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This Wednesday, May 22, 2013 the Mint Julep Jazz Band will play Cary, NC’s Koka Booth Amphitheater as part of the amphitheater’s Hob Nob Jazz Concert Series! We’ve been hearing it advertised on WUNC and hope that you and some new faces will join us for a concert at this lovely outdoor venue. Joining us as an opening band is the Triangle Youth Jazz Combo. Here are the details:

The bands will be on the Crescent Deck, opposite the main stage.
The band will be on the Crescent Deck, opposite the main stage.

Koka Booth Amphitheater
8003 Regency Parkway
Cary, NC

5:30 – 6:00 p.m. – Triangle Youth Jazz Combo

6:15 – 8:30 p.m. – Mint Julep Jazz Band

Admission is $5.00 for adults, free for children ages 12 and under. For our dancer friends, it looks like the surface is wood decking. Bring a picnic after work on Wednesday and join us, or come as you are, as the amphitheater will also have food and beverage options.

For more information about the event, visit the amphitheater website.

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On Sunday, May 19, 2013, band leaders Lucian Cobb and Laura Windley will be guests on WXDU‘s Divaville Lounge from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. to talk about our new album “Durham on Saturday Night” and listen to songs from the album – tune in at 88.7 FM or go to http://wxdu.org to listen to the live stream!

We’d like to thank DJ/host Sarah Ovenall for inviting us to be on the show, which is fantastic, by the way – lots of great music from the jazz age and swing era every Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

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MJJB DOSN CD Cover

We are beyond excited about having our album, “Durham on Saturday Night,” ready for you to listen to and enjoy!

We hope that you will join us at G2B Gastro Pub on Wednesday, May 8, 2013 for our CD release party from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. – we’ll be playing a mix of tracks from the CD and classic swing music, and the band will take the stage at 9:30 p.m. for an hour-long set. If you’d like to eat dinner, they are recommending that you make a reservation; if you’d just like to snack, drink, or hang out, come as you are!

We’ll have plenty of CDs on hand for sale and we’ll also have our Kickstarter rewards available if you designated local pickup.

If you can’t make it to the CD release party, never fear! We should have the album available on iTunes and CD Baby for digital download by May 8 and will have distribution of physical copies of the CD through CD Baby sometime in the near future. You will also be able to pick up the CD at any of our upcoming shows.

For our Kickstarter supporters who are out of town and opted for mailing your rewards, we will begin shipping the CD as soon as we have it in hand, but it may take a few weeks to get all the rewards where they need to go.

Thanks again to all of our supporters, Kickstarter backers, Jamie Wolcott for her amazing cover art, Jason Richmond for both the recording and the mastering, and our maestro Lucian Cobb for the mix. We hope you love it!

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Our next big milestone is Sesame Street – tune in to Sesame Street on April 18 to hear an original tune by the Mint Julep Jazz Band! If you are in Durham, NC, Sesame Street airs at 10:00 a.m. on PBS.

We’ve been asked a lot about whether or not the band will be seen on the show and if we got to meet the Muppets, etc., but even though we will not appear on the show in person, we are in the business of making music and we are happy to lend our skills to one of the non-Muppet segments that features a great enrichment activity for children. Perhaps we can work our way up to meeting the Muppets, like local legends the Squirrel Nut Zippers. 🙂

For more information about how we snagged this great opportunity, check out our previous post on Sesame Street.

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Tune in to Sesame Street on April 18, 2013 to hear an original Mint Julep Jazz Band song in one of the non-muppet segments! We are excited to have an air date and to finally be able to make this announcement, which we’ve been keeping quiet about since September, when Lucian composed and we recorded the song.

How did this happen? It’s all about networking (or being in the right place at the right time?) – we performed at a local wedding in August and one of the guests thought we’d be perfect for a project he was doing for Sesame Street. After a few phone calls and emails we had about a week and a half to put everything together, from Lucian composing the tune, getting everyone in the same place to record it, culling enough equipment together to have a quality recording, to lots of little logistical hurdles that occur when you are contracting out your services. Needless to say, everyone in the band was really excited to be involved in something that was going to appear on Sesame Street, and, with that motivation, we pulled it off in a very short amount of time.

