The Wonder of It All: The Beantown Swing Orchestra

By Cassandra Baptista

A boy and a girl swing dance like no one is watching. In reality, they are surrounded by people in the Boston Common on this warm summer evening. She wears a short polka-dotted dress, red lipstick, pearls and converse—an easy blend of old and new, much like the entertainment.

The Beantown Swing Orchestra performed in Boston’s backyard on Aug.7, and while the songs are old classics, the musicians’ average age is only 23. Singer John Stevens, 22, is the male vocalist for the 18-piece band. Stevens placed sixth in American Idol’s third season.

The orchestra performs classic arrangements from Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra. Couples dance in corners of the Common to "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", "Buona Sera" and "Come Fly With Me". People of all ages transform Boston’s backyard into a 1940s dance floor.

Life seems more romantic with this soundtrack, the sun setting on families eating dinner inches away from other families eating dinner. The music paints the scene in watercolors: card games, wicker picnic baskets and a little girl dancing in circles around her parents.

Stevens, a Berklee College of Music graduate, takes a few minutes between sets to talk music and his career.

Q: What are your upcoming plans?

A: Right now, we're working on a regional tour. I also am a radio DJ on WICN [90.5 FM, New England’s NPR Jazz and Folk Station].

Q: If you could perform with anyone, who would it be?

A: Paul McCartney. I really like his music, even post-Beatles. I’ve seen him perform twice.

Q:  So what music are you listening to now?

A: I’ve started to get into Mel Tormé. Of course, Paul McCartney. Barenaked Ladies.

Q:  If you could only listen to one album what would it be?

A: Oh, that’s too tough. Can we get back to it? (We don’t.)

Q: Okay, now some quick word associations. Michael Bublé?

A: A nice guy. I actually got the opportunity to meet him.

Q. Boston.

A: Fenway.

Q: Simon Cowell?

A:  Okay, uh (laughs). He’s actually a nice guy too. A good critic.

Q: Will you sing at my wedding?

A: Yes.

Q: Great, I’m going to hold you to it.

For more information on the Beantown Swing Orchestra, check out http://www.beantownswing.com/home.html

Reflections: What Courage Looks Like

I’m currently writing a series about the relationships between senior companions and their elderly clients for Ethos and Boston City Hall. This is also part of my new writing project in Boston, The Memory Initiative, www.memoryinitiative.com. In the meantime, I want to share some of my personal experiences with these fascinating people. By reflecting on their stories, I hope to make sense of my own. 

By Cassandra Baptista

There are moments when I’m sitting across from someone and I become overwhelmed with a quiet sense of sadness. I’m looking at this woman, who soon will be 92, and as happy as she seems, I want to cry. She talks about her life in New York City during the ‘40s, her encounters with famous people, her trips across the country, but despite this colorful life, there has been profound pain.

She touches on it briefly but keeps it vague (sometimes there’s no need for elaboration): “I’ve had a lot of tragedy in my life.” And in a bizarre way, I knew that already. Sometimes I think you can just feel that with people.

She seems genuinely excited to see me and I think to myself, "How often do you get visitors?  How often are they my age? What do you think when you look at me?” Without having to ask, she says, “You never think you’ll be this age.” But ever since I was a child, I’ve thought about it a lot.

I think I have a heightened sense of awareness that I will age, that I am aging, that one day I might be sitting at a table not unlike this one staring at a 21-year-old girl who seems to think she knows something, but knows nothing.

For all the talking and feeling I do, I struggle to pinpoint where my sadness for her comes from. Is it because she never married? Because she experienced so many deaths in her life? Because she navigated her way through this life largely by herself?

Inside I say to her, “You’re so brave.”