The Candy Shop Boys

The Candy Shop Boys played over 150 shows a year for New York's burlesque community from 2009 to about 2017. The quintet of violinist Scott Tixier, tenor saxophonist Matt Parker, pianist Jesse Elder, bassist Kenball Zwerin and drummer Arthur Vint, often fronted by vocalist Sophia Urista, built a songbook of 1920s hot jazz, viper songs and Cotton Club material alongside reinventions of The Doors, The Beatles and Prince. Performers chose their songs each night from the band's list, and Jesse Elder wrote most of the arrangements.

The band began in 2009 as Melody Sweets and The Candy Shop Boys and performed at the 2011 Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender in Las Vegas. Duane Park was home base; the band held a weekly gig at the Rum House in Times Square for about eight years, played the Slipper Room and the Manderley Bar at Sleep No More, and backed Murray Hill for countless shows. With Urista, the band toured nationally for Dos Equis' Bazaar Noir. In 2014 the band was heard and seen in the film John Wick, and their "Evil Man Blues" appears on the Official Motion Picture Soundtrack.

Sugarfoot Stomp, recorded over two January nights at Tedesco Studios in 2013 and shelved for thirteen years, is the band's debut album: twenty-one tracks, newly remixed and remastered, with liner notes by Dr. Reggie Quinerly. It is released by BYNK Records on October 30, 2026.

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