Michael Deakin Presentation: ‘Big Bands - Swinging Alone’

This should be a treat for all Jazz and Big Band fans. We have Michael Deakin at The Jazz Centre UK with a presentation titled 'Big Bands - Swinging Alone'. 

Entry £5. Purchase your ticket online at the bottom of this page or on-the-door. We have a limited capacity within our media room so ticket purchase is recommended to reserve your seat.

After a lifetime travelling the world as a business analyst, Michael Deakin realised that Jazz Appreciation Groups focus curiosity, appetite for challenge and jazz obsession. With ten years’ experience of trying to encourage amateur classical music festivals, Michael is promoting the value of TJCUK’s archives as the source of “themed anecdotes and curated discussion”. Come to listen and contribute!

A short introduction:

In 1933 Duke Ellington toured UK with great success, saying that he hoped to make it an annual tour. In 1934, the Great Depression hit the USA. This, combined with the impact of “talkies” meant that professional registrations with the American Federation of Musicians dropped by 80%. The AFM responded by opposing all applications for visas from UK musicians wishing to tour USA. The UK Musicians Union responded in kind, and there was no further exchange of musicians until 1950. As a result, Big Bands developed completely separately in the UK and USA. They had Ellington and Basie; we had Roy Fox, Ambrose and Henry Hall. Musical shows were recast for London and Broadway. There was no exchange of live music for seventeen years. British Big Band Swing developed music for dancing, stage shows and powerful showbiz moguls; US Big Band Swing developed music for radio, global films and showing off. 

This is a remarkable tale of transpositions and covers, enlivened by fourteen-year-olds who started sixty-year careers, and oddballs such as “Geraldo’s Navy”: the separated development of Big Bands in Britain and USA during the “no visa” period from 1933 – 1946.