DATE=11/04/03

TYPE=English Feature

NUMBER=7-38020

TITLE=World's Best Band: Doc Scantlin's Imperial Palms Orchestra

BYLINE=Robin Rupli

TELEPHONE=401-7430

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=

CONTENT=

INTRO: A Washington-based big band with a world-wide reputation is currently appearing in a series of concerts guaranteed to whisk audiences back to another time. Doc Scantlin and his Imperial Palms Orchestra recreates the supper club experience of the 1920s, '30s and '40s when the Cotton Club in New York City's Harlem neighborhood was "king," music was romantic and ladies and gentleman danced the night away as a way to get to know each other. But the appeal of a Doc Scantlin show goes beyond its music. As Robin Rupli reports, the experience is more akin to stepping back into a very old movie something that people of all ages can enjoy.

TAPE: ANNOUNCER :15

"Are you ready for dancing. . .let's meet the maestro!, heeeeeere's Doc Scantlin! APPLAUSE AND MUSIC

TEXT: When Doc Scantlin appears on stage in his white tie and tails, hair slicked back, and his long conductor's baton in one hand and a cigar in another, he commands the stage like the great showmen of years gone by. . . waving his arms in the air, spinning, twirling and even jumping as he addresses his band and the audience with equal enthusiasm.

TAPE: DOC :15

"Thank you so much and so good to see you here. And we're broadcasting live Coast to Coast and to all our good friends overseas. . now a time to dance and romance. MUSIC UP FULL

MUSIC: "NIGHT AND DAY" ESTABLISH IN FULL, UNDER AND HOLD, FADE AT NEXT TAPE CUT

TEXT: Doc Scantlin's orchestra of twenty-three musicians is accompanied by his wife and lead singer, Chou Chou (SHOO SHOO) and four backup singer/dancers called "The Girlfriends." They are all dressed in authentic copies of Hollywood period costumes from the 1920s, '30s and '40s; the orchestra is also dressed in vintage tuxedos and even the microphones are more than fifty years old. Doc Scantlin says he is trying to recreate an experience that few people of this generation know anything about.

TAPE: SCANTLIN :38

"You know, there was a time in the '20s,'30s, 40's, '50s and maybe the '60s a little bit when people used to go out to dance and go to night clubs. And it wasn't really loud where you had to shout. And they'd dress up in a tuxedo, white tie and tails. And be very elegant and there would be a door man in a uniform. And they'd have a lovely dinner and there'd be a cigarette girl selling cigars and orchids for the ladies. And they would dance to a big band orchestra and girls singing and dancing. And there would be so much elegance and so much fun and that's what we're trying to create."

TAPE: CHOU CHOU AND MUSIC "Let Yourself Go"

"Go get 'em girls! Good evening. . . It's so nice to see you! MUSIC UP FULL TO POST, UNDER AND HOLD, SLOWLY FADE

TEXT: Chou Chou Scantlin, Doc's glamorous lead singer and wife takes to the stage dressed in one of many magnificent gowns that she creates for herself the platinum blonde appears that she too, may have stepped out of an old Hollywood movie.

TAPE: CHOU CHOU/DOC :27

"You know, when you see things that are just the way they're supposed to be, these songs stand on their own. And what we try to do with the costumes and making it 'show-y' is bring it to life."

DOC: "Like rock and roll still is. The thing is, this was the rock and roll of the '20s, '30s and '40. These were the young kids playing this music who were full of hormones and full of booze. . they were wild and crazy!"

TEXT: Although Doc and Chou Chou care about current events and live in the present moment, they don't seem interested in popular culture after World War II. Their dress when they're not performing is 1940s- style. They even drive a 1937-model automobile. Chou Chou Scantlin says for them, that is normal.

TAPE: CHOU CHOU :17

"To us, it is the normal world, everybody else is in an altered state. When we met each other realized we were both a couple of odd ducks and we make each other feel normal. So we make perfect sense to each other."

TAPE: MUSIC CHOU CHOU SINGS "JIG JIGALOO" IN FULL TO POST, UNDER AND HOLD

TEXT: Longtime band member Bobby Banks says many of the numbers they play are unpublished and unrecorded - such as "Jig Jigaloo," a kind of percussive African-dance taken from the 1929 film, "Broadway Babies."

TAPE: BANKS :18

"Some of our arrangements we've had to take from movies because those arrangements don't exist on record. We've actually had to listen to a soundtrack and transcribe it do the song because no band ever recorded the tune. Or if it did, we haven't found it."

TEXT: Supper clubs in the United States, such as the renowned Cotton Club, Ciros and the Stork Club, faded from the scene around the 1960s due to changing tastes and the rising costs of supporting full orchestras, singers, dancers and comedians in one show. Doc Scantlin is no exception. The high cost of paying nearly thirty band members deters most nightclubs from hiring a show as complex as Doc's. His Imperial Palms Orchestra more frequently appear at major fundraisers, costume balls, royal weddings and other high- profile events. In 1998, Forbes Magazine declared Doc Scantlin's Imperial Palms Orchestra as the "World's Best Band." Mr. Scantlin insists modestly that's not true, but says he is pleased to currently have a public engagement at the Clarendon Ballroom to re-connect with his longtime fans. Many of those fans, like Maura Cummings, make an effort to dress in period costume themselves, down to the very last detail. Maura is dressed as a "flapper" -- a term for a young woman in the 1920s who wore her hair short, her dresses loose and rejected the conventions of what Victorian society dictated for young women.

TAPE: MAURA/RR 1:07

"What I did is I went to the Salvation Army and I bought a sheath black dress and I just cut it here and there and then I got all these tassels for the bottom and some nice embellishments with sequence. Actually, I went to the library and got some books on fashion in the '20s, '30s and '40s and that's how I try to mimic exactly what the flappers wore in the '20s."

RR: WHAT IS FUN ABOUT DRESSING IN CLOTHES LIKE THIS?

MC: "You know, I'm here with my grandma who is eighty-one and a friend of hers and she is in her sixties. And when we sat down they both said, 'Boy, I haven't done this in thirty years or sixty years!' And I thought to myself, 'That's amazing that you're even able to say that. And here I am in my late '20s, I've never done it in my life. I've read about it, I've seen it in movies. And it's great to be transported back in time to another era."

TAPE: MUSIC "St. James Infirmary" SNEAK INSTRUMENTAL UNDER CONCLUSION, BRING UP FULL AT VOCAL

TEXT: Doc Scantlin says while his orchestra plays music most young people have never heard before, it doesn't really matter. He says "first and foremost you must entertain the audience -- because entertainment will always transcend musical taste." SIGNED

MUSIC AS NEEDED, OUT BY 2:30