Dave Dickey Big Band Fills the Room With Classic, Contemporary Tunes

With a 17-piece big band heavy on brass instruments, the Dave Dickey Big Band will deliver room-filling tunes during a Sunday performance in Kirkwood.

“The band’s got a big sound,” band leader and trombone player Dave Dickey said. “They’re all professional guys, so they’re all very good soloists and players.”

The performance will be 6-9 p.m. at the , which features a restaurant and room for dancing. 

This will be enhanced by a wide-ranging play list with songs from Count Basie, Woody Herman and Tom Matta. 

In addition to Herman and Basie, the band will also play works popularized by Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and John Fedchock, the trombonist and musical director for Herman’s band the last decade of Herman’s life.

Last time the band played the Kirkwood Station Brewery, people loved the music so much they were dancing right in front of the stage.

“It’s great,” he said of the enthusiastic audience response. “It not only makes me feel good, but it makes the guys feel good on stage. It makes them play better. As a jazz musician, I’ve played in venues where sometimes there’re only three people in the crowd, and sometimes it’s a large audience. But normally we have more fun when we see people enjoying the music in a full house. You see people dance, you see people yell and clap after soloists, because they really appreciate the solos in the band, and the tunes that we play.”

The band will play two sets of about one-hour in length. During the 45-minute intermission, the top jazz band from will perform. Dickey’s band, which will perform the last Sunday of each month this year, plans to feature jazz bands from local high schools during all their intermissions.

Dickey and many of the other band members are music instructors, and their students – the next generation of musicians – are showing an interest in the big band style.

With all the music genres available now, big band music might seem to be yesterday’s news. But just as Dickey got into jazz and big band by listening to the wide-ranging style of Maynard Ferguson, this current generation of young musicians are getting an appreciation from hip groups like Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band.

Dickey loves seeing this enthusiasm. During their January show, they didn’t have a high school band to play during intermission.

The Kirkwood Station Brewing Company is located at 105 East Jefferson. Admission to the performance is $5 per person. For more information, call Kirkwood Station at 314-966-2739.