Dick Voigt was the founder and manager of Eli's Chosen Six, the famed Yale Dixieland band of the 1950s. The band performed at Carnegie Hall, recorded for Columbia Records, toured most of the major college campuses in the northeast and appeared at many top jazz clubs around the country. After Yale, Dick performed in combos led by Wild Bill Davison, Vic Diskenson, Bob Wilbur, Henry Goodwin, J.C. Higginbottom and Doc Cheatham.

Dick organized The Big Apple Jazz Band following his appearance at the Sacramento Jazz Festival in 1996. The band’s musical style is a blend of traditional New Orleans and Chicago style jazz, combined with the looser freewheeling, rhythms of swing. This “New York Sound” has its roots in the jazz clubs of West Fifty-Second Street in the golden age of jazz. The band’s rotating roster draws on some of the most accomplished and experienced Dixieland artists in the New York Metropolitan area. Musicians who have played with the band include Warren Vache, Randy Reinhart, Jon Eric Kelso, Ed Polcer, John Bucher, Jordan Sanke, Tom Artin Herb Gardner, Joe Licari, Dave Hofstra, Dick Waldburger, Steve Little, Kevin Dorn and Giampolo Biagi.