How to go
What: The Alan Gresik Swing Shift Orchestra
When: 8 p.m. March 26
Where: Kuss Auditorium
Tickets: $15 to $30; visit pac.clark state.edu or call (937) 328-3874
SPRINGFIELD — Consider the Alan Gresik Swing Shift Orchestra, a band that specializes in the swing of the ’30s — played using vintage arrangements and turned into a proper stage show with the addition of actors who perform live commercials, it’s like some old-time radio broadcast crackling back to life.
In theory, it’s sort of like that old episode of “Star Trek” where Kirk and Spock beam down to an Earth-like planet of 1920s mobsters.
Watch as Kirk tries to drive a car!
Listen as Spock attempts to talk slang!
See them wear fedoras!
Only it’s nothing like that.
Yes, these 21st-century musicians are doing their best to recapture a brief moment in ancient history, but they realize it’s about more than just looking the part.
It’s about feeling it.
And when Gresik’s big band plays Kuss Auditorium on March 26, they’ll heed the words that earthlings themselves at one time adhered to — it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
These musicians swing.
And tango and fox-trot and waltz.
“They’re not pale imitations of something that happened 70 years ago,” insisted singer and trumpeter Matt Lewis, 37. “You’re really hearing it in a fresh way.”
If it’s like taking a ride in a time machine at all, then Gresik drives the thing like a getaway car after whacking some poor palooka.
“This really is the rock music of the 1930s,” Gresik said.
But back then, he explained, “big band” was merely an adjective. Today it’s a noun.
That’s where Gresik’s big band perhaps differs from, say, that facsimile of the Glenn Miller Orchestra that comes around every so often — these guys play like Capone himself is breathing down their collars.
“People will leave with a changed mind,” Gresik said. “They thought they knew what it was.”
For starters, Gresik’s band can’t help but be authentic — they’re from Chicago.
Not only that, but Gresik has exclusive access to 26,000 stock arrangements from the city’s Balaban and Katz movie chain (the Chicago Theatre was theirs).
“You could play the whole thing straight through,” Gresik said, “or use bits and pieces for whatever was needed.”
The majority of the band’s repertoire dates from 1933-39.
“They’re such good arrangements,” Lewis said. “It’s just fun to play them.”
Since 1998, the band — once seen on the big screen in the 2000 romantic comedy “Return to Me” — has been the house band at Chicago’s Green Mill, a historic jazz club once partially owned by Capone goon “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn.
The band’s regular Thursday night gig attracts people ranging from 21 to 81, Lewis said.
“They do have this sense that they’re stepping back in time,” he said. “But it becomes real and tangible to them. They want to get up and dance.”
Further proof that this ain’t just a history lesson?
“It’s amazing,” Lewis said, “how many beautiful 25-year-old women come out to this thing.”
Live long and prosper.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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