After a 6-month rest from performing, the Biggish Band will be back just in time to celebrate 5 years since coming together for the first rehearsal at the Jazz Workshop on June 6 2001!

It's 58 gigs, and one CD recording later and the band has grown into a grooving Big Band still playing 100% South African repertoire comprising of new arrangements of South African jazz classics (tunes by Errol Dyers, Dollar Brand, Zakes Nkosi, Chris McGregor, Hugh Masekela, etc) and a host of new tunes composed for the band by Merton Barrow, David Ledbetter, Douglas Armstrong, Jannie 'Hanepoot' van Tonder and others. The music includes classic swing, salsa, a tango(!), as well as indigenous mbaqanga and goema.

Since the first gig in November 2001, the band has performed at music venues, festivals and private functions in and around Cape Town. Highlights have been performances at:

• the Standard Bank Jazzathon in 2003 and 2004 at the V&A Waterfront
• the Oude Libertas Summer series in 2004
• the Cape Town Festival in 2003 and 2004
• the Kirstenbosch Silvertree Restaurant and Master Currency Winter Concerts
• gigs at the Cape Town City Hall, Mannenbergs Jazz Cafe, Generations Cafe, Masque Theatre, Independent Armchair Theatre and many other venues

In July 2003, the band became the official mouthpiece of Cape Town’s leading jazz and classical music radio station, FMR101.3 and in 2005 the band launched its first CD, Salt & Vinegar, recorded live at the Nassau Centre in Cape Town.

Directions to the school below.