In tonight's show, we're featuring Holiday Jam with the Hegg Brothers - they play new arrangements of traditional Christmas carols and hymns, standard holiday pop and jazz tunes and original songs, too. They also throw in songs that have a message appropriate for this time of year. The performance we're listening to tonight was recorded at Sioux Falls' Washington Pavilion and Orpheum Theatre on December 17th and 18th, 2011.
Brothers Jeremy and Jon Hegg are pretty well known in the region - they play keyboards, brass, sing, arrange music and perform with a number of different groups. They played with A South Dakota Acoustic Christmas from time to time. And when Acoustic Christmas retired, the Heggs felt there was a hole in the holiday concert traditions of the communities across the state who'd supported Acoustic Christmas. So in 2009, the Hegg Brothers Holiday Jam was born. They enlisted current musical partners as well as long-time musical friends who grew up in South Dakota but didn't live here anymore. They soon had a 9-piece band and joined forces with the production company Off the Cuff Stuff to produce a state-wide tour. And the tour has grown to include communities in neighboring states, too.