The Trolley Song music video

“The Trolley Song” is the first single to be released off the Beantown Swing Orchestra’s debut album, Trolley Songs. It features 25-year-old vocalist Jen Hirsh, who joined the band in 2006 and was a Hollywood contestant on American Idol’s Season 9 in 2009.  Visit the STORE page to buy the mp3 or the album CD, or to hear audio samples of other songs on the album.  The music video is a modern remake of the Judy Garland classic from the 1944 movie Meet Me In St. Louis and features Jen in the lead role, with American Idol finalist John Stevens as the guy with the “light brown derby and bright green tie.”

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The music video was produced by ten students at Boston University as part of their semester project for a course known as Hothouse Productions. Most of the shooting took place on April 2, 2011, inside a rented MBTA Green Line trolley car in Boston, as well as at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel later that evening where the band was performing for an MIT graduate student gala. Some additional shots were done on the morning of April 3. The students also produced the following mini-documentary on the making of the music video and the recording of the song:

The band was requested to perform this song by Micol Zweig and Graig Klein at their wedding in New Rochelle, NY on August 15, 2010. (Indie-rock musician Erin McKeown sang it with the band at their wedding.) The couple, along with many members of their wedding party, appear in the music video, and the couple is also interviewed in the documentary.

This big band version of the song was created by 25-year-old staff arranger and trumpeter Danny Fratina. One of the band’s most epic pieces of work, the arrangement is the antithesis of dumbed-down modern music.  For example, whereas much music today consists of three basic chords, Fratina’s 8-bar intro itself contains 18 unique jazz chords.  Also, like the song, the arrangement continuously introduces new musical elements up to the end instead of repeating the same “tag” over and over and using the same predictable form for each verse.  The result is a piece that, for those who can appreciate it, can be listened to dozens of times and something new (and hopefully inspiring) heard each time.

CREDITS for “The Trolley Song” studio recording:

Jen Hirsh – vocals
Mark Zaleski – alto sax
Rick Stone – alto sax
Leon Cotter – tenor sax
Tucker Antell – tenor sax
Melanie Howell – bari sax
Don Clough – trumpet
Yaure Muniz – trumpet
Vivek Patel – trumpet
Daniel Henderson – trumpet
Ryan Dragon – trombone
Clayton Dewalt – trombone
Randy Pingrey – trombone
David Roth – bass trombone
Takeshi Ohbayashi – piano
Chris Brown – guitar
Genevieve Rose – bass
Shinya Fukumori – drums

• Written by Ralph Blaine and Hugh Martin, ©1944 (renewed) EMI Feist (ASCAP).
• Arranged by Danny Fratina.
• Big band recorded by Robert Auld and John Weston at Futura Productions in Boston, MA on February 5, 2011.
• Jen Hirsh’s vocals recorded by Max Coane at Mid City Sound in Los Angeles, CA on February 18, 2011.
• Mixed by Robert Auld at Auldworks in NYC.
• Mastered by Allan Tucker at TuckerSound / Foothill Digital in New Rochelle, NY.