New York’s Best Little Big Swing Band

This swinging ensemble captures the excitement of a big band by featuring our signature three horn section. The band can perform with or without one of our guest vocalists.

The term “Big Band,” referring to Jazz, is vague but popular. The term generally refers to the swing era starting around 1935, but there was no one event that kicked off a new form of music in 1935. It had evolved naturally from the blues and jazz of New Orleans, Chicago and Kansas City.

Early Jazz developed in New Orleans where Buddy Bolden, King Oliver (a cornet player idolized by Louis Armstrong) and others performed at the turn of the century. Mississippi steamboats helped spread the new sound as many New Orleans jazz bands and musicians performed on the boats.

1917 saw the early recordings of the Original Dixieland Jass Band – white musicians playing the tunes and arrangements of black musicians. Despite the fact that they hadn’t invented anything, their recordings sold over a million copies and introduced jazz to all of America and the world.

In the 1920s the music of jazz began to evolve to bigger band formats combining elements of ragtime, black spirituals, blues, and European music. Duke Ellington, Ben Pollack, Don Redman, and Fletcher Henderson were some of the more popular early big bands. These groups nurtured young stars and future bandleaders like Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Red Allen, Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, and John Kirby.

Listening to live or new music also challenges the brain — it has to work to understand a new sound — acting as a workout for the brain. Music improves creativity, memory, alertness, and clarity, and live music has been linked to improved cognitive function in patients with dementia. When looking at subjects’ brain activity in MRI scans, researchers found that music activates more areas of the brain than even language; in fact, in early development, babies start processing music before they can process speech. Studies have shown that listening to music releases brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which promotes neurogenesis: the growth of new neurons. Essentially, listening to music, recorded or live, keeps your brain young.

People who regularly experience live music boost their creativity and cognitive abilities; reduce stress hormone levels while increasing the production of endorphins, dopamine, and oxytocin; experience consistent social connection or “collective effervescence; and even live longer (up to nine years longer, in fact).