COVENTRY big band Tongue and Groove has shown its support for the people of Ukraine via a video of it performing the country’s national anthem in the city’s Humber Pub.
Members wore blue and yellow pin badges especially for the occasion in the film hosted by Gary Lewis.
Tongue and Groove was started around 15 years ago and is made up of 17 musicians who play everything from the ‘golden age of big band music’, including Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Woody Herman, to more modern songs by Aha, Adele, Billy Eilish and more.
The Ukraine national anthem performance came about when Adrian Drover and his publishing company Adios Music put together an arrangement for Big Band. A post was put onto Facebook asking for recordings of this arrangement, provided free by Adios, to put on its website.
Bill Richardson, from the band, said: “Naturally we wanted to show support for the people of Ukraine, so we decided to film it.
“Gary Lewis has sung with the band on many occasions, but he is also a dab hand at producing excellent videos, so he was the obvious person to ask for help.”
He added the video had been well-received and thanked the staff at the Humber pub, Lucy Holland for editing the video and Keith Hale for posting it on YouTube.
