Welcome to Vedder Entertainment –
Home of Scat Cats
and Swing House
Meet the Main Headliners for the ‘Cats’
Carole Crawford
Lead Vocalist
Carole Crawford was born and raised into the Big Band tradition. Her father, Edward Vedder, was a jazz trumpet player during the World War II years who also performed in some of the great territory bands in the Midwest after the war.
Carole‘s carries on the legacy as a vocalist whose
Paul Asaro
Stride Piano, Keyboards
Paul Asaro is known as one of the finest of a select group of pianists performing the demanding two-handed jazz and ragtime piano styles from the first half of the 20th century.
The Stride piano of James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith and Fats Waller, the New Orleans styles of Jelly Roll Morton, the ragtime of Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake, stomps, boogie woogie and swing — Asaro plays them all with a fine ear for detail, blending the elements into his own personal style.
John Otto
Reeds
John Otto, reedman extraordinaire, enjoys playing many styles of music. He has performed and recorded with many well-known bands all over the country.
His roots in music also run deep: John’s mother was a soloist in church music, musicals, weddings and an accomplished jobbing musician herself. His dad played trombone for fun and liked listening to Big Bands in the late 1930s. After John got a taste, he was hooked.
Andy Schumm
Multi-Instrumentalist
Andy Schumm is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger originally from Wisconsin. He founded the six-piece jazz group Chicago Cellar Boys in 2017 and also was a featured member of the Fat Babies. He plays cornet, clarinet, sax, and piano, among other instruments.
Now based in Chicago, he has appeared all over the traditional jazz world, both domestically and internationally. He is also an avid student of the history of jazz.
We’ve got a Passion for Jazz!
We love jazz – of all persuasions and eras. Whether it’s the music that started it all, in the 1920s and
Their repertoire features a particular style of American jazz, based on the great 1920s and ’30s jazz piano style of Fats Waller.
And for dancing and events, the Pat Crawford Big Band plays music of the swell, elegant and crazy 1920s and 1930s style of jazz, from George Gershwin and bands containing many of the great jazz swing era musicians to emerge with their own bands in the mid-1930s and 1940s: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and others.
This type of jazz in the 1920s and early 1930s was fertile ground for the great jazz trumpet/cornet genius Bix Beiderbecke and also the early vocals of Bing Crosby and the Paul Whiteman Band and the Rhythm Boys.
This is happy jazz with a bounce that isn’t heard from most jazz groups today.
You can hear Scat Cats and the Big Band performing in jazz venues as well as for private parties and special events in the Kenosha/Midwest vicinity.
Coming in 2023…
A Scat Cats Album and Tribute to the Great Annette Hanshaw
We are excited to share that Scat Cats will be recording our first album in March 2023, focusing in large part on many of the tunes recorded by Annette Hanshaw (1901-1985), one of Carole Crawford’s favorite jazz singers of the 1920s and ’30s. (Here, Hanshaw is pictured on the August 1934 cover of Radioland magazine.)
Click here to read more!
ANNOUNCING OUR NEW RELEASE!!
Click the link below to hear Carole’s rendition of “One Note Samba,” performed with The Pat Crawford Jazz Quintet.
Then head over to the “Listen” or “Big Band Album” pages to hear additional tunes.
"One Note Samba"
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