Event

The Lovestruck Balladeers

The Lovestruck Balladeers are the band the mob boss hired to play his daughters wedding. The quintet uses banjos, mandolins, contrabass, clarinet, piano, guitar, and vocal harmony to infuse early jazz and ragtime melodies with city sweat and hot blood. Hailing from the American Midwest and Northeast, these players, in crumpled suits and otherworldly faces, have collectively committed themselves to bringing old music into the 21st century with all the energy of a train disaster. They might whip out a previously unrecorded piece from a 1930s Italian-American jazz folio, or they might play a Mexican Waltz. They might push into a renegade re-arrangement of a swing standard, or get down with a country rag. They are the five scorpion sons of a West Virginia dance hall, a Little Italy tourist attraction, and a Oaxacan birthday party. You might find them in Japan or busking in the New York City Subway. You might find them in an underwear drawer next to a box of Cuban cigars. You might find them on the Brooklyn Bridge in rain-soaked November, ambling cool and wet to their next gig. The past never sounded so palpable. The Lovestruck Balladeers are: Jake Sanders, Aaron Jonah Lewis, Dennis Lichtman, Sean Cronin, and Dalton Ridenhour.