, as well as bringing back some old favorites (cupcakes, anyone?). Looking forward to January 11!
What started out as a Mint Julep Quintet gig at G2B Gastro Pub on November 7, 2014 ended up a full-fledged Mint Julep Jazz Band for the second set – our regular tenor player Keenan McKenzie joined us from the audience and trumpet player Jason Bohde stopped by to sit in. Thanks to Keenan’s dad, Woody McKenzie, who filmed us and to Jack Mitchell for editing and uploading to YouTube! Check out “Egyptian Ella” and “Some of These Days” below:
While we make preparations for launching our new album Kickstarter next year, we wonder if you’ve got a copy of our album or maybe a relative might like the gift of swing under their holiday tree?
We’re running a Cyber Monday special on our first album, Durham on Saturday Night, just to make sure your shopping gets covered at a better price – physical copies of our CD are usually $15.00 on CD Baby, but we’re running a one day sale on Monday, December 1 (EST), for $10.00.
Physical copies are easier to wrap than digital copies and for one day they will be the same price! Happy shopping!
We are excited to announce that we will be working with Common 414, a new 1920’s themed cocktail bar that has opened in Raleigh, NC – three upcoming events of note!
1) Friday, November 14, 2014, the Mint Julep Quintet will play from 8-11p.m. and at 10:00 p.m. we’ll be hosting and playing live music for a Charleston contest! Come show off your gams and your hot jazz moves – the winner of the Charleston contest gets a Mint Julep Jazz Band prize pack (CD, shoe bag, button) and a VIP Booth Package for Common 414 (a $250 value).
2) and 3) On two Sundays in January (11th and 25th), 2015 we begin what we hope will be a regular gig for the Mint Julep Jazz Band, so you can hear all this great music from the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s performed by our little big band twice a month! We say we hope because continuation of this event depends on you voting to keep MJJB here with your feet and your wonderful presence. Band plays from 7-10 p.m., $5 cover because there are a lot of people in the band!
Thanks so much to Common 414 for giving us this opportunity, it’s rare to see bands this large with regular gigs and we’ll do our best to keep this one – swing out, Raleigh!
The Mint Julep Jazz Band hits the road this Saturday, September 6, 2014 for the DC metro area, to perform at the Jam Cellar‘s swing dance at Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo, MD! The gorgeous Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo was built in 1933 in the Spanish Art Deco Style and played host to the great bands of the swing era and beyond – we are always excited to perform at this venue!
Dance runs 9:00 p.m. to midnight, $18.00 gets you a free beginner lesson at 8:00 p.m. and admission to the dance – see you soon, DC!
Mint Julep Jazz Band 