Lavay Smith and The Red Hot Skillet Lickers at Sunset
Long before a certain Gap commercial forced the premature death of the Retro Swing movement of the late ’80s and early ’90s, Lavay Smith and The Red Hot Skillet Lickers jumped everything but the shark and nuked everything but the ’fridge. Eight years into the new millennium, the San Francisco-based ensemble is still swingin’.
Part of the group’s staying power lies in the fact that they remain true to the source. Rather than merely presenting superficial flash and sizzle that brought Nouveau Swing notoriety, The Lickers always took care of the music. Sure they can jump with the best of them — Royal Crown Revue, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Brian Setzer, et al — but what sets them apart from their contemporaries is their uncanny ability to sound utterly modern while playing vintage music.
Another particular that differentiates The Lickers is that they are led by a woman. Instead of the hopped-up blaring horns or wired guitar showcase, this group has Lavay Smith — an exotic songbird whose stunning looks are a cross between Bettie Page and Rita Hayworth. But make no mistake — Smith is not just eye candy. Although she is definitely one sexy singer who is not afraid to shake the appeal, she is first and foremost a vocal stylist.
Listening to her on Everybody’s Talkin’ About Miss Thing or One Hour Mama, the band’s most popular discs, Smith conjures up the likes of Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and Little Esther Phillips. As a singer, Smith gets to the very essence of these former jazz and blues divas. She sings the songs with a genuine conviction that is undeniable. She can cop the gleeful, gee-whiz of Helen Humes or the feline coquettishness of Eartha Kitt and before you can say, “Voo-It!” she’ll turn around and hurt you with “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You.” 
Meanwhile, The Lickers are a guitar-less, horn-driven band that features tenor and alto saxophone, trombone and trumpet and a rockin’ rhythm section, led by pianist/arranger Chris Siebert. It’s the perfect vehicle for Miss Thing to slide into and drive. Stylistically, The Lickers welcome a variety of classic American musical styles under their swing umbrella from dizzying bebop to rumba rhythms, from Jay McShann jumps to Fats Domino New Orleans struts.
One of the group’s secret weapons is in the arranging. Siebert and Smith have enlisted the talents of writers like David Berger, an arranger for Wynton Marsalis and The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, among others, to paint their musical picture.
Speaking by phone from her home in the Bay Area, Smith comments on that aspect of the band by saying, “Chris does a lot of the arranging. His favorite arrangers are Quincy Jones and Ernie Wilkins. Anybody who writes like that, we like to work with. We are always looking for new arrangers. It’s kind of based on the arrangers from the ’50s who wrote for people like Dinah Washington.”
Because Smith is not a blues shouter, but a singer into the nuances of a song, it’s mandatory that the band listens and plays dynamically sensitive.
Smith agrees, but says, “They are like that themselves. We meet at the crossroads between jazz and blues. Instead of being a blues rock band, we are a blues-based jazz band.”
Is that why you don’t carry a guitarist? 
“We used to have a guitar player,” she says, referring to the very fine Chris Siebert. “He did swing real quiet. He did the Freddie Green thing. We just decided not to replace him.”
Ultimately, Lavay Smith and The Red Hot Skillet Lickers are a throwback to music that was popular more than a century ago. When asked how that translates in the 21st century, Smith laughs and says, “The themes are so modern for me, I feel up to date. The lyrics are not old-fashioned. When they are, I’ll change it to make it more suitable for me. It’s classic music. Jazz is America’s classical music. People don’t see Chopin as vintage.” o
