New Season of the Jonny Cooper Orchestra in Cape Town

Take a trip down memory lane with the internationally-acclaimed Jonny Cooper Orchestra

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the orchestra and as the saying goes “time flies when you’re having fun”. It was back in 1993 that a small advert appeared in a Cape Town newspaper inviting local musicians to join a rehearsal band to play Big Band Swing music.

According to Jonny Cooper, the founder of the orchestra, the phone rang off the hook as musicians from all walks of life responded to the ad and came together with one thing in common, a passion for Big Band Swing music.

An invitation to a local event gave them their first public performance with a grand repertoire of just six songs, and little did they know this was the start to the most successful Big Band in South African history, the Jonny Cooper Orchestra.

Take a trip down memory lane with the internationally acclaimed Jonny Cooper Orchestra, South Africa’s “Ambassadors of Big Band Music” a title bestowed upon them by the trustees of the Big Band Hall of Fame in Miami for perpetuating, promoting and performing the sounds of the Big Band era with integrity.

To celebrate the success of the past 15 years the orchestra has recently released their fifth album “Swing Safari” uniquely reworking a selection of well known African and Afrikaans songs into the 1940’s Swing genre receiving great reviews and airplay in Europe.

When the orchestra returns to Theatre on the Bay from 10 June to 4 July 2009, Cape Town audiences can expect to hear musical tributes to The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie, and vocal tributes to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong and many more.

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