In 1995, saxophonist Andy Williamson was asked by Simon Selmon of the London Swing Dance Society to put together a special band for a Lindy Hop festival in London. At the time, Andy was playing with The Honkin' Hep Cats. After getting Ned Bennett on board as Musical Director, the Big Buzzard Boogie Band emerged. The regular 11 piece line up features a front line of three saxes, three brass and a vocalist, with piano, bass drums and guitar bringing up the rear. This format has inspired Ned Bennett to create some great arrangements and original compositions, which because of his particular musical skill, often sound like a much larger band. The repertoire has expanded from the original jive and big band swing standards to encompass a wide range of musical styles. A normal set includes these, plus soul, funk, blues and latin numbers.
Several great singers have performed with the band over the years. For the first few years, duties were shared between Naomi Greenberg and Stacey Kent. Regular guitarist Pete Kershaw (another ex Hep Cat) also often singssteps up to the mic for a few songs. Our regular singer at the moment is the Scot, Jonathan Cairney (1991 winner of the Perrier Young Jazz Singer award).
For 3 years running (1998-2000) the band headlined at The Soho Ball at the Cafe Royal, Piccadilly Circus where they also backed Suggs in a set of old Madness songs. In May 2000, one guest offered to donate £1000 to charity if the band, and Suggs would perform his hit duet with Ian Dury "Drop Dead Fred" as a tribute to Ian, who had died a few weeks earlier. With only a couple hours notice, they bought a CD of the song at Tower Records across the road, and Ned whipped up a quick arrangement. Andy was honoured to take Ian Dury's place.
In 1999 and 2000, the band appeared at the Famous Spiegeltent at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (see reviews below). Some of the 1999 performances were recorded, and under the expert ears of Sound Engineer Jim France, some stunning live recordings are available here for free download as MP3 files.
On 1st June, 2002, the Big Buzzard Boogie Band performed at Buckingham Palace as part of the "Prom at the Palace" in celebration of the Queen's Golden Jubilee.
The band performs regularly at the Royal Festival Hall Foyer in London's South Bank Centre. Their performance there on 3 November 2002 attracted a record audience of around 1000 people.
The band can shrink to form the Big Buzzard Baby Band which might feature 4-7 musicians. In this guise it performs regularly at London's 100 Club and was on hand for the opening celebrations of the new Sadler's Wells Theatre as well as countless smaller events, both public and private around the UK.
It has also had occasion to grow to a full sized jazz orchestra for performances of Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert with the Choir of Clifton Cathedral. The first of these opened Bristol's Spiritual Sounds festival in 1999. This performance was recorded and the opening and closing movements are available here as MP3 files. This has become a regular part of the Big Buzzard repertoire, and was featured for three performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, during the band's visit to the Famous Spiegeltent in August 2001 (see review below).
In November 2001, after a late night gig at Moles Club in Bath, the band were up early on Sunday morning for a live broadcast on BBC Radio 4 of Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert as part of the regular Sunday Morning Service from Clifton Cathedral in Bristol. The controller of Radio 4 was heard to have been well pleased with the results.
On 10 April 2002, the Big Buzzard Big Band joined again with Clifton Cathedral Choir for BBC Radio 3's Choral Evening Prayer, broadcast live from Clifton Cathedral in Bristol. The hour-long broadast featured music from Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert, and the world premiere of a new setting of the Magnificat for choir and jazz ensemble by Ned Bennett. You can download or stream an MP3 version of this here, exactly as broadcast (it's a 9.8Mb file, so you'll need a fast connection, or plenty of time!). Some of Radio 3's more conservative listeners were horrified that this bastion of British classical music broadcasting had been infiltrated by jazz, and wrote to the BBC to say so in very strong terms! However the Cathedral and the BBC both received many letters and calls from people who found the programme wonderful.
For some reason, not many reviewers have been moved to commit their opinions to print over the years. The few reviews we do know about are shown below. If you know of any others (complimentary or otherwise!) we'd be very glad to hear about them.
For the Big Buzzard Boogie Band's appearances at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999:
| From The Scotsman | From The Herald |
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And for the performances of Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert in 2001:
