Click on the photo to listen to samples of our music.
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Specialising in the big band music of the twenties and thirties,
the style of the orchestra ranges from the brash rip-roaring jazz
of the Cotton Club to the sophisticated elegance of the dance band
days.
Founded in 1988 as a rehearsal band with a dozen arrangements to try,
engagements soon followed, the library also growing apace.
Numerous Fletcher Henderson, Jelly Roll Morton, and early Duke Ellington
numbers are featured, but there are many others, for example, by Luis
Russell, Spencer Williams, Louis Armstrong and Coon-Sanders.
Three members of the Orchestra write arrangements; some accurate
transcriptions from records, others originals from old music copies
of jazz standards.
The members are all experienced, used to playing in traditional jazz
bands and reading music, enabling the Orchestra to produce a tight,
well drilled ensemble, intermingled with exciting improvised solos,
enhanced by the musicianship of our stunning singer Jan.
Varied and entertaining in concert, the Orchestra also offers a rhythm
that dancers cannot resist.
Few bands can play in this manner nowadays and so the Orchestra has a
growing reputation, the number of our friends increasing at every
performance.
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