Veteran crooner Jefferson Smith and the B Sharp Big Band will join forces for two swinging shows of ’30s, ’40s and ’50s classics next month.
The son of country Victorian dairy farmers, Jefferson followed in his father’s musical footsteps when he took up the trumpet at age 12.
After discovering Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at 14 he asked his parents for singing lessons and at 19 he bought his first guitar after hearing Neil Diamond.
His musical passion would lead to him singing with Michael Buble at a concert and alongside the likes of Paul Anka, Kris Kristofferson and Chris Isaak.
After many years honing his craft, Smith has carved out a full time career singing hits of the Great American song book.
A lover of Hollywood’s golden age and ’50s music, he performs at hundreds of shows each year.
He now joins Melbourne’s B Sharp Big Band, which has performed the classics of the swing era for 16 years.
The B Sharps launched in September 2003 to an audience of more 600 swing lovers at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre.
Founder and director Henry Kovacevic has pulled together some of Australia’s highest-calibre musicians to perform classic arrangements of Basie, Ellington, Goodman, Miller and other swing ‘big cats’.
While the B Sharps have acquired some well-known classics, the band also unearths and resurrects rarely-heard ‘lost’ hits, with a new twist.
The band comes to Geelong Performing Arts Centre’s The Playhouse to get feet a’tappin’ and hearts a-poundin’ for two shows at 10.30am on 3 and 4 July.
Big band and swing fans can expect tunes made famous by Sinatra, Martin, Bobby Darrin and other mid-century swingin’ crooners.
