Knights Of Swing

[Greg Mein]

I feel the need to give a shout out about this movie. The star of the show, Curran Barker, is the son of a guy I went to high school with and his dad makes a brief cameo in the film as the "chicken pot pie guy". The movie is available to watch free on Tubi.

 

I last saw Brian at our high school reunion a few years ago. My wife and I set up some gear and did some playing there. Brian came up and jumped on keyboards for a tune at one point, he's quite good.

 

I told my wife I wanted to watch the film and she was a bit hesitant, afraid it would be boring or cheaply done but that is not the case at all. The production and acting rival any comparable feature film and it's quite entertaining and fun. It doesn't break any new ground in terms of an underlying story and there's not a great deal of action or drama but it's not that kind of a movie.

It's set in the post WWII big band era, 1947/48 and follows a group of high school students who, with the assistance of teachers/administrators, set out to form a swing band and enter a battle of the bands competition in southern CA. This is where the show really excels, the musicianship and presentation of the music is simply outstanding! I'm not a big band guy at all (my mother would have loved this movie) but I really enjoyed this show a lot, my wife might have liked it even better. I'd like to give a hardy recommendation to my fellow musicians and music lovers to seek this show out!