BBVD outlives swing revival

By: JAMES CURRAN - Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 23, 2005 7:24 AM PST ∞

Sound from a band is always important to a dedicated musician. For trumpeter Glen Marhevka, there was some extra appeal the first time he considered joining Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

"At the time, I was playing with guys 50 years old," Marhevka said. "It would be like, 'We're musicians ---- you don't get up and move around.' What was definitely appealing was I saw a group of my peers up there ... wanting to express yourself and have a good time.

"When I saw the band onstage, it was like, this is totally what I want. It was more than just a cool gig. Instantly, it was the coolest thing to do. I wanted to have fun up there and play. This is perfect."

So it didn't matter that at that time ---- the late 1980s to early '90s ---- that a young swing band was unlikely to be thought of as hip. Marhevka's trumpeting became a welcome addition for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, which led a brief swing revival and continues its aggressive tour schedule to this day.

The seven-piece swing band ---- with vivid suits and swift dancing feet to match its energetic music ---- will perform Friday at California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy tours the world and performs more than 200 dates a year. With that said, Marhevka ---- called "The Kid" by his bandmates ---- said playing onstage never gets tired.

"This is a band that needs to be in front of people," Marhevka said. "We don't take a year off for an album. We're a little different than that. We're more of a people's band.

"The average person might know one of our songs, so getting in front of people is really important."

Marhevka said it took awhile to let his friends know he was a musician when he was growing up. He called it a double life ---- performing in the high school band during the day and skateboarding and listening to punk rock after practice.

"A lot of my skate friends, they had no idea that ... I was learning about Miles Davis and stuff like that," he said. "In my 20s, all of a sudden, it was cool. I don't think they knew the extent of how committed I was to it then."

Band founder Scotty Morris created the band in 1989, its name coming from a dedication from blues guitar legend Albert Collins. Morris wrote that he was jaded by parts of the music business when he created the band. Marhevka had no such issues.

"(The band) combined a lot of the elements of ... my style of the big band upbringing and as a skater and a surfer," he said. "It crossed both of my worlds.

"We were just ambitious. We wanted to get our own thing going on."

Marhevka said that despite swing's heyday being decades earlier, he had a funny feeling that Big Bad Voodoo Daddy would turn heads.

"It was just different than anything else," he said. "I was just thinking, 'If I put all my effort into it, something cool is going to come out of it.' The others in the band had the same attitude. I had no idea what was going to come; I just knew it was going to be cool."

Marhevka said the band carved a niche in Hollywood clubs, its sound atypical of the crunching rock or hip-hop beats from other stages. Entertainment industry bigwigs got a kick out of the band, and the trumpeter recalls a Christmas gig with Bruce Willis as a high point of his career.

Part of the reason Big Bad Voodoo Daddy gained a following went beyond the music. Wild suits and musicians in constant motion make the band visually stimulating, as well.

"The overall vibe was what people liked a lot," Marhevka said. "You could go to a street fair in San Francisco. Nobody knew who we were, but we'd come out there in the suits and hats. People never saw it before, but they all had smiles on their faces. ... You can't help but think, 'Those guys are having fun.'

"Fortunately, we got lucky and it blew up in the media eye."

As for the sound, Marhevka said swing is an all-encompassing genre.

"All jazz has swing in it," he said. "It started from Dixieland and hot jazz. ... Dizzy Gillespie started listening to Cuban music, the rhythms and stuff like that. We're classified as neo-swing, whatever that means. I just know we take our influences and mold it together."

For Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's last album, "Save My Soul," Marhevka said it was particularly energizing to record with former Tower of Power trumpter Lee Thornburg.

"I always learn from Lee," Marhevka said. "I look up to him as sort of a hero. Every time I perform with him, I get more inspired."

That vibe from playing alongside Thornburg on the song "Zig Zagitty Part 1" carried over to Marhevka's work on "Part 2." Morris said Marhevka's solo on "Zig Zagitty Part 2" is his best work.

Marhevka said he took a different approach on that song.

"A lot of times I really try to work stuff out before we get in the studio," he said. "I analyze it for a long time, but I remember that particular song ... I had only a couple of ideas. I remember the guys and Scott telling me to try something else and it just came out right there. It was real off the cuff. As a live band, you get special moments like that in front of a crowd. In a studio, that's hard to re-create."

Marhevka said it was typical of the band for the entire recording session on that album.

"We just let the album sort of make itself and a lot of great things came out of it," he said.