"Swing’s the thing" was formed in 1998 and quickly earned a reputation of being one of the foremost exponents of big band music.  We are a nineteen piece orchestra comprising a mix of accomplished professional musicians and extremely talented amateur musicians.  Some members make round trips of over 100 miles to attend weekly rehearsals, we work hard and we have fun doing it and everyone buys into that ethic,  The desire to play with the band is such that personnel changes are rare. 

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We are commercially active, performing concerts and playing at dances throughout the country but we are probably best known for our self promoted Thursday evening concerts.  "Miller & McCartney", "Film & TV Themes", "Pick of the Pops 1930/40", "The Creative World of Stan Kenton" and "The Best of British" are just some of the shows we have enjoyed creating and performing. Highlights for many were "The Glenn Miller Story" where we told his story from the 1939 Carnegie Hall Concert through to his time in Bedford (our home town) with the AAF Orchestra and "Rhapsody in Blue" where we performed an all Gershwin program featuring three different versions of his iconic work including the 1924 Paul Whiteman original with Lincoln Noel on piano.  My own personal favourite was our recreation of "Sinatra at the Sands" featuring Mel Peake as Sinatra and STT playing the part of the Count Basie Orchestra.  The BBC's "Dr. Swing" described "STT" as "the band that plays Basie better than Basie" and that was arguably the case during those performances. 

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Don't worry If you missed any of the above, we will continue to revisit many of them as well as introducing some new ones. 

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We remain extremely grateful to those organisations that have provided us with rehearsal facilities every Thursday throughout the year.  Without their help we could not perform to the standard that we do.

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Alex McLean