Young Dallas musician is devoted to the top hits of the 1920s

Young Dallas musician is devoted to the top hits of the 1920s

The New Year seems, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be rather a quiet time for vintage news items - I suppose everyone is still getting used to it being 2011...

It's at times like this that, without giving too many of my blogging secrets away(!), I turn to the likes of Google News for inspiration. One can only do so many opinion or film posts, after all, and I didn't want you all wondering about any lack of blogging on my part. Rarely do I find (or need to find) blogworthy articles this way but this time is a happy exception. I never would have thought I'd be linking through to the Dallas Morning News but I'm glad to do it because this article and the young chap it's about are interesting and worthy of a wider audience.

I, like many of my readers I imagine, are familiar with a few modern Twenties/Thirties dance bands such as The Charleston Chasers, The Piccadilly Dance Orchestra and, of course, the Pasadena Roof Orchestra. Well now I can add the Singapore Slingers to that list having read about Texan Matt Tolentino and his passion for this period's music.

And it's a passion I can well appreciate and empathise with; in fact, his feelings about his enthusiasm for the era and its type of music and how it has affected his life - that "I can put it on when I'm in any kind of mood and feel happy. This isn't music to be played in the background of a retirement home. This is party music."- chimes exactly with my own thoughts. One of the reasons I love the Jazz Age sound is because it is pure and simple fun and you just know that people had a good time to this music (and could do again!). No other genre can bring a smile to my face so quickly and so easily and I'm very pleased to see such responsiveness and talent from this fellow in helping keep this music alive for new (and old) generations. Well done that man!