Solomon Douglas
Solomon Douglas Swingtet bio
Solomon Douglas is a jazz pianist and bandleader, whose various bands have played at more than fifty exchanges, camps, workshops, and other dance events in North America, Asia, and Australia in the past eight years. His experience as a swing dancer and dance instructor gives him an understanding unique among musicians of the music that swing dancers and blues dancers like to dance to!
The Solomon Douglas Swingtet is a ten-piece dance band whose repertoire is rooted in that of the Basie band (One O’Clock Jump, Jive at Five, Splanky, Shorty George, Shiny Stockings) and that of the Ellington band (Cottontail, “C” Jam Blues, Mood Indigo, Take The “A” Train), with other big-band standards and classic jazz tunes thrown in as well. They can cater to a crowd that prefers up-tempo classic swing, to a crowd that prefers slower groovier jazz, or to anything in between. Past dance events that featured the Solomon Douglas Swingtet include the Canada Day Exchange (Ottawa, ON), June 2007; the Virginia Beach Lindy Exchange, June 2007; Swing Out Nowhere (Moscow, ID), Apr. 2007; the Sacramento Swing Jam, Aug. 2006; Philadelphia Lindy Love, June 2006; Camp Jitterbug (Seattle), May 2006 and May 2007; the Portland Lindy Exchange, Mar. 2006; the Killer Diller Ball (Seattle), Dec. 2005; the Emerald City Blues Festival (Seattle), Oct. 2005; the Seattle Lindy Exchange, Aug. 2005; Swing Out Northwest (near Seattle), Dec. 2002, Dec. 2004, and Dec. 2006; the All-Balboa Weekend (Cleveland), May 2003; the Detroit Lindy Exchange, May 2003; and the Toronto Lindy Exchange, Oct. 2002.
The following photos are by Jeremy Stell-Smith. Please give him photographer credit if you use them. Click on the images for high-res versions.
