The next time you feel your dancing feet itching to move, head to any venue featuring Professor Pennygoode and The Mighty Flea Circus, a Sebastian-based band that keeps their multi-generational audiences moving, shaking and shouting for more. Selling a sound they call “swingabilly,” The Mighty Flea Circus offers a unique blend of swing, rockabilly and jump blues. One minute you may be bopping along with them to a hot blues tune and then they may segue into a 1940s big band hit such as Cab Calloway’s “Minnie The Moocher” or Nat King Cole’s “Hit That Jive Jack.”
The two lead vocalists of the five-piece band, Ray Noel and Chrystine Polzin, are a couple who met in 1993 while studying music education at what was then Indian River Community College. Noel, originally from Beacon, NY and Polzin, from Logansport, IN, both relocated with their families to Florida in their formative years and both pursued music at an early age.
Perhaps influenced by his father who played guitar, Noel took up the instrument at 16. Rock groups like Black Sabbath and Metallica were among his first musical heroes, and heavier rock ballads dominated much of the set lists from his first bands as a young adult. But he is also a longtime fan of swing-era greats like Louis Jordan and Louis Prima, and rockabilly vocalist Wanda Jackson.
“I am so happy that with this band I can finally explore playing the music I have always loved but which usually took a back seat to other projects,” he says.
Noel’s partner in life and music, Polzin was always drawn to the music and the fashion of the swing and jump era, even in her years in high school chorus. She admits that “getting to be part of a band, actually performing the style, both musically and in fashion, has led me to find a range in my voice and a persona on stage that I didn’t know was possible.” An accomplished musician herself, Polzin plays the piano and harmonica, but mainly contributes guitar, kazoo, percussion and her sultry vocals The Mighty Flea Circus’s shows.
Noel and Polzin originally began playing professionally as the acoustic duo Hairpeace. Although they still enjoy playing together in that capacity, they had long wanted to expand into a band that offered great renditions of the swing and rockabilly music they were so fond of and also incorporate upbeat originals with the same feeling and flair.
Having in the past enlisted the guitar skills of Polzin’s older brother, Greggor Lee, for various gigs and recordings, the couple found Lee was excited to join The Mighty Flea Circus. Lee has played with multiple bands since the mid-1980s. With his musical passions strongly rooted in the blues, Lee’s current go-to musical icons include T. Bone Walker, Brian Setzer, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Billed as “The Acrobat” on The Mighty Flea Circus website, Lee performs his musical feats with an old white Gretsch guitar.
“Being in this band with my sister Chrystine is much more enjoyable than I would have ever thought possible,” Lee says. “It has been the most rewarding experience, both personally and musically.”
Beyond the fedoras, bowlers, and zoot suits of the front men in The Mighty Flea Circus is an imposing presence seated behind the drum kit: John Paul McCune, a towering figure and equally powerful percussionist. McCune is aptly named “the giant,” and he’s a giant in terms of experience, too: 36 years of playing on stage. One of a large family of musicians, McCune is the son of a guitar-playing father and a mother who played organ; all of his siblings play guitar or bass, including some who play professionally.
It was McCune’s mother who first exposed him to some of his all-time favorite musical influences: Count Basie, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman. In his teenage years, McCune played in jazz, marching and symphonic bands at Satellite High School in Brevard County.
Now a network engineer at Florida Tech, McCune also occasionally does session work at Full Sail University in Orlando, a for-profit school that offers training for the recording arts industry, and the Zone Studio in Melbourne.
The newest addition to Professor Pennygoode and The Mighty Flea Circus is bassist Ken Zeszutko. A native of Rome, NY, and current resident of Rockledge, Zeszutko joined the band this spring. Though he had only a few rehearsals under his belt before the group’s first appearance at Earl’s Hideaway in May, no one in the audience would have known it. Laying down dirty bass riffs while spinning his hefty upright bass like a swinging dance partner, Zeszutko played the crowd and performed as if he joined the circus long ago.
It was through on-line forums that Noel and Polzin first met McCune and Zeszutko and they also credit the Internet with bridging the geographic gaps that challenge the band.
“With us in Indian River County, two members in Brevard and one in Tampa, there have been a limited number of rehearsals that all five of us have been in the same room,” Noel explains. “I have had many Skype rehearsal sessions with Greggor, putting together new songs and working out details of arrangements.”
Digital recordings of their in-person rehearsals serve to pass ideas on and help them remember when the spark of inspiration strikes.
As for marketing, good old-fashioned word of mouth has been instrumental in increasing the band’s popularity and exposure to new audiences.
The Mighty Flea Circus regularly plays at Earl’s Hideaway (June 20 is their next date) and the Tiki Bar in Sebastian; in both venues, swing-dancing crowds kick up the sand to their lively sounds.
They also appear at Waldo’s and the Orchid Island Brewery in Vero Beach, play the Rock the Yacht series in Tampa and were a featured performer at the Tampa Lindy Exchange last fall.
