Purists quibble a little about the dates, but most agree that the “golden age” of the big bands ran from about 1936 to 1948. While a lot was going on around the world during those years, people still found enough time to write a lot of “classic” big band music.
The Billie Ledbetter Orchestra has a lot of that very same music. In most cases, we’re playing “the classics” from the identical arrangements that you may have heard back in 1942. We’re not hacking away at some “adapted for group plus horns” chart; what we’re delivering is the same as what Goodman and Dorsey offered in the days of the Glen Isle Casino and the Red Network.
If you’re one of those purists, see if you can figure out how many nights we could program dance sets of nothing but “big band classics” from the list below:
