Pirate Swing
March 1 - 3, 2019 ~ Ann Arbor, MI
bones

Saturday Swing Dance with Gordon Webster featuring Naomi Uyama

Saturday March 8th, 2014
9:00pm to Midnight - $25

Michigan Union Ballroom, 530 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109

This dance is pirate themed! Costumes are encouraged, or dress to impress.

Pianist Gordon Webster is one of the most sought after musicians in the lindy hop world. His tremendous musicianship and passion, supported by his first-hand knowledge of social dancing, have inspired lindy hoppers at hundreds of dance events worldwide. Drawing on influences as diverse as Fats Waller, Count Basie, Oscar Peterson and Gene Harris, Webster serves up a smorgasbord of styles unified by one characteristic: irresistible danceability.

Born in Ottawa, Canada, Mr. Webster began playing the piano at age 4. He moved to Toronto in 1993 to study jazz piano at University of Toronto. In 2001, while still living in Toronto, he became obsessed with the lindy hop and began traveling to exchanges and camps as both a musician and a dancer. In 2002, Gordon met his wife Katie, a lindy hopper, at Swing Out New Hampshire. In 2004, he moved to New York City to pursue his Masters of Music degree at Manhattan School of Music, where he graduated in 2006.

One of the most active and versatile musicians on the scene, Webster maintains ongoing collaborative relationships with a diverse array of jazz/blues and lindy hop luminaries, and is an associate member of one of the most popular traditional jazz bands on the U.S. lindy hop scene, the Cangelosi Cards.

Gordon Webster
Vocalist Naomi Uyama discovered jazz through swing dancing, while still attending high school just outside Washington DC. As a youth she dreamed of singing on stage but her passion for dance took over until a decade later when one of her favorite bands called her out of the blue and asked her to tour for a month. That sparked a fire that brought her to New York City, where she worked with some of the best talent in traditional jazz and trained with vocal master Kamal Scott. While there she recorded as part of her vocal trio "the Three Diamonds" with the Cangelosi Cards, and became a regular at the infamous jam sessions at Mona's in the East Village.

Naomi now has the pleasure of singing with some of the best dance bands in the nation- the Gordon Webster Sextet, the George Gee Orchestra, and the Boilermaker Jazz Band, and she has performed across the country and internationally in Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain.

Naomi Uyama