Valley Cats are cool

If you like a variety of music to listen or dance to, you’ll like KC and the Valley Cats. These cool cats are the foursome of KC Sorensen on trumpet and vocals, his wife Cindy at the piano, Brian Campbell on drums and Mike Thompson on the bass. Cindy also does some vocals and sings duets with her husband.

At a special benefit concert for the Mission Valley Aquatics, held at the Red Poppy in Ronan, on Valentine’s Day, they played jazz, swing, show tunes, Gospel numbers, blues, rock and roll and a few oldies. The previous night they provided the music for a party at the Leon Club, and the following Thursday they appeared at Ricciardi’s.

One thing is quite obvious to an audience: The band members are really enjoying what they’re doing. And each gets to do their specialty. Brian Campbell really gave the drums a workout on “When the Saints Go Marching In” and Mike Thompson did an unusual intro on the bass to “Sentimental Journey.”

KC has a choice of two trumpets, a flugelhorn and a peck horn (an E-flat alto horn), sometimes using up to three of the instruments in a single piece. On occasion, he’ll whip out his harmonica, too.

They opened the Red Poppy concert with “Valley Cat Boogie” and “Stray Cat Strut.” Numbers that followed included “Sugar Blues”, “Orange Colored Sky”, “Bye, Bye Blackbird”, “Five Foot Two”, “Eyes of Blue”, “Honeysuckle Rose”, “On the Street Where You Live”, “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”.

During the intermission, the goal of Mission Valley Aquatics was explained. It’s a “Lake County based not-for-profit organization committed to raising money to design and construct an indoor swimming facility for the Mission Valley community with capital financing by donations and operated by a combination of user fees and funds from the creation of a Recreation District.”

The design includes a 25-yard competitive fitness pool with eight lanes; a warm water therapy/instructional pool and a shallow entry children’s play pool. The pools will accommodate a variety of programs such as youth and adult competitive swimming, recreational swimming, swim lessons for all ages, water safety instruction, senior fitness, physical therapy/cardiac rehabilitation and family fun. If space and funding permit, a children’s wading pool and a multipurpose gym could be added.

 MVA directors and interested citizens meet the fourth Monday of each month at noon at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Polson.