If you can’t tune in to the show, there may be a way to watch it online after the air date – stay tuned!

I’ve included a couple of photos from the recording session below.

The rhythm section (Aaron Tucker, Jason Foureman, Jared Wofford) with Lucian fiddling with the recording equipment
The rhythm section (Aaron Tucker, Jason Foureman, Jared Wofford) with Lucian fiddling with the recording equipment
The horn section - Keenan McKenzie, Aaron Hill, Jim Ketch, and Lucian Cobb
The horn section – Keenan McKenzie, Aaron Hill, Jim Ketch, and Lucian Cobb

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After spending the weekend in the studio recording our first album, we were sort of pinching ourselves and wondering how this was all possible – and then we remembered that this is all possible because of our amazing bunch of backers on Kickstarter! This is just a small token of our thanks, the list of all the people who crowd funded this endeavor:


Triangle Swing Dance Society
Denise Crampton
Christine Sirota
Diane Upshaw
Ryan Lemar
Andy Nishida
David Goodwin
Corey Manke
JP Benitez
Sharon Ferris
Chris Clement
Joanne Foil
Wilbur Seigler
Elizabeth Tietgen
Gary Chyi
Rob Moreland
Mike Guzzo
Tiffany Christensen
Amir Rosenblatt
Kirk & Tracy Eisenbeis
Sean Stevens
Laura Boyes
Etsuyo Choi
Jan Woraratanadharm
Dan Tullis
Paul Gilbert
Sebastien Lienard
Chris “32” Davis
Scott Reid
Hope Lambert
Erica Vess
David Bradford
Kate Hedin
Dani McQueen
Silvia Palazzolo
Binaebi Akah
Adrian Fahrer
Jennifer Barnett
Shana Worel
Amanda Fletcher
Christian Alva
Dawn Stockbridge
Valerie Salstrom
Jo Anna Capp
Lian Tarhay
James Benze
Cameron Panee
Laura Hill
Michael Quisao
Argsnargle Flartblart
Paul Oeser
Gena Bell Vargas
Greg
Megan Kilen
Robert Williams
Jed Wood
Beccy Aldrich
Joseph Bopp
Kristen Churchill
Carrie Newman
Sarah Ovenall
Joanna Fujii
Rachel Hundley
Bobby Cook
Beth Grover
Matthew McGuigan
Teresa Sparks
Ethan Uslan
Tiffany
Craig Parker
Andrea Gomez
Susanna Rosen
Debbie Blair
Alan Roberson
Shana Tucker
Eric Huang
Angela Hill
Maria Shevzov
James Green
Matthew Glassman
Clark Stern
Orla Swift
Christian Bossert
Keith Moore
Lewis Shiner
Wendy Craighill
Curtis Taylor
Stany
Michael Pelz-Sherman
Chris Evan
Ken Hanson
Eric Hirsh
Karine Irene
Glenn Crytzer
Brian Tietz
Shawn Carter
Misty Landrum
Eric Meyer
Sharon Nuanes
Kristin Buxton
Joanna Lucero
Krista Haskins
John Buhrmann
Adam Hill
Kim Alexander
Serena Calderisi
Neeshia Macanowicz
Georgia Brooks

