Swinging Southgate!

This month's Balboa Nights event at the Southgate Club features a student big band from Trinity Laban Conservatoire in Greenwich that specialises in recreating the music of Fletcher Henderson, one of the greats of the Swing era.

The Fletcher Henderson Project was started in 2020 to give Trinity Laban Conservatoire students the opportunity to study and enjoy earlier periods of Jazz.

Featuring a 13-piece line up, the band specialises in ‘Big Band’ Jazz of the 1930s, a period known as the ‘Swing’ era. The core of the band’s repertoire features the work of pianist, arranger and band leader Fletcher Henderson, one of the most influential musicians of this period. In addition, the band loves to perform the repertoire of other great bands of the Swing Era, including those of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.

This vibrant, dance-inspired music gives young jazz musicians the opportunity to explore the essentials of swing rhythm, a wide variety of ensemble skills and an approach to soloing which is concise, melodic and expressive.