SWING MUSIC and Crop Over met on the South Coast when a visiting British “big band” of teenaged musicians gave a 90-minute performance at the Ocean Two Resort & residences.
Twenty-six all-male musicians from the Sherborne School of England thrilled staff and guests at the Christ Church luxury resort with popular throwbacks to the swing era and won admirers with their accomplished performances.
Some of the hits played by the Sherborne Swing Band included Frank Sinatra’s The Lady Is A Tramp and Blue Moon; Glen Miller’s Pennsylvania and Charlie Parker’s Yard Bird Suite.
“This is our third trip to Barbados and the boys really enjoyed it,” said musical director Jamie Henderson.
He also disclosed that their time on the island was part of a two-week educational trip during which the boys practised every day and also took time out to record a new 10-track album at the Canefield Studio.
The album, which features covers of Sinatra and Michael Buble, is labelled Mr Success and will be released in November.
Swing is a form of American music which dominated in the 1930s and 1940s and uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for a lead section of brass instruments such as trumpets, trombones and saxophones.
Also called big band music, swing is also a style of jazz and saw a revival in the late 1950s and 1960s with vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald.
Among the most notable musicians of the era were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Woody Herman, and Artie Shaw. (PR)