Swinging and jazzy Squirrel Nut Zippers to Perform at The Center for the Arts

The Center for the Arts is pleased to welcome platinum-selling Squirrel Nut Zippers on December 7th, 2022 with opener Christopher Wonder in the Marisa Funk Theater. The Squirrel Nut Zippers return to the west coast this December with their joyous, raucous Christmas Caravan tour. Performing songs from their Christmas Caravan and Mardi Gras for Christmas albums as well as other Zippers favorites, the 13-date run will be the first west coast holiday tour since 2018.

Founder Jimbo Mathis put the first version of the band together in North Carolina in the mid-1990s, spinning early jazz, swing, R&B with traditional pop and even Klezmer and Balkan music into a mix of their own. Outside of the rollicking concerts which were rapidly growing in attendance, NPR was the first significant media source to take notice of the band, followed by an appearance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. With grunge, and alternative rock in full swing back in 1995, the Squirrel Nut Zippers debut album The Inevitable sounded like nothing happening musically at the time. After the band’s sophomore platinum release Hot became a surprise commercial success, the group went on to sell more than 3 million albums between 1995 and 2003. But then, the Zippers went quiet for years, until Mathis heard suggestions to bring back the band in 2016 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Hot.” He decided to put together a new version of the band (not for commercial reasons) with him being the only original member in the current alignment, and have gone on to produce two albums, and up until the pandemic, toured extensively, exceeding Mathis’s expectations when he put the new band together. 

Their latest album, Lost Songs Of Doc Souchon has ten brand new tracks, a combination of newly penned Zippers songs, along with a few tunes from long-gone times. “This new album was inspired by all of the mysterious characters from the history of New Orleans jazz music,” commented band leader Jimbo Mathus.“It speaks to the hidden roots of where our aesthetic, interests, and philosophy come from.” Prior to Lost Songs of Doc Souchon, their most recent studio album Beasts Of Burgundy was released in 2018 and debuted at #4 on the Billboard Jazz Albums Chart upon its release. It was back in 1998 when SNZ released their first and only Holiday album titled Christmas Caravan, which went on to sell a quarter of a million copies and reached #12 on the Billboard Holiday Albums chart.

The nine-piece band that features three horns, a full rhythm section with piano, and three lead singers, will play a show that covers a quarter-century of Squirrel Nut Zippers music as well as some holiday classics for their Christmas Caravan Tour. It will be a fun-filled night of swinging hits and festive holiday jams with the Zippers and opener magician/comedian Christopher Wonder at The Center for the Arts on December 7, 2022.