Sammy Rae and the Friends are hitting the stage at the Commodore on the 13th! Have you ever heard of them? They’re something of a band out of time, almost like they were pulled right from the mid 70’s and dropped into the modern day. They’re great, they’ve got a really jazzy vibe, but its fun and fast. I mean they are a jazz-pop band after all, it’d be weird if they weren’t those things. My favourite song of theirs is called Jackie Onassis, named after, well, Jackie Onassis the former first lady. It’s got a triumphant thing going on, but still keeps this kind of underlying sadness going throughout, its really good.
They actually have released a couple new singles recently, presumably to build hype as they tour throughout North America. But the singles are great, my personal favourite is Boogie All By Yourself. It’s just cool, I don’t know what to say, there’s an intangible quality to it. Give it a listen, you’ll see what I’m saying. Speaking of those singles, the covers for them are super sweet. They’re taken to look like retro album covers. The kind of grainy imagin, alongside this thick white border around them gives them a really cool aura, that quite frankly, I can’t get enough of, and hope they do more.
The band themselves hail from good old, New York, New York, where many a great jazz act have premiered, or stayed, or briefly laid over, you get my point. But something that immediately sticks out to me is the name of the band. It’s one thing for a band to be “Lead Name” + Friends, like the Earth, Wind, and Fire cover band Leonid & Friends, or for the band to have their own title, like Bob Marley and The Wailers, but for the band to be called ‘The Friends”? It leaves me with so many questions. Whose friends are they? Are they friends with Sammy Rae? Are they a family whose last name is Friends? Questions you and I may never hear the answer to. I guess the last one can be googled but where’s the fun in that?
Anywho, whatever their relationship to each other, the Commodore is the perfect spot for a band like that. With the kind of music they play? It truly will be the Fabulous Commodre Ballroom. Just that jam packed dance floor and those swinging grooves, nothing to focus on but the performance on stage? Sounds amazing. You gotta check it out, even if you aren’t normally that into jazz, you’ll forget that as you melt away into the swing of The Friends.