We can't live without Lindy Hoppers
We started six years as a dixieland quintet that wanted to play for dancers. Thanks to our amazing SwingWings community we grew up into a European festival touring band with 8-9 memebers and 40s Lindy Hop specific repertoir. During those years we got asked about recording of our music. For a long time we used to say to reply, that we don’t really feel the need to record the songs that were rendered timeless by the giants many times in the most amazing versions.
The Big Band sound
As our horn section and band grew, we also made our arrangements more complex. Last year our pianist Čeněk Kraut finished a complete revamp of our songbook and in the process found his own style of compressing big band hits into 4 horn arrangements. The result is sounds like a much larger orchestra and it is distictively «our sound». That’s when we realised it’s time to record our work and capture the phase where we stand as a band.
We are in love with Basie's 50s live sound
When we decided to record our arrangements we did have an idea about the sound we wanted to achieve. We were lucky enough to help initialize a rebirth of legendary studio Jalovec near our hometown Brno. Recording took place in a huge big band room with a natural reverb that didn’t allow for much postrpoduction but combined with vintage microphones and a great team of audioengineers produced result reminiscent Basie’s 50s live sound.
That’s why we decided to press the album on vinyl, it is the only way how to make justice to the music we love so much.