Saint James Jazz Band

The Saint James Jazz Band is a collective of professional New Haven area Jazz musicians brought together in collaboration with veteran saloon-singer Kevin Saint James. The band revisits, re-interprets and recreates true-to-form selections of classic jazz favorites and popular standards in a variety of artistic styles with a rare balance of musically “scientific” re-invention and profound reverence for historic significance and tradition. Ageless favorites from Cole Porter, Fats Waller, George Gershwin, Rogers & Hart, Billy Strayhorn, Jerome Kern and many others – long ago immortalized by legendary artists like Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Etta James, Bobby Darin, Louis Prima and Ray Charles are heard again in resounding chorus as the band reworks and relives the classics. Benefitting from their many years of shared collaboration and familiarity with their chosen material, the band has a genuinely unique capacity for working spontaneous experimentation into their respectful reinterpretations of familiar popular standards that transport more mature audiences back in time to the sounds of days long ago, while recreating, re-introducing and perhaps even endearing these precious melodies to younger listeners at the same time.