Neon Swing X-perience founder revives grandfather’s 1940s dance band
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For 24 years, Neon Swing X-perience has been jumpin’ and jivin’ across area stages, playing a lively blend of vintage Americana music styles, including big-band, swing, rockabilly, hot jazz and blues.
After a July 2 appearance at the Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival, the band will be no more.
“I’ve been in Neon Swing X-perience for more than half of my life, so it’s not an easy thing to leave,” founder Mike Urick of Greensburg said. “Those guys are great. They’re my brothers, and I love them. But I feel like it’s run its course.”
Urick, 40, is an associate professor and graduate director of the master of science in management: operational excellence program at Saint Vincent College. Time away from the stage during the pandemic got him thinking about his musical future.
“I started getting the sense that we were just doing the same things over and over again,” he said. “We really didn’t have the opportunity to practice or play, and I started thinking it would be neat to work on something new.
“I always had the idea of rebooting the band my grandpap played in, The Modelaires,” he said. “With Neon Swing stalling out, I thought, ‘Maybe I can use this as my opportunity to put it together and devote some energy to that.’ ”
Urick told the other members of Neon Swing how he was feeling and what he was thinking.
“I said I didn’t see any reason that Neon Swing couldn’t keep going even if I’m not there, but no one seemed to be interested in doing that, unfortunately,” he said. “I didn’t expect that to happen.”
So Urick went ahead with plans for his new band, joined by several members of Neon Swing.
The revived Mike Urick and The Modelaires will make its debut with a show at 7 p.m. April 30 at Four Seasons Brewing Co. in Latrobe.
The original Modelaires were formed in Jeannette in the early 1940s by Urick’s maternal grandfather, Mike Cilli, who was the band’s vocalist and trumpet player. Cilli was born in 1926 in Jeannette to Italian immigrant parents.
The Modelaires traveled the area playing a hot jazz blend of original songs and popular standards. Except for a hiatus during World War II, during which Cilli served in the Navy, the band was active until shortly before he died in 2013.
“I think it’s terrific what Mike is doing, and I hope they’re successful in keeping the music alive,” said Ron Stemple of Jeannette, who played bass and then saxophone with the original group from 2002 to 2008. “Even when I was playing, most of the people attending the shows were in their 80s and even their 90s, so you can imagine where they are now.
“There’s very little of this music left being played, and it would be a shame if it went away.”
Cilli’s band had a regular monthly schedule of appearances.
Stemple, who directs the Jeannette Community Band, said the circuit included the Jeannette, Monaca and White Oak American Legion halls; Youngwood Fire Department; Coraopolis VFW; and New Brighton Croatian Club.
“Those were the dance clubs, and they still had the dance cards. So you played sets that matched the dance cards,” he said.
First time live
“My first experience with seeing live music was going to the Ascension Church festival (in Jeannette) as a kid, and The Modelaires were playing,” Urick said. “I remember being so moved by some of the songs and seeing my grandpap playing that I actually cried.”
Much of what Urick knows about The Modelaires, he learned from people other than his grandfather.
“My grandpap really was a humble person, so he didn’t talk too much about himself or toot his own horn — not to sound too clichéd,” Urick said. “A lot of what I gathered growing up was from people he played with, his friends and other family members. So the details around a lot of the stories were kind of fuzzy.
“I know that he was a handy person and could fix anything,” he said. “There was a story that they had an upright bass on the roof of the car on the way to a show, and it got broken on the way there. He fixed it up prior to the show, and it sounded fine.”
After Cilli’s death, Jeff Winfield — a longtime member of the original Modelaires — gave Urick a box of the band’s sheet music, schedules and old recordings.
“The extent of their repertoire was really overwhelming,” Urick said. “They played a lot of standards, some ragtime from the ’20s. They played swing. They played jazz. Then they played ’70s rock.
“For a band that was around for 70 years, I guess that makes sense. Their repertoire grew and expanded.”
Urick inherited his grandfather’s trumpets when his grandmother died in the summer of 2021.
“That was really a turning point,” he said. “I started playing them in my basement and started trying to learn some of his songs. It almost seemed like those instruments were meant to play these songs and play in that band.”
At that point, Urick got serious about assembling his new band. He even asked some musicians who had played with his grandfather through the years if they wanted to join, though all declined.
“A lot of the people he spent most of his time playing with have passed away, but we got the blessing of some of the older members who are still around,” he said.
Urick put together a group of 10 musicians, from college students to retirees, who will play in alternating lineups of five to nine players, depending on the gig.
Urick sings and plays trumpet and cornet. Other members include Carmen Marotta, keyboards and vocals; Nick Payne, trumpet; Dylan Riley, guitar; Tom DeCarlo, drums; Randy Miller, bass and vocals; Ken Reeser, bass; Brian Anater, tenor saxophone; Chris Dufalla, trombone and vocals; and Rocco Kempa, alto and soprano saxophone.
Kindred spirits
The new Modelaires started rehearsing in January.
Delving into the original Modelaires’ repertoire, Urick found some surprises, such as charts for 1960s and ’70s hits such as “Proud Mary” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”
“I never thought ‘Proud Mary’ would be in The Modelaires’ repertoire, but it was. So we thought we’d give it a try,” Urick said about the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic. “Actually, as we played it, we thought, you can swing dance to this.”
Though their sets will draw from the original Modelaires’ repertoire, Urick’s band also will play some Neon Swing tunes and others he has always wanted to play.
They won’t play a note-for-note re-creation of The Modelaires’ original charts but will interpret and modernize the songs to create “a danceable, New Orleans-inspired, Mardi Gras-esque experience.”
Urick said he is excited to carry on his family’s musical legacy, in part because he and his grandfather were “kindred spirits.”
Cilli started playing with The Modelaires when he was about 14. Urick formed Neon Swing X-perience for a talent show at Greensburg Central Catholic High School when he was 16.
Though he started music lessons in elementary school, Urick said he never invested much time or effort into music until he got a taste of playing in public.
“It occurred to me that, when I’m playing something someone else wants me to play by their rules, I’m not really into it,” he said. “When it was something I wanted to do to have fun and as more of a social thing, that was a lot of fun. Then I started working at it.
“I think maybe it was like that for my grandpap, too.”
For more information on Mike Urick and The Modelaires, including the performance schedule, visit themodelaires.com.