social dance

Texas is a place for so­cial dan­cers. Wheth­er you’re rev­el­ing, lamp­light­ing, or liv­ing the life al­e­gre — or plan­ning a wed­ding re­cep­tion or glam­or­ous soi­rée — you’re sure to need just the right band.

The Barry Brake So­cial Dance Com­bo is it. Just as with your ga­la ev­ent, the mu­sic is non-stop. No band breaks. The en­sem­ble keeps going the en­tire time. In­di­vi­du­al mem­bers take their re­quired breaks in a stag­gered way, so that all eve­ning long the on­ly time we stop is for toasts and speech­es and an­nounce­ments.

Our line­up is pi­an­o, bass, drums, gui­tar, trum­pet, and male and fe­male sing­er. (And of course that can be a­mend­ed how­ev­er you like.) And, as with all our var­i­ous mu­si­cal ser­vi­ces, eve­ry­thing’s in­clud­ed: flex­i­ble start­ing and end­ing times (some­times ce­re­mo­nies let out a lit­tle ear­ly or late, and there are al­ways a few last-ditch par­ti­ers who want to lin­ger a bit!), what­ev­er spe­cial mu­sic needs you have, and of course our re­per­toire of over 2000 songs.

Speak­ing of songs, the So­cial Dance group plays de­light­ful ren­di­tions of ro­man­tic stan­dards and a va­ri­e­ty of ball­room dance styles, from fox­trots to cha-chas to bos­sas and waltz­es, as well as lis­ten­ing and back­ground mu­sic for the din­ner hour — sprin­kled with a few well-cho­sen Mo­town and Beat­les stand­ards to li­ven things up.

My spe­cial se­cret? Like ma­ny SA­O­A­C­As (San An­to­ni­ans Of A Cer­tain Age), I my­self learned so­cial dance un­der the su­perb and gra­cious in­struc­tion of Ms Am­o­ry O­li­ver. (Where on earth do peo­ple send their kids now?) I’ve al­ways loved the styl­ish sights and sounds of ball­room dance, and it’s ev­en more sa­tis­fy­ing to pro­vide the mu­sic.

El­e­gant, so­phis­ti­ca­ted, ut­ter­ly spark­ling — and the band plays non-stop. Book us. Let’s have a ball.

“You were ab­so­lute­ly ex­cel­lent. Eve­ry­one lov­ed the mu­sic. The band was very pro­fes­sion­al and sound­ed great all night long. Thanks a­gain.” Ty Edwards, host

“Mag­ni­fique! This band play­ed their hearts out — the dan­cers loved it; peo­ple sit­ting at the tables loved it; the evening was a total success. Man, you sound­ed great. Thanks, guys!” Owen & Gretchen Duggan, hosts