The Carlyle Club in Alexandria, Virginia is a jazz (mostly big band and swing) bar and restaurant modeled on the dinner clubs of the 1930s and 1940s. It's also a great night out and so that's where I went tonight to catch the performance by Doc Scantlin and His Imperial Palms Orchestra. The IPO is a modern big band playing music from the 1920s through the 1940s fronted by bandleader, vocalist, and connoisseur of bad jokes Doc Scantln.
The band also features the vocal stylings of the Girlfriends and the bubbly and irrepressible Chou Chou, a self-described blonde floozy chanteuse-y. The Girlfriends provide both backing and lead vocals, individually and in collective harmony a la the Andrews Sisters. Chou Chou, who looks like a buxom Gwen Stefani and sounds like Betty Boop and Marilyn Monroe (woof!), always steals the show and vamps the crowd, both in delightful fashion.
I'd been to the Carlyle Club once before, also to catch Doc and the IPO. That time I had dinner and sat at one of the tables near the stage. The food was fairly good as I recall. Tonight, however, I opted for a seat at the bar and had the chance to mingle a bit with some of the members of the band before the show and during the break as we got caught up with the NCAA tournament action on the flat screen.
Doc's band and the Carlyle Club itself are both well worth checking out. They typically play the Club about once a month and their set runs approximately two hours and involves lots of laughs, good music, good times, and opportunities for dancing (by persons other than me).
(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)
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