Best Polka Bands - Swingmasters

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During the 1960's and 1970's, the Polskie Swingmasters were one of the Hazleton, PA area's hottest Polka bands, playing as many as four shows each week, and touring throughout Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and even Illinois.

The "Swings", as their fans called them, released three successful polka albums: "Good Living", "Out All Night" and "Polka Jukebox". Some of their best known songs were "Mommy's Homemade Chicken Soup", "You're Driving Me Crazy", "Old Blud Jeans" and "We've Go It All Togehter".

Now, after close to 30 years, the band has reunited. Original members Steve Brill, Jack Belovesick and Carl Simchena decided to play a limited number of engagements and release a great new cd titled "Jammin' At the Cabin".

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Here is the official "Swingmaster Band" history as written on the Jammin' At the Cabin cd by Steve Brill:

"In mid-1950 a band was formed by a few musicians living in the Hazleton, PA area and they named the band the Swingmasters. I joined the group in late 1966. We played many weddings, picnics, parties with a variety of music, mainly Polkas, but also slow dance tunes (Billy Vaughn style) cha-chas and jitterbug. Polkas were very popular at that time so we decided to do a polka album and changed the name of the band to reflect that. Thus the name "The Polskie Swingmasters". We were fortuante over the years to do a total of three albums between 1969 and 1977. The titles are "Good Living", "Out All Night" and "Polka Jukebox"."

"We had a lot of fun and good times and met many people and made a lot of friends, but with all of the band members working full time jobs and then going on the road on the weekends to do different gigs, it was becoming very stressful and we reluctantly agreed to disband in late 1978."

"Since I retired I thought it would be nice to try and get together again and record some of the most requested tunes we did but never recorded and re-do a few that were already on our albums. I called some former band members and some friends and they were receptive to the idea. So we got together, dusted off the instruments, tuned up and before long we were .....Jammin' At the Cabin."

Original Band Members:

Friends:

Polskie Swingmasters - Jammin' At the Cabin

$15.00

plus $2 s/h to US

Review by Rob Savickis:
Playing music must be like riding a bicycle because despite a 30 year break, the Polskie Swingmasters have managed to create a great cd. I am not familiar with their earlier works (I imagine they are lps) but since I received their latest cd a bit more than a month ago the Polskie Swingmasters have entertained me with a very impressive variety of songs.

The cd is a mix of high quality covers of other polka artists such as Happy Louie, Ray Henry, L'il Wally and Blazonczyk, traditional songs and re-makes of several original Swingmaster tunes. In total there are 16 songs which include 3 polka medleys 2 of which are over 5 minutes long. Two of the songs are ones that appeared on previous albums and they wanted to re-do.

Song selection was done by Steve Brill and he did a great job with this task, as he did with recording and mixing the music at the cabin in Sweet Hollow, Drums, PA. Hank Guzevich also provided technical support and advice. You know that if Hank Guzevich is involved with a project that it is going to be good!

All the songs on this cd are outstannding. There is no filler. Of course I do have a few favorites. Polish Wedding-Polka Medley is a great medley that I would definitely play if I was called to DJ a Polish wedding and I have enjoyed listening to it immensely. In a DJ situation I think I would follow it up with Lewan's Polish Medley from his latest reunion cd, which is an oberek. Between the 2 medleys you would have I think 7-8 minutes of musical ecstasy on the dance floor.

I also very much enjoyed listening to (over and over and over and over again because I like it so much - lol) the track that follows the Polish Wedding-Polka Medley, Sail Along Silvery Moon. It compares very very well to the definitive version done by Billy Vaughn. As well I was thoroughly entertained by the French Song. For years I had played the defintive version by Lucille Starr when called upon to DJ the song, but in the future if I am requested to play an instrumental version of the song I will use the Polskie Swingmaster track from this cd.

While I have said before that this cd great from beginning to end, there are 2 tracks that are so memorable that they keep ringing in my head long after I have listened to the cd. Old Blue Jeans Polka, track 14 is one great great great song, and very well done, as is the Swingmaster version of the I Wonder Why Polka, track 15. Your favorites may very well be different ones than mine but whatever they may be, "Jammin' At the Cabin" is a necessary additon to any serious polka cd collection.

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For more info on the band contact:

Steve Brill
112 Maple Drive
Drums, PA 18222

email: stevbril@ptd.net