The Shirt Tail Stompers Celebrate Ten Years

Looked at one way, Shirt Tail Stompers are a “London-based jazz and swing band” (so says their website). Looked at another way, they’re better described as a bright idea — a constantly-rotating galaxy of stellar musicians hailing from London, yes, but also from France, Japan and everywhere in between. The brilliant black hole anchoring this all-star cast is trumpeter and bandleader Steve Coombe, whose musical mastery and pleasant personality are winning his associates full-time work playing trad and swing at jazz and dance festivals from New Orleans to Seoul. There are rarely rehearsals or set-lists — even the band’s records, released at a rate of roughly one a year, feature flexible line-ups. (Two drummers, two bassists and three vocalists all appeared on 2019’s Broadway Holdover.) The musicians Steve invites to sit in with him are all in great demand and mostly just too good to be tied to any one outfit for long. “It would be nice to have the same musicians all the time, but we’re all just so busy that it ends up being a bit mix-and-match,” he said. “The band travels all over Europe, so we just sort of pick musicians up along the way. We find incredible people in places you might not think of — the horn players in Budapest are just amazing.” He added: “We found Alex, our current bass player, in Paris. I’d played a few gigs with him so I knew he wa