Andy Scott and the Western Swing Orchestra live on Phillip Island
ANDY Scott and his Western Swing Orchestra will perform live at Phillip Island Bowling Club, from 2 pm until 4:30 pm on Sunday, January 18.
Andy has assembled a top group of musicians. The line-up includes Andy Scott on bass and vocals, Ester Henderson on fiddle, Shane Ryall on guitar, Lachlan Wallace on drums, Bruce Sandell on clarinet and saxophone, Jody Bell on guitar and vocals and Sam Lemann on guitar.
Western swing is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dancing music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas and California during the 1930s and 1940s, until a federal wartime nightclub tax in 1944 contributed to the genre's decline.
The movement was an outgrowth of jazz. The music is an amalgamation of rural, cowboy, polka, old-time, Dixieland jazz and blues blended with swing and played by a hot string band often augmented with drums, saxophones, pianos and, notably, the steel guitar. The electrically amplified stringed instruments, especially the steel guitar, give the music a distinctive sound. Later incarnations have also included overtones of bebop.
Western swing differs in several ways from the music played by the nationally popular horn-driven big swing bands of the same era. In Western bands, even fully orchestrated bands, vocals, and other instruments followed the fiddle's lead, though, like popular horn-led bands that arranged and scored their music, most Western bands improvised freely, either by soloists or collectively.
According to country singer Merle Travis, "Western swing is nothing more than a group of talented country boys, unschooled in music, but playing the music they feel, beating a solid two-four rhythm to the harmonies that buzz around their brains. When it escapes in all its musical glory, my friend, you have Western swing.”
Jill from the Phillip Island Jazz Club said they’re expecting large numbers, so bookings will assist with seating. The Phillip Island Bowling Club is located at 40 Dunsmore Rd, Cowes.
