Delightful Dazzling Jazz!
2023 Line-Up
Baby Soda Jazz Band with special guest Cait Jones and Gordon Webster (Saturday & Sunday Main Stage)
Baby Soda Jazz Band has been a fixture at the Lawn Party since the beginning. The band was formed in 2007 in Brooklyn New York, by musicians who met playing traditional jazz in Washington Square Park and the NYC subway system. Their repertoire has expanded to include more of the music of Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Hoagy Carmichael, Harry Warren & the composers who created the great American songs of Tin Pan Alley. They are not recreationists, playing note for note transcriptions, but play this expanded repertoire in the New Orleans style of small ensemble improvisation.
Cait Jones
Cait Jones is a native New Yorker who started out as swing dancer en route to becoming a fantastic performer. She now fronts her own band, Cait & the Critters. We’re really excited to have her as a special guest joining Baby Soda and Gordon Webster on the main stage.
Gordon Webster
Gordon Webster spends a lot of his time traveling the world playing for swing dancers, from Beijing, Prague, Seoul, Melbourne, Boston, he is the leader of one of the most popular swing dance bands. His playing is soulful, and moving, if you have a moment really listen to that piano…you will be rewarded.
Cassidy and the Orleans Kids
Cassidy Holden is a musician specializing in double bass, guitar, and banjo. Originally from Maine, Cassidy has been to New York, New Orleans and back and has played for lindy hop dancers in the US and Europe. Cassidy is active as a sideman with Gordon Webster, Luke Winslow King, Dan Levinson, and the Loose Marbles. He loves to play for dancers, especially with his current New Orleans style jazz band, Cassidy and the Orleans Kids!
Rubin Brothers & Guests
A.J. and Colescott Rubin are Boston-based entertainers, vaudevillians, & jazz clowns who lift spirits and make smiles wherever they go, performing swing, blues, & popular songs of yesteryear with a light hearted energy and danceable beat. Student and staff at Berklee College of Music, respectively, they have performed across the country and internationally. Join them in the Vintage Fair, or perhaps you’ll see them on your way into the Lawn Party!
Amy Kucharik is a singer/songwriter/performer/swing dancer/busker/mouth trumpeter/foot stomper/ukele player who we’re excited to bring back to the Lawn Party and joins the Rubin Brothers on Saturday.
Annie Linders is a singer/trumpet player/bandleader who will be joining the Rubin Brothers on Sunday. She has several albums available and can be seen around New England traveling and playing with her band the Fur Trappers.
DJ Alli-Cat (Saturday)
Allison Wilhelm, or DJ Alli-Cat, has been a swing lover since 2012, when a video game piqued her interest in music from the early to mid 20th Century. It was her interest in the genre that led her to take up swing dancing. Since her interest in old school music is what led her here, it should be no surprise that her sets feature classic swing artists like Cab Calloway, Chick Webb, Artie Shaw, and Ella Fitzgerald, but she also digs the sounds of today's artists, like Michael Gamble and the Mint Julep Jazz Band. In her DJing, Allison is committed to authenticity, danceability, and diversity.
Cropped from Image by Adrianne Mathiowetz for Scout Cambridge
Omari Hayles - Emcee (Saturday)
Omari is a man of mystery. He does things. Just ask him. You will hear his dulcet communiques on the main stage.
DJ Elizabeth Glavin (Sunday)
Elizabeth has been drawn to DJing for swing and vernacular jazz dancers almost since she started dancing herself. A studying classical singer at the time, she was quickly pulled towards early styles of jazz after exposure to the music at dance events.
Several years later, she has had opportunities to study and share the music of early jazz greats for dancers up and down the East coast, and currently sings with a small band that plays for dancers and stationary listeners alike.
Her goal as a DJ is always to keep your feet moving and to leave you a little bit in love with something you hear. Look out for some of her favorite influences from this era- early Ellington, the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens, Art Tatum, Edmond Hall, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, Bessie Smith, and more!
