Riptide Big Band will provide live music during The Way You Wear Your Hat Dance, at the Elwin Mussell Senior Center in Santa Maria, on Sunday, April 13, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Guests of the event are encouraged to wear their favorite hats, and those who do will be eligible for a special prize giveaway.
Admission to the dance, hosted by the Santa Maria Valley Senior Citizen Club, is free thanks to grant funding from the Community Foundation of San Luis Obispo County. Based in the Santa Maria Valley and led by former music teacher Judy Lindquist, Riptide Big Band includes musicians from both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties
The group specializes in big band era music, soft rock from the ’60s and ’70s, the music standards of the ’30s and ’40s, and “pretty much anything written for standard big band orchestration,” according to the group’s website.
Thanks to consistent funding from the Community Foundation of San Luis Obispo County, Riptide Big Band has been providing live dance events with free admission at venues across Central Coast for several years.
To find out more about the upcoming dance and other events featuring Riptide Big Band, call (775) 813-5186 or visit riptidebb.com. The Elwin Mussell Senior Center is located at 510 Park Ave., Santa Maria.
For more info on the Community Foundation of San Luis Obispo County, call (805) 543-2323 or visit cfsloco.org.
This article appears in Apr 3-13, 2025.