"The last swing music revival of the late 1990s heralded in by groups like the Brian Setzer Orchestra may have seemed like the end of the line for the big band-fueled dance craziness - just don't tell that to Rebecca Roudman."
"A classical music student at Cal State Hayward (today's CSU East Bay) in the late 1990s, Roudman and her future husband we're so into jumpin' and jivin' that they did made up fake IDs to let themselves get into swing dance clubs in San Francisco. And they just kept on swingin'."
""We were worried that all the young performers in the group wouldn't have a chance to play jazz. So we thought we should form a jazz band of seasoned professionals and these young players.""
""In Portugal of all places, where you would think they're not going to relate to any of the themes of the music at all and not even understand it maybe, they were totally having a great time," says Roudman."
Rebecca Roudman and her husband Jason Eckl carry on the swing tradition through their band Death and Taxes, combining experienced professionals and young players to preserve jazz performance opportunities. Roudman, a classically trained cellist and orchestra director at Cal State East Bay, serves as the band's sultry lead singer and electric cellist; Eckl plays guitar and arranges music. The band formed when the university jazz program faced cancellation, prompting a roster that mixes veterans and up-and-comers. Death and Taxes performs locally, including a Valentine's Day concert at Alameda's USS Hornet, and has found enthusiastic audiences in Europe, notably Portugal.
Read at The Mercury News
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