The Anderson Twins don’t really play the fabulous Dor-seys in “The Anderson Twins Play the Fabulous Dorseys!,” but never mind. This musical tribute from one pair of swinging musical siblings to another features enough toe-tapping, heart-lifting jazz to quiet any quibbles.
Identical baby-faced twins in their mid-20s, Pete and Will Anderson probably exited their mother’s womb whistling “Begin the Beguine.” The Bethesda, Md., natives clearly love music that preceded them by decades — in an earlier show, they paid tribute to Artie Shaw.
Here, they pay tribute to Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, the legendary bandleaders whose sibling rivalry and musical differences famously caused them to split up, though they later reunited.
Essentially a concert with visual aids, the show features the twins leading their superb jazz sextet in a succession of Dorseys hits, punctuated by film clips from the cheesy 1947 flick “The Fabulous Dorseys,” in which Jimmy and Tommy played themselves.
Periodically, the Andersons try to dramatize the Dorseys’ quarrels, with one of them storming off, as one brother did, after an argument over a song’s tempo. Mostly, though, the exchanges consist of “How about we try this one, Will?” and “What do you say we hit one of our favorites?”
But the evening’s really about the music, and the well-honed band delivers thrilling renditions of such numbers as “Runnin’ Wild,” “Swanee River,” “Cherokee,” “Song of India” and the rapid-fire “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Only a purist would object to the fact that neither twin — who are sax and clarinet virtuosos — plays Tommy’s signature instrument, the trombone.
Audience members, many of them old enough to remember the songs when they first appeared, ate it up. It seemed that only the theater’s cramped confines kept them from getting up and dancing.