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HARLEMANIA is effectively a musical tour of "uptown" New York City in the 1920/30s. The so-called "Harlem Renaissance" is in full swing, when this red-hot sector of the city is vying with Paris, London and Berlin as one of the great international centres for entertainment and the arts.

Customers from the rich suburbs of the city, out of town visitors and foreign tourists are flocking into Harlem every night of the week to experience the colourful, exotic and slightly dangerous excitement on offer in the clubs, theatres and dancehalls.

Our audiences join them to enjoy an authentic flavour of the bands of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Jimmy Lunceford at the sumptuous Cotton Club - run by gangsters with no expense spared; Luis Russell's Orchestra with Red Allen, at the Saratoga Club; Charlie Johnson's Orchestra at Smalls' Paradise; Fletcher Henderson, with the young Louis Armstrong at the famous Renaissance Ballroom; Chick Webb at the Savoy; and a host of others of equal stature, including Bix Beiderbecke, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and James P Johnson at the dozens of late night clubs, bars and parties that made Harlem what it was.

Between lively renditions of the great jazz numbers of the day ("Cotton Club Stomp", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "Jazznocracy", "Stompin' at the Savoy", "Rhythm Crazy", etc) as well as stride piano and a jam session or two, bandleader Paul Munnery tells a few anecdotes relating to such colourful characters as musicians Fats Waller and Willie "The Lion" Smith, and gangster/club manager Ownie Madden, and sketches in some of the background. (This favours the entertaining rather than the academic; further information is provided in a printed programme for optional purchase.)

This entertainment features yesterday's jazz attractively staged for today's audiences. Harlem, with twenty years' experience, is one of the UK's few big bands regularly playing in the 1920/30s style, and authentic though it certainly is, the emphasis is always on excitement. Given a narrative that is as meticulously researched as the music, the result is great music played in the context of the classic jazz era.