Sabertooth Swing

Sabertooth Swing​ excels at bringing a fun experience and enhancing it with musical overtones that enrich their sound with beautiful jazz idioms that can be either a source of exciting dancing or serious listening.

Born and bred in New Orleans, ​Sabertooth Swing​ carries a rich musical tradition of swing jazz with old roots and exciting new ramifications. Tracing its origins within the local swing dance community, their music embraces a foot-tapping energy, supported by serious musicianship and varied influences. ​

Sabertooth Swing​ just finished recording their debut album ​“Extinct Possibilities." They are now focused on promoting their music and bringing it to new places. Locally they are busy playing on the music scene and organizing different dance events, their most recent being a successful cross-over between swing and salsa.

The group is composed of musicians of various origins and musical backgrounds, with influences stretching from French chansons, folk & bluegrass, new wave and reggae, with of course, much love and respect for New Orleans’ own musical heritage. This variety is well reflected in their upcoming album with musical experiments such as arranging a ska tunes a la New Orleans marching style, merging the poetic beauty of ​Georges Brassens​’ chansons with ​Amy Winehouse​’s sultry jazz, and even covering the English rock band, ​the Kinks,​ with an interesting mix of Latin and swing rhythms, following an idea originally laid down in tunes such as ​St. Louis Blues​.

In essence, with their exciting music adding a jazz twist to existing material with a strong connection to dancing, ​Sabertooth Swing​ follows the footpath left by the originators of jazz such as ​Buddy Bolden​ who in his most famous piece, was asking to “open up the windows and let the foul air out," presumably coming from late nights of dancing in small hot New Orleans summer rooms.

The band plays almost acoustically, except for a couple musicians where an amplification can be beneficial depending on the size of the performance space, namely: vocals, guitar, and bass.