“Now, I play more jobs than I ever did; I just go all over, everywhere,” Walker said. “When you put together your orchestra, you have to get musicians from all over; and in turn, you play for them.”
The Altus Ballroom Dancers and the Southwest Ballroom Dance Club of Frederick joined to sponsor a fall dance, featuring Logan Walker’s combo, “Logan and the Gang,” with vocalist, Edie Lazenby.
The ballroom dance is scheduled from 7 to 10 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 18, in Altus’ Western Oklahoma State College Student Center. Tickets may be purchased at the door--couples $15, singles $10; for military and WOSC students with identification, couples $10, singles $8. Non-dancers may want to come to enjoy the music. Light refreshments will be served.
Performing in Walker’s combo are Lawton musicians, Walker, saxophone; Carlo Messina, piano; Jason Dozier, drums; and Danny Morris, bass, with Lazenby of Lone Wolf, vocalist. “I usually go for professional musicians,” Walker said. “I can put music before them and they can play it; I don’t practice with them at all.”
Originally from Kansas City, Walker arrived in Lawton in 1975 after 15 years in Okinawa. He played five and a half years in the United States Army Band and later worked in the entertainment division of the Special Services Branch (Civil Service) in Okinawa to provide shows for the troops. He assisted with the Bob Hope Christmas Show; staged performances for the Air Force, Marines and Army; and rehearsed soldiers for competing in the multi-country Far East Entertainment Contest. Walker’s teams won three consecutive events. He served as an escort for touring music shows—James Brown, Johnny Mathis, Brenda Lee, Bob Hope, The Tokyo Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, “Hello Dolly” with Mary Martin and others.
In Lawton before retiring from Civil Service in 1995, Walker worked in music theater and conducted orchestras for 26 Fort Sill dinner-theater musicals. From 1976 to 2004, he performed with the former “High Tones” and now plays with the Ken Nelson Big Band and the Basin Street Band, both of Wichita Falls; the 17-member Moonlight Serenade Orchestra, Oklahoma City; and the Ken Nelson trio and quartet. He leads his own three- to nine-member combos for dances, house parties, weddings and other functions.
Vocalist Edie Lazenby moved to Lone Wolf at age 10, when her father retired from the Air Force. She began performing and singing in her church choir, school events and Hobart Shortgrass Playhouse productions. She studied vocal performance at Oklahoma City University and received a fine arts degree at the University of Oklahoma. During four years in New York City, she studied with the Strasburg Theater Institute. “In New York, I did backup vocals for some bands, did theater work and traveled in Europe with those bands--mostly folk and country rock, and we went to a lot of folk festivals,” Lazenby said.
Lazenby directs Altus’ Grace United Methodist Church choir, belongs to the Shortgrass Arts and Humanities Council Board and has performed in local events--Altus Community Chorus, the “Altus Road Show,” the “All that Jazz” band and recently with “Main Street Jazz Band.”
Speaking of Logan Walker, Lazenby said, “He is an asset to the whole creative environment of classic and standard jazz—basically music from the 30s, 40s and 50s that has lived on and is still being sung and also the jazz that has been happening all along. It’s coming back now that younger people are becoming interested in it.”
The Altus Ballroom Dancers meet from 7 to 9 p.m. each Monday in the basement Blue Room of the Altus Municipal Auditorium—dancing instruction one hour, practice one hour. The public is invited to attend and learn to ballroom dance; seasoned dancers may come to practice.
Post a Comment
