Music from earlier eras has always had the strongest appeal for me, to the point I’ve always thought that I was born in the wrong decade. Fortunately, a lot of other people feel the same way.
I honestly did not go to the Hideout to see The Quickshifters, I went early to have a few drinks and relax before seeing Jim Dan Dee. As I stood by the bar chatting with a friend I got distracted mid sentence by the sight of a mustachioed man with a stand up bass on the stage, and next to him was a bespectacled man holding a trumpet who happened to be sporting a colourful Mohawk. I suddenly had a hunch that this band would interest me. I squeezed my way through the crowd to the bench beside the stage. When the band did start, they burst into big band blues with a shiny outer coating of swing jazz and I was smitten.
As a bassist myself I obviously have a bias, and there is something about the lead singer playing a stand up bass that sucked me in right away. Their influences are an amalgam not unlike the concoction of genres that created jump blues, one of the progenitors of rock and roll. Appropriately, the crowd spontaneously decided to have an unofficial swing dance competition. My favorite moment might have been when they did a swing blues Taj Mahal cover of ‘Blue Light Boogie’, it was a credit to the band’s amazing taste within the blues genre. Their style had many versatile, but classic aspects to it, I could see them opening for anyone from Downchild Blues Band to Pokey Lafarge.
To find out more, go to The Quickshifters page:
https://www.facebook.com/The-Quickshifters-116294718767348/?fref=ts
Review and Pictures by: Gideon Greenbaum-Shinder
Edited by: Jesse Kline
To find out more, go to The Quickshifters page:
https://www.facebook.com/The-Quickshifters-116294718767348/?fref=ts
Review and Pictures by: Gideon Greenbaum-Shinder
Edited by: Jesse Kline
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