Parke Frankenfield’s Bands-To-Go

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In December, Frankenfield , his band and his daughter, singer Melody Layne, appeared at Sebastian River High School.

For most of his professional life, Parke Frankenfield has represented a throwback to an earlier era when swing was king, Dixieland jazz was hot, and dancers came in pairs. He was scoring soprano sax trios when electric keyboards and amplified guitars jammed the airwaves. He was reinventing Hello, Dolly when nightclubs catered to the disco crowd. His specialty: freshening timeless tunes the “Chicago Way,” with a driving, four-beat swing rhythm.

Frankenfield admits he is no prognosticator of musical trends, noting that he wrote off rock-and-roll as a passing fad when Bill Haley and the Comets came onto the scene 40 years ago. But the 69-year-old bandleader is virtually a household name in Vero Beach, where he has headed the lineups for yacht-club and dinner-dance dates since moving here in 1985. His swing sound is now enjoying a revival of sorts even among the grandchildren of the Big Band generation who don’t see much romanticism in a mosh pit.

Read the entire article in the November 1998 issue

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