Big band Death and Taxes to play Valentine’s Day on Alameda’s Hornet
A classical music student at Cal State Hayward (today’s CSU East Bay) in the late 1990s, Roudman and her future husband we’re so into jumpin’ and jivin’ that they did made up fake IDs to let themselves get into swing dance clubs in San Francisco. And they just kept on swingin’.
“We rode the wave of the ’90s swing revival,” says Roudman, a classically trained cellist who is now the orchestra director at her alma mater.
Roudman and her husband, Jason Eckl, will return Feb. 14 along with a cast of rotating musicians to Alameda’s USS Hornet Sea, Air & Space Museum for a follow-up to last year’s Valentine’s Day concert with their swing band Death and Taxes.
Roudman is the group’s sultry lead singer while electric cellist while Eckl plays guitar and is the band’s main musical arranger. Death and Taxes formed when Roudman became aware that Cal State East Bay’s jazz band was in danger of being nixed about three years ago.
“We were worried that all the young performers in the group wouldn’t have a chance to play jazz. So we thought we should form a jazz band of seasoned professionals and these young players.”
The end result is Death and Taxes — “it’s a fun mix of experienced players and energetic up-and-comers,” says Roudman.
While swing music has not hit late 1990s levels of mania stateside, it’s another story in Europe. London and Stockholm are particular hotbeds and while Death and Taxes hasn’t performed in those cities, a smaller Roudman-led band has performed in Portugal to very receptive audiences.
“In Portugal of all places, where you would think they’re not going to relate to any of the themes of the music at all and not even understand it maybe, they were totally having a great time,” says Roudman.
“When you play the song ‘In the Mood’ to American audiences, it makes everybody come out onto the dance floor. And we did the same thing in Portugal, and my God, it had the same reaction. And so that really made us smile. We thought that was very cool.”
For those who may feel a little intimidated by all the acrobatics of swing dancing, Roudman assures that attendees don’t have to be the next Fred Astaire or dress like him and his dance partners to enjoy themselves.
“We don’t expect you to know how to dance this dance, and we don’t also want to give a very long one-hour lesson. We like to just give an appetizer of how to do it,” says Roudman.
This appetizer takes the form of a 15-minute tutorial and gives people who are new to the scene the basics — sort of a swing-dancing-for-dummies briefing. It gives the audience a “taste of what it’s going to be like so they know how to dance to the music when we start playing it,” says Roudman.
The swing dance mentors for the evening come from the Sacramento-based dance instruction group Rags 2 Rhythm. Instructor Yoni Magallanes (rags2rhythm.com/our-story) says the goal isn’t to get attendees ready to audition for “Dancing with the Stars.”
“We want to gauge it by, ‘Did you enjoy yourself? Did you have a good time?’ That’s our basis of how we see if it’s successful or not,” says Magallanes. “Because as a beginner, you’re not going to be proficient, but did you at least enjoy your time?
“We love to dance with people who are new because we were new too at one point. Just like when you do anything new, it’s a little intimidating. It can be a little scary, but once you start getting in there and you realize that everyone is on a similar journey and we’re all just trying to have fun, people tend to relax.”
Dateless wall flowers need not worry as the Rags 2 Rhythm hoofers are also down to get down with anyone on the dance floor.
“They’ll get out there after teaching everybody a lesson and spend the night dancing amongst everybody. And the really cool thing is if you want to dance with them, they’re more than happy to dance with you. So you get to dance with professionals, which also is an added bonus,” says Roudman.
Indeed. The Death and Taxes swing band plans to hit the USS Hornet stage aboard the former U.S. Navy vessetl at about 7:15 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, right after the 15-minute dance lesson. For tickets and details online, visit uss-hornet.org/event/valentines-day-swing-dance-2026.
Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at pkilduff350@gmail.com.