Our Story

"TRS Big Band" is a 14 piece band that features: 4 saxophones, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, piano, guitar, bass, drums, singer. The band size resembles the early days of the Duke Ellington and Count Basie Bands. It is an expanded band, building on the smaller, successful, core 10 piece band, known as "The Rhythm Section Jazz Band"

During the many years that he served as drummer for the Grand River Big Band, Paul Sherwood developed a keen interest in big band music. Having grown up with rock music playing on the radio, this kind of music was new and exciting to Paul. He because so excited about it that he started a library of big band arrangements. These are musical arrangements of vintage songs and come with all of the parts for each instrument in the band (in various configurations of instruments). His collection started with one band arrangement of Tico Tico bought on ebay for $45.00. From there it grew into a vast archive of over 14,000 arrangements. In the process, of building this huge archive, he became quite an expert on old songs. He researched and studied the music of the early 1900's. Paul has served as a consultant to band leaders all over the world and has built many new friendships with other band leaders, in the United States and many foreign countries, including; England, France, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Russia, Canada, Africa and many others. Most of these friendships would not have been possible in the pre-internet era.

In June of 2001, Paul formed a band with 3 saxes 1 trumpet, 1 trombone piano, guitar, bass and drums, for the purpose of reading though and making audio recordings of songs in his library. They met on the first Monday of each month and soon started getting really good at reading and playing the charts. This led to performing these great songs in public. To date the band has played hundreds of gigs.

Building a "Book" - The combined folders for each instrument in the band are referred to as a "book". Having a huge library is one thing, building these books is quite another. It involves a tremendous amount of time and work to choose songs and provide music for each musician in various configurations and themes. Paul has spent thousands of hours building various "books". To name a few; Duke Ellington book, Count Basie book, Latin American book, Pop Rock book, Christmas Music book, Italian Music book, Be Bop book, Big Band Vocal book, Hawaiian book, and many more. When Paul say's that he has music for any occasion, he means it ! ! ! He can do tribute shows to famous artists, like; Frank Sinatra, Gene Krupa, Tony Bennett, Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby, Harry James, Glenn Miller, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Eugene Gifford, Raymond Scott and others. If you would like to look over pauls library, it is located here.

When a client wants a bigger band than Paul's "The Rhythm Section Jazz Band", he expands the band to a larger size using "The Big Band Books" calling it "TRS Big Band". He has a lot of flexibility as to band size up to 5 saxes, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 4 rhythm, depending on the budget of the client. In Paul's long history of leading bands, he has developed an extensive "call list" of professional musicians that are happy to perform the interesting and challenging music from his extensive library. This provides a range of options to help music clients fit their budget and needs.

Paul and The band's professionalism not only includes the musical performance, but their conduct, dress and courtesy to clients and guests.

For more information about booking "TRS Big Band", please contact;
Paul Sherwood,
(616) 241-0554, ext. 15
2347 Eastern Ave. SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49507
or e-mail paulsherwood@grar.com