Crazy in Love with Patsy Cline: Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers April 28, 2012

Jazz and country music are often cast as antithetical cultural forces, signifying a blue state/red state divide. But the styles have been kissing cousins since they each took shape early in the 20th century, even forming a blissful union with the rise of western swing in the late 1930s. Lavay Smith knows this history well, and she brings a bracing, bluesy jolt of energy to the jazz/country crossroads with Crazy In Love With Patsy Cline, a project featuring Bobby Black on pedal steel guitar and her scorching 7 piece band, The Red Hot Skillet Lickers.

In crafting jazz and blues-steeped arrangements of songs associated with Cline, Smith and her band found inspiration in the seminal country & western recordings of Ray Charles, while also drawing on Duke Ellington and Count Basie for horn arrangements. With her big, luscious voice and sassy stage presence, she has what it takes to infuse sultry swing into Cline's tales of woe.

The Band: Bobby Black, Pedal Steel, Jules Broussard, Alto sax, Robert Stewart, Tenor sax, Danny Armstrong, Trombone, Mike Olmos, Trumpet, Howard Wiley, Drums, Marcus Shelby, Bass, and Chris Siebert, Piano.

Official Website: http://www.142throckmortontheatre.org