Bearcats Returning For Library’s Concert Series

The 2005 free concert series presented by C.H. Booth Library will conclude on Friday, August 5, with a return performance by a perennial favorite.

The Bearcats will perform jazz of many styles at the soccer fields at Fairfield Hills, off Wasserman Way. Concerts begin at 7 pm and are open to all ages.

The concert is being sponsored by The Tercentennial Committee, and is serving as a kick-off event to the day of birthday events being held on Saturday, August 6, also on the campus of Fairfield Hills.

Attendees should bring their own blankets or chairs for seating. Picnics are welcome, and attendees are asked to carry out their own trash.

In the event of rain, concerts are moved into the lower meeting room of the library, at 25 Main Street. Call the library for additional information or if the weather is questionable, at 426-4533.

One of the Northeast’s favorite jazz and swing bands, The Bearcats was formed in 1977 by Joe Hanlon of Sandy Hook for the purpose of preserving and promulgating one of America’s national treasures – traditional jazz – and to enjoy doing it.

After achieving wide local recognition, The Bearcats were soon performing for jazz societies and festivals across the state and in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and Florida. The band made its West Coast debut in August 2000, performing at Big Bear Lake in California.

The members of The Bearcats are devoted and skilled musicians with a style firmly rooted in the New Orleans tradition and a flair also for the variations known as Chicago and West Coast.

The band can appeal to a wide variety of audiences by easily migrating from a strict 1920s Louis Armstrong style with clarinet, tuba and banjo, to a driving Eddie Condonesque, four-beat rouser with guitar and string bass. For dancing, its repertoire also reaches to Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Louis Prima.