Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers

Doors at 7:30 pm; East Coast Swing dance lesson with Chris Lee & Ashley Sarver at 8:00 pm; Show at 9:00 pm

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers keep adding new elements to their timeless blues-jazz-swing repertoire, including new songs as well as rotating the hits and forgotten gems from their three CDs. The most recent release, "Miss Smith to You!" provides fresh takes on classics for the dance floor, including "Miss Brown to You," "I'm Not Evil," and "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Growing up in Southern California and the Philippines, Smith was influenced early by such singers as Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, and Esther Phillips. Since 1989, before swing became a national craze, she and her band (led by co-founder and keyboardist Chris Siebert) have been making music as sharp and irresistible as her period costumes that recall the pinup girls of the Forties. Two decades later they are still the Bay Area's hottest swing attraction, steeped in not just the songs but also the feel that makes them the real deal. Big, bluesy-voiced Smith has deservedly raked in national attention from network television to NPR, and Johnny Otis proclaimed that "she and her band are a breath of fresh air!" Multiple award winners, Smith and her Skillet Lickers present not only the best-dressed but also one of the most exciting shows of East Coast Swing and Lindy Hop dance music, as well as sultry torch songs.