In 1967 Syd Lawrence, an established trumpet player with the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra realised that he was not alone amongst his colleagues in being disillusioned with having to play uninteresting arrangements of hit songs from the sixties pop scene. Syd had served his musical apprenticeship working with such bands leaders as Geraldo, Teddy Foster, Nat Temple, Sidney Lipton and Cyril Stapleton and had come to believe that audiences were being denied the live sound of the music they loved and had grown up with. He also believed that the music and songs of the swing era would become, in time, the classic music of the 20th century and continue to appeal to people of all ages. \r \r