Blacksmith Shop Concerts coming up

Third Coast Swing. Photo courtesy of Facebook.

by Marsha Chartrand

The 2024 fall season is about to get under way at the Blacksmith Shop this week, starting with Third Coast Swing. These acoustic concerts, an intimate setting in a casual situation, are a fun and reasonably priced evening out where you often have an opportunity to talk with the musicians in the unique and historic setting of a working blacksmith shop.

Third Coast Swing has been playing the music of the late Belgium-born Romani Gypsy Django Reinhardt and his band, the Hot Club, of Paris circa 1930s–1940s. Think Louis Armstrong with a French accent. Third Coast Swing has changed it up a bit and is currently touring with the Detroit native Dave Bennett, violinist Grant Flick, vocalist Ella Jury Jarvis, and pianist Andrew Henley. Ella and their guitarist, Kaedin Plummer, did a deep dive on early jazz classics by Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday and then arranged those songs to fit Third Coast Swing’s eclectic style.

Third Coast Swing has performed recently at the West Michigan Jazz Society, The Ludington Amphitheater, The Ludington Area Center for the Arts, Bell’s Kalamazoo, Detroit Jazz Society, Crooked Tree Arts Center, Kerrytown Concert House, Playhouse at Whitelake Ramsdell Theater, Westshore Performing Arts, and more.

Doors will open at 7pm for this season’s inaugural concert, this Saturday, October 19, starting at 7:30. Admission is just $20 per person. Be there and enjoy!

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.