Metro Pulse/Music/The Streamliners

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What:
The Streamliners

When:
Every first and third Friday, 10 p.m.; expected to start July 17.

Where:
Fairbanks Roasting Room, soon to reopen at Homberg Place.

Cost:
$6

Swing dancing is alive and well in Knoxville, thanks to the music of local big band The Streamliners

by Leslie Wylie

The swing dancing revival of the late '90s took to pop culture like a bad case of kudzu—quickly, quietly weaving itself into the nation's entertainment landscape, taking root in everything from top-40 radio to GAP commercials. Eventually the fad ran its course, but evidently Knoxville never got the memo that it was over.

Judging from its flourishing swing dance scene, it doesn't look like the city will be hanging up its zoot suit anytime soon. Every first and third Friday of the month, enthusiasts of all ages pack Fairbanks Roasting Room, newly relocated to Homberg Place, and spend the evening scuffing up the dance floor to the soundtrack of local big band The Streamliners.

"Swing dancing has sort of died down on a national level, but you've got these pockets of places that are keeping this stuff alive, and Knoxville's one of them, luckily for us," says Mike Spirko, band leader and trumpeter of The Streamliners.

Spirko, along with fellow musicians Mischa Goldman and Thomas Heflin, launched the band's nine-member precursor, The Uptown Rhythm Kings, in 1998. As its members' visions for the band began to align, the old name was dropped, format changes were made, and The Streamliners was formed.

"We wanted to be a dance band. We wanted to do swing music and jazz that we loved and everybody could sink their musical teeth into, but we also wanted people to be able to dance to it," Spirko says.

He notes that there is a difference between neo-swing music and the more traditional swing music that The Streamliners performs. Neo-swing, which was brought to the commercial forefront by radio friendly bands like the Stray Cats and Cherry Poppin' Daddies, emerged from the rockabilly tradition, is more guitar-driven, and works with a smaller band concept. The Streamliners' sound and arrangements are truer to their authentic swing roots, nodding in the direction of big band pioneers like Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

Goldman explains, "Our main goal was to approach this music like it was in the '20s, '30s and '40s. Swing bands were the party bands. They were the show bands. You go there to have fun. People were showing off, doing the dances... It was loud, the music was fast, and it was in your face."

Three years later, the ensemble has evolved into a 15-member jazz onslaught whose music can be appreciated by dancers and chair-warmers alike. The pool of talented musicians is comprised of local professional or not-active professional musicians and higher caliber student musicians.

"They're all cream of the crop musicians," Spirko says. "There's such a wide talent base of jazz musicians in Knoxville that people don't know about that it's possible for us to support a band like this."

Recently, The Streamliners' band infrastructure was uprooted when the band's charismatic centerpiece, Paige Wroble, was selected to take over the lead vocalist position of Airmen of Note, the premier jazz ensemble of the United States Air Force. Stationed at the Boling Air Force base in Washington, D.C., The Note was created in 1950 to carry on the tradition of Glenn Miller's Army Air Corps Dance Band and is one of today's few touring big bands. Wroble will begin performing with the band after completing basic training in mid-July.

Wroble says that she had been waiting for a spot in the band to open up for nearly eight years. "They did a national search and picked me, and I'm still just amazed. I have dreams about it. I wake up sometimes having to double-check myself and make sure that I won the audition, that I didn't just dream it."

Her bandmates vacillate between lamenting her departure and sharing her excitement, but when it comes to playing music, they don't intend to skip a beat. As long as the three elements necessary for swing dancing's survival——dedicated musicians, a good club and a strong fan base—continue to grow and evolve, The Streamliners intends to keep up the pace.

"The thing I wish people would begin to recognize is that we're really the only town, the only area that's doing this," Goldman says. "It's a really, really unique thing."