Evenings as beautiful as yesterday’s demand outdoor strolling, so a friend and I headed down from the Hill to Pioneer Square for the monthly art walk. We were late to most of the galleries— all the freebies were snatched up, natch—but we did arrive in time to catch the Orkestar Zirkonium parading down First Avenue. The band is a 12-piece (maybe more) ad-hoc collection of horns and drums, like a klezmer ensemble at a Gypsy high school football game halftime show, and they played Pied Piper to a motley assortment of teenaged mimes in whiteface, drunk punks drinking tallboys of Ranier, and dreadlocked hippies dancing with loose-limbed swirls, not to mention a slew of regular folks just along for the ride. It was a totally unexpected blast of free-for-all musical frenzy, perfectly attunded to the balmy night air.

Peeling off from the pack, my friends and I ended up in the nearby New Orleans Creole Restaurant on First and Cherry, drawn by the sound of more brass. A band had just finished as we walked in and the place was packed with tourists and families. It seemed like an ordinary ho-hum Thursday night crowd. Ten minutes after we sat down, though, the music started up again and suddenly the creaky wooden floorboards were inundated with dancers—a pack of young and unbelievably talented couples doing the Lindy and the Charleston like pros, busting complex steps and going full-bore aerobic with a rare degree of skill. These kids were damn good and obviously well-practiced and the band—the classy Ham Carson Quartet—played just the right brand of ragtime jazz to juice ‘em up. After a few songs and a few beers the room became a Prohibition-era speakeasy, warm and dimly lit, humid with sweat and booze and bent notes from a hot trombone.

After the band wound down we spoke to a few of the dancers. Some were heading off to another swing session at a Russian social hall; others had early work days and were going home. Thursday nights at the Creole joint are a regular thing, worth checking out for the music and the dancing, if not the pretty-alright menu.

This swing underground is unusual and fascinating, though, because anyone will tell you that revival died a timely death ten years ago. But these kids were no dilettantes and had some serious moves, ones they ply all over the city at different dance nights, clubs, and ballrooms like the Century. They also spoke in hushed tones about “Blues Parties,” impromptu house parties where couples get scandalously intimate on dark living room dancefloors to small jazz combos. Gotta love a thriving, dedicated subculture.

And you gotta love a random Thursday in Pioneer Square that turns up not one but two.