Leon Jordan's Continentals Big Band from Raleigh, NC

Leon Jordan's Continentals Big Band has been celebrating with you since 1957. This big band is a big "dance" band. Unlike all the others, you can dance to every tune we play. Primarily playing those 1930-1960 dance classics, the play list also includes songs from as early the 1910s and as recent as 2010s. Whether for the Lord Mayor of Hull, England, U.S. Senators, North Carolina Governors, happy brides and grooms, charities, collegiate events, country clubs, dance clubs, inaugural balls, Bob Hope, Perry Como, Pat Boone, Wayne Newton etc., Leon Jordan's Continentals play music of the great Big Bands. The band was featured in the major motion picture "Once Around" with Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter. They play what dancers and listeners want to hear, original arrangements and music from notable bands such as: Glen Miller Herb Albert Henri Mancini Woody Herman Les Brown Harry James Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey Kaye Kyser Duke Ellington Johnny Long Benny Goodman Artie Shaw and more current arrangements from today's swing band leaders Music selections number over a thousand from 1914-2010s. The Continentals Dance Band was first organized in 1957 as a sixteen piece orchestra. Leon had just been discharged from the Navy, and he and other musicians in the Raleigh area were looking for an opportunity to play dance music. The band's first engagement was playing for the Miss Raleigh pageant in 1958. Soon afterward they were playing for college dances at N.C. State, Duke and UNC. Many of the early musicians were college students and members of the National Guard Band. The band quickly grew in popularity because they played dance music while other bands in the area played jazz. One of the first musicians in the band and one who helped start the band was drummer Bobby Harrison. After playing with the Continentals, Harrison went on the road with Frank Sinatra, Jr. and then Si Zentner and Juliet Prowse. He now plays in Los Vegas. Other well-known musicians who have played with the band more recently are saxophonist Kirby Campbell, at one time the busiest studio musician in New York City, and Bob Havens who was the featured trombonist on the Lawrence Welk show for its entire twenty-two year run. The Continentals Band is best-known for having played more than five hundred Saturday night engagements at the Radisson Governors Inn in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The Band's current vocalist is Stephie Goode, who was educated at the Indiana University School of Music and studied under the great Eugene Bayless. The Continentals Orchestra plays a variety of music — Latin, swing, mambo, rumba, waltzes, some beach and country, ballads, vocals, 30's–2010's — popular and contemporary. The orchestra seeks to play the styles of music that customers prefer and will also adapt to the preference of the dancers. We play danceable music and swing music as revived by Linda Ronstadt, Harry Connick Jr., Michael Buble, Diana Krall & Rod Stewart. The Continental Combo, a break-out jazz combo is available for smaller and/or more intimate events.

• Taste of Honey | Herb Albert
• Pennsylvania 6-5000
• This Masquerade
• Theme from Pink Panther
• Beauty and the Beast
• Zoot Suit Riot
• Route 66
• At Last
• Mack the Knife
• Sweet Georgia Brown
• Begin the Begine
• Boot Scootin Boogie
• Nearness of You
• Johnny B Goode
• My Girl
• Michelle | Beatles
• Oye Como Va
• Go Daddy O
• Someone to Watch Over Me
• Theme from Titanic
• Can't Take My Eyes Off You
• Stormy Weather
• Almost Like Being in Love
• Sentimental Journey
• In the Mood
• Mercy Mercy Mercy
• Under the Boardwalk
• The Way You Look Tonight
• Theme from New York | New York
• Over 1000 other songs in our library...