Keith Nichols takes us back to the days of London’s exclusive clubs and great hotels and the wonderful music that the BBC broadcast across the nation.  It was the age of the bandleader as superstar – Carroll Gibbons and Fred Elizalde at the Savoy, Sydney Lipton at Grosvenor House, Lew Stone at the Monseigneur, Jack Jackson at the Dorchester, Henry Hall on the BBC and Ambrose at the Mayfair.  The bandsmen, men like Sid Phillips, Lew Davis, Tiny Winters, George Chisholm and Nat Gonella were talented and versatile and the crooners, too, soon became stars: Al Bowlly, Sam Browne, Elsie Carlisle and Vera Lynn were just a few.

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The show will feature a wide range of music from the 20s and 30s including Billy Cotton’s Somebody Stole My Gal, Nat Gonella’s Georgia on my Mind, Al Bowlly’s The Very Thought of You, Henry Hall’s Anything Goes and Jack Hylton’s You’re The Top.  

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A superb ensemble augmented with strings from the BBC Concert Orchestra features some of the country’s leading specialists in vintage jazz and dance music and the evening promises to be an unforgettable night of rhythm and romance.

 

Keith Nichols is one of the UK’s most renowned vintage jazz musicians and a respected bandleader who has performed all over the world – everywhere from Carnegie Hall and Mississippi steamboats in the USA to concert halls and clubs in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East.  Back in the 1970s he led the Midnight Follies Orchestra, in the 80s and 90s The Cotton Club Orchestra.  Currently he directs the Blue Devils and The Mayfair Dance Orchestra as well as numerous small bands.  At Cadogan Hall he has been Musical Director for shows featuring the music of Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller.