“We’re not your grandfather’s big band,” Jeremy Davis, band leader and tenor sax player, said.

Jeremy Davis and his Fabulous Equinox Jazz Orchestra will play April 7 as part of McNeese State University’s Banner Cultural Series.

Sunday’s performance will feature Davis on tenor sax, lead singer Clay Johnson and an 18-piece band playing a show that Davis describes as The Rat Pack meets “The Dean Martin Variety Show” with a touch of “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Davis said the group, which for the past several months has been on a tour that has taken them across the nation, will play 15 performances in their home state of Louisiana in the coming weeks.

“Our show boils down to a simple combination of loving what we do, loving each other and mixing it up with original arrangements of great classics. We play a mixture of several different genres of music but it’s mostly centered on the Great American Sound Book, those beautiful, classic songs that have a great lyric with a beautiful melody that always seem to be in style. This music is great because it’s popular with everyone, including people in their 20s to people in their 90s, it just has mass appeal,” he said.

Davis said that the orchestra’s performances are perfect for fans of Big Band music, but promises that the group tries to include something for everyone to enjoy.

“We try not to do just a concert, and instead do a show. So we play Sinatra but we also throw in some Johnny Cash and some Ray Charles songs, we’ll even do a few Elvis songs if we’re feeling frisky. We do everything with our tongues in cheek,” he said.

Jeremy Davis and his Fabulous Equinox Jazz Orchestra will take the stage at 7 p.m. Sunday at Burton Coliseum for a concert that is part of the McNeese’s Banners Cultural Series. (Special to the American Press)