Recapturing the joy — Elgin man brings together music veterans in Vintage Swing Band
You can take the kid out of the jazz band, but you can’t take the jazz band out of the kid. Or something like that.
It’s a formula that sits at the core of Bruce Cameron of Elgin, organizer and frontman for the Vintage Swing Band, a group of musicians returning to their love of music to keep the popular Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie tunes of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s alive.
Vintage Swing Band is a gift to music lovers and swing dancers, directly from Cameron’s desire to recapture the joy he had in high school and college jazz bands after about 40 years of not playing in a band.
Basically, he had to wait until he retired 11 years ago from selling and managing software companies at age 60 and moving to Bowes Creek in Elgin.
“I asked my wife if she minded if I converted the basement of our townhouse into a studio and start a jazz band,” Cameron said.
You better ask about something like that, and Cameron was pleased to get the thumbs-up from his wife Pam, who had been a teacher at Thompson Middle School in St. Charles but, more recently, a member of the band and supporter of her husband’s music passion.
“The original thought process was to find other people like myself who had played in high school and college but hadn’t played in many years and wanted to get together and start a band,” Cameron said.
In quick order, Cameron constructed his basement studio in June of 2019 and began recruiting musicians two months later. After initially finding only about six interested players for a jazz band that would best function with about 17 members, Cameron started looking for musicians at churches and small venues.
“I found enough people that we literally had our first concert in December of 2019 in our studio, playing holiday songs for about 40 people who came,” said Cameron. Cameron calls himself one of the weaker trombone players in the band; thus, he focuses a lot of time on sales and managing gigs for the band.
The band’s momentum in 2019 came to a halt in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Jazz music went silent until September 2021.
Since then, Vintage Swing Band has picked up significant momentum. Its cast includes about 25 members, including setup and teardown crews.
The band reached a high-water mark when performing its largest gig last weekend at the “Folds of Honor” event, which raised money for Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund, at the AON Ballroom on Navy Pier in Chicago.
“It’s beyond a bucket list gig for us,” Cameron said prior to the event, which drew more than 300 people. “The charity is expecting to raise more than a half-million dollars. We will bring musicians from age 16 into the 70s, and we’re going to blow the roof off the place.”
It was a major step for the band, which mainly had performed at smaller shows and didn’t break into the larger venues — with alcohol served and patrons dancing in a ballroom setting — until last year at the Prohibition Ball at the Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee.
The band has since performed at more dance shows, including one at the Club Arcada speakeasy in St. Charles and Old Republic Restaurant in Elgin.
The chance to play at Navy Pier came about mainly because the band stressed a key goal of raising money for student scholarships and various organizations with its shows.
That reputation turned into an invitation from an event manager to do the “Folds of Honor” event (the “folds” represent how an American flag is folded to honor a fallen soldier). The band’s experience in doing USO shows featuring its Andrews Sisters cover trio singing all of the popular World War II songs caught the attention of the Folds planners.
Amy Bishop, Kathy McCullough and Karen Galivan, all of St. Charles, portray the Andrews Sisters for the band.
In addition to Cameron and his wife, son Matt Cameron and granddaughter Cara Cameron, other Tri-Cities area residents in the band include Todd Hewell III, Todd Hewell IV, Joe Blomquist, Ryan Katz, Ethan Grimes, Evan O’Connor, Joe Schaefer, Dan Putz, Alex Tschetter, Tim Falls and Pat Fredericks.
Ultimately, the Vintage Swing Band represents a simple truth about people who have spent a significant portion of their lives playing or teaching music.
“There are many people in the band with careers in music education who love just being able to play their primary instruments in a band,” Cameron said, noting that Larry Rossi of St. Charles, who was well-known in local music circles when he owned studio RPM, was an original member of the band before stepping away a couple of years ago.
Even after losing a music veteran like Rossi, the band continues to draw interest from experienced musicians. Cameron has been able to see the end result.
“The quality of the band is getting better and better,” he said. “The band is getting pretty well known, and we are going to keep playing as many local gigs as we can.”
Chick-fil-A fits in nicely
As St. Charles nears a Chick-fil-A opening on the city’s east side, it will set up a nice trifecta of restaurants in that area accessed through a frontage road off East Main Street at 38th Avenue.
When construction started on the Chick-fil-A site nearly a year ago, the company targeted a fall 2024 opening. We’re on the calendar, and the quick-serve restaurant looks ready, but as of last week, the company has not announced a specific opening date.
When it does open, it will sit near the Olive Garden restaurant and the Tasty Biscuit breakfast restaurant.
This gives area residents solid choices for each meal of the day. It also makes sense in terms of luring workers from the area businesses and visitors at nearby motels. It’s the same premise that has allowed Portillo’s in that area to thrive.
Having said that, I believe you could put a Chick-fil-A in an open field out in the middle of nowhere, and people would find it and spend money there.
BatFest has that roll
Of all the Halloween events that kids and their parents could be attracted to in the coming weeks, one feature always sticks out in my mind.
Years ago, I attended the annual BatFest in downtown Batavia to write a story for the Daily Herald, and the Pumpkin Roll contest caught my attention.
It was silly and fun — two elements right in my wheelhouse. Kids roll pumpkins down the Houston Street hill to see which ones travel the farthest. When a youngster’s attempt results in a pumpkin making it past the McDonald’s parking lot at the bottom of the hill, everyone gets a kick out of it.
Of course, BatFest offers much more when it unfolds this year from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26. Besides trick-or-treating downtown, there are numerous other activities, including a parade for kids, costume contests for kids and pets, face painting, and performances at the Peg Bond Center.
But that Pumpkin Roll. Now, that’s something different.
Always mark our calendar
Many holiday events throughout the Tri-Cities area are automatically marked on our calendar, so we rarely miss them.
One event that has already hit our calendar is the Geneva Women’s Club’s 49th annual holiday craft fair, which will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 10, at Geneva High School.
It’s $5 to get in to check out more than 100 crafters. For me, it is also a major plus that baked goods, a food truck and prize drawings are part of the day.
Most importantly, the event raises money for various local organizations supporting family and mental health and the Geneva schools.
Our walking pattern
It’s safe to say that the recent closing of Route 31 (South First Street) in Geneva at the railroad overpass and then the Third Street railroad crossing caused some annoyance for drivers who often travel those routes.
With both of those closings reopened and the railroad track work now closing the crossing at Western Avenue, we can confess that we didn’t mind the previous closings.
Why? Because they came into play during our morning walks on the days we make our way through downtown Geneva.
It was easy to cross Route 31 on foot when it was closed, and it was nice to cross Third Street near the Metra station without worrying about cars coming from either direction.
dheun@sbcglobal.net