RED BANK: BASIE’S SOUPED-UP SLEIGH
Brian Setzer (above) and his swingin’ Orchestra sound the keynote on a week’s worth of music at Basie’s place; a smorgasbord of sounds that includes appearances by Travis Tritt, The Duprees, and the Difford-Tilbrook partnership that brought you Squeeze (below).
Over at the Count Basie Theatre — where the coming of December heralds a packed schedule of Christmastime confections, right up to the doorstep of New Year’s — the twelfthmonth’s earliest days and nights offer up a buffet that includes music both seasonally standard and all-seasonssecular, in addition to the sort of golden oldies that comprise a sacred songbook in themselves. Arriving in town this Wednesday, December 2 atop a hybrid sleigh that’s fuel-injected with a little bit of each, Grammy-getter Brian Setzer returns with his big-axe Orchestra on an annual Christmas Tour that finds the onetime Top Cat of The Stray Cats suiting up for a set that tumbles selections from his three albums of Yuletide yippee with Stray Cat signatures (“Rock This Town,” “Sexy + 17”) and vintage jukebox juggernauts from the likes of Eddie Cochran, Bill Haley and more. It’s a big show that breaks down all humbug resistance with its rockabilly-roadrace pace and the frontman’s road-tested panache in the role of guitar-slinging retro leader of the 18-piece big band. Tim Lowman, the high-energy one-man blues-shock band known as Low Volts, opens the 7:30 pm festivities, so fly here for tickets ($58 – $118) — and flip the record over for more.