Queen gets big band treatment for 'Queen Swings'

By Sam Steen

On October 24 The Philharmonie will present a really interesting evening featuring the greatest hits of Queen reworked in the style of big bands and swing. Lead vocalist Serge Schonckert will be backed up by the Luxembourg Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Choir on the night and he took some time to tell Sam Steen all about the show

“Queen Swings is really a project of it’s own, it’s taking only the hits of Queen and transposing them across to jazz music and particularly to jazz with big bands”, Serge explained, “It has been a huge project and it’s taken two years preparation to get it on stage. It’s taking the music of Queen and totally ripping it apart and analysing what did Freddie or Brian or whoever wrote the song wanted to convey with the song and from there write a jazz baseline and on top of that, you put the melody back in again.”

When faced with the prospect of taking on Queen songs and the vocals of Freddie Mercury in particular, many singers would feel intimidated, though Serge said that with Queen Sings he isn’t planning on imitating the iconic singers voice, and that the whole project is a tribute to Queen the band rather than just their frontman. 

  “They have created incredible music", he said, “very versatile, it’s really nice and the thing is with this project is that mostly when people talk about Queen or they want to hear the hits of Queen they want to hear or see Freddie and (with) this, it’s not the case at all. This is a tribute to Queen and their music. So the aim is not at all to try and imitate Freddie, no not at all, we’re taking it to somewhere else and I think that’s the quality of it because you don’t try to compare it to anyone because I think frankly if you try to imitate someone as charismatic as Freddie was you are bound to fail.”  

Backed by the Luxembourg Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Choir, Queen Swings is a large production, “It’s quite huge, it’s thirty people on stage. If you take Queen music obviously you have to have a vocal ensemble/backing ensemble behind it because you can’t have Queen without that”, Serge said as he stressed the vital role the choir plays in the show, “Not only do they do the harmonies but they also convey the message. It’s call and response between the lead vocalist and the choir so that’s quite a focus on vocals.”

Queen Swings has been in the pipeline for a couple of years now, Serge describes how the idea for the project came about.

“It was an idea I had a while back”, he began, “I came in touch, through a friend, with an album by Paul Anke who did something he called Rock Swings whereby he took songs by (bands like) Nirvana and Bon Jovi and he rewrote them as well. So I listened to that I and was like, “Wow, this is great!”. Then I had to turn to some other projects I had at the time and I left that idea but I came back to it in 2012 again and I thought now is the time that i need to do it. I wanted to do big band but I didn’t want to copy the idea so I was looking for one rock icon, I wanted to have one theme. So I was browsing through the rock icons and you can’t get around Queen, I mean that is THE rock icon for me.”

As he mentioned, Serge has had a number of different musical endeavours over the last few years but he does admit that Queen Swings is by far the most exciting, “It is”, he said “for now it looks like a lot of work for me seeing all of the things come together but I’m really looking forward to it because it’s going to be a really big event with a great light show, fantastic sound and just a nice evening.”

Don’t miss this spectacular and unique show on October 24 at Philharmonie. Tickets are available at Philharmonie.lu

Listen to the full interview by Sam Steen below:

Sam's Scene!

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Sam Steen on ARA City Radio

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