Abigail Browning
Blaine Schultz
Kevin Slater
Holly Owens
Krista Jo Tortora
Sarah Henderson
Martha S.
Anastasia
David Rehm
Erin Hillis
Michael James
Chelsea Bromstad Lee
Karen Beckman
Shannon Sheldon
James Newman
Elizabeth Huang
Maya Bernstein
Amy Dalton
Carrie Finch
Erik Meyers
Chayant Tanti
AniKle
Rosa Matusik
Tony Morris
Bob Gould
Douglas Haas
Margo Scott
John Li
Tim McMackin
Derek
Amanda Croasdell
Bill Speidel
Ben Beccari
Laurie Desch
Lodge McCammon
Ulla Wingenfelder
Caroline
Patrick Draus
Mike Damron
Nikita Ferrell
Phillip Bailey
Emy Taylor
Breanna Perry
Laura Ansley
Amanda Stock
Mary
Dave Warner
Sairin854
Jack Mitchell
Anna Bryant
David Garner
John Rowe
Wes Price
Jamie Sturdevant
John Ennis
Chad Skeeters
Jesse Miner
Arieh Cime
Chad Adams
Jami Good
Alexander Azarov
Jennifer Wyatt
Molly McGowan
Megan Jungwiwattanaporn
Joel Watson
Schub
Daniel DeMaria
Richard Badu
verbistheword
Matt Lam
Mike Skalnik
David Ziff
Phillip Hartzog
Rebecca
Chris Shields
Keaton Ramm
Aidan Dunne
Michael Baswell
Peter Bonventre
Mimi Liu
A
Hilary Mercer
Keith Beckman
Alicia
Nirav Sanghani
Michael Schmidt
Claire Cobley
Yossef Mendelssohn
virtuald
Emily
liu264
Skjargh
Teresa Attwater
Brooke
Emily Friesen
Rich Werden
Alex Richard
Emma Durham
Gabrielle Kern
Michael Van Andel
Ferdinand Stout
Michael Glasgow
Stephen Coffman
Laura Pilcher
Jane Dawson
Tom Blair
Alexandra Boyer
Aleksandr

If we have somehow missed your name, please email us at mintjulepjazzband@gmail.com and we will make it right!

We look forward to delivering these recordings to you all sometime before this May – thank you again for making our first recording endeavor a reality! Crowd funding is truly amazing!

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From our June performance for the Triangle Swing Dance Society, courtesy of Tiffany Lindquist.

It’s our last show of the year and we are delighted to be performing for the Triangle Swing Dance Society for their election/potluck dance. To usher in the season, we’ll be performing a couple of Christmas tunes in our set. Come dance off all the turkey you ate last week!

Triangle Swing Dance Society dance
Murphey School
3717 Murphy School Road, Durham, NC

Admission: Members/students $8.00, general admission $12.00

Free beginner lesson at 7:00 p.m.

Band plays from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

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No, seriously, they really do. John Ennis and Ruth Brown are getting married on September 8, 2012 and are opening up their wedding reception to be an open-to-the-public swing dance. For John and Ruth, there is no better way to spend their wedding weekend than surrounded by live swing music and dancing. To that end, they have planned a weekend doing just that and are inviting everyone who wishes to dance to amazing music to attend not one, but two dance events – the more the merrier!

Here’s the information from the Facebook invite:

John is a big fan of Fred Astaire and we’ll be performing at least one of his songs for the reception/dance

“Friday, September 7th, 2012
Live Band: Gypsy Roots
9:00pm – midnight
Beginner Lindy Hop lesson at 7:30

Saturday, September 8th, 2012
Live Band: The Mint Julep Jazz Band
2:00pm-5:00pm
Beginner Lindy Hop lesson at 1:00

Location:
Lewis Ginter Recreation Association
3421 Hawthorne Ave.
Richmond, VA

Admission:
General: $10 for one dance, $15 for both
Students: $7 for one dance, $10 for both

Spiffy attire encouraged for the Saturday dance (we’ll be in wedding attire)! Please wear comfortable shoes with smooth soles (please, no black rubber soles).

New to dancing? Have no fear! Ruth and John will be teaching the beginner lesson before the Friday night dance, while Erica Vess and Ryan Lemar will be teaching the beginner lesson before the Saturday afternoon dance. No dance partner required.

Erica Vess will also provide her excellent and nationally recognized DJ skills during the band breaks!

And of course, there will be cake…”

We are excited to be a part of the wedding festivities and are looking forward to dancing, cake, and performing at the historic ballroom at the Lewis Ginter Recreation Center!