Gold Coast Jazz Band

Gold Coast Jazz Band

~HOT 'N HAPPY CLASSIC HOT JAZZ FROM RAGTIME TO SWING~

The Gold Coast Jazz Band performs the popular music of America in the first third of the 20th century, from Ragtime to the dawn of the Swing era, a period of incredible musical creativity when the Golden Age of American Popular Song met the Jazz Age.

Since its formation by the late Phil Stiers in 1993, the Gold Coast Jazz Band has presented this uniquely American music with energy and style guaranteed to put a smile on your face, set your toes to tapping and feet to dancing.

Our book includes more than 300 tunes of the period, including New Orleans and Chicago-style traditional jazz, rags and novelty tunes, hot dance numbers, and early swing tunes. It's the music of Jelly Roll Morton, Louis and Lil Hardin Armstrong, Kid Ory, Joe "King" Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, young Duke Ellington and Benny Moten, the great songwriters of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and more.

The music is timeless, with proven appeal not only to members of the "Greatest Generation" who grew up with it, but also to the young Lindy Hoppers and swing dancers of today, discovering this "hot and happy" music for the first time.

We've played it for dances, jazz society meetings, festivals, club dates, church services, funerals, wakes, private parties, business and civic gatherings, fund raisers, campaign rallies and all manner of other events.

Phil used to say "the band's followers have 'Gold Coast-itis', a condition thought by some to be incurable, whose symptoms are an uncontrollable urge to dance and smile a lot." The music is just as infectious as ever twenty-eight years later.

And, since 2014, the seven- to eight-piece regular band has been joined under the Gold Coast Jazz banner by the Gold Coast Five. With trumpet, trombone and clarinet joined by banjo and tuba, the five-piece group offers authentic New Orleans-style traditional jazz for smaller venues, such as garden parties, wine tastings, business grand openings, birthday celebrations and other special events