When in studio, piano player João Balula Cid started to joke about jazz musicians playing Beatles songs with jazz feeling, José Côrte-Real understood that the idea would be great as a project to the future.
This is how the New Swing Orchestra was born and been on stage around for 3 months in the summer of 2003 at Casino Estoril.
With the orchestra direction of Ernesto Leite and José Côrte Real producing the show, the idea was presented to Júlio César (Casino Estoril stage director) with some demos recorded in the studio and, after a month of rehearsals, the NSO debuted on the stage.
Originally the sound would be Swing/Jazz in a 10-element format (3 female voices included) including songs from Pop/Rock hits from the 70s/80s/90s.
The contract would be for three months while a resident band took a vacation.
When the band was gaining some popularity, the 3 months were up, they still tried to sell the idea to EMI but as they were no longer performing, they had no intention of convincing them that it was a good bet.
The activity ended, the members went back to their life projects.
With these musicians, a brass section, three girls on vocals and more than 30 covers of hits from the 60s to the 90s.

The 10-piece Orchestra took to the stage at Casino Estoril and recorded a live album there.

The original lineup:

Piano - Ernesto Leite
Congas - José Maria Côrte-Real
Bass - Markus Britto
Drums - Henrique Sousa
Trombone - António Bravo
Saxophone - Aniceto Toscano
Trumpet - Jorge Azevedo

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In 2008 José Côrte Real decided to create the Joe Real Big Band to revive some great hits of the Big Band sound, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, etc. and recorded "Clones" which in international terms was very interesting as there were contacts between several Big Bands abroad, saying they liked it.
But the name Joe Real in streaming was used a lot and that's why, at the end of time, the title New Swing Orchestra ended up being recycled.

An album with only originals was then recorded, for the first time, and an attempt was made to return the New Swing Orchestra, with a studio album recorded by José Côrte-Real.

Members of the original lineup were contacted, but none of the musicians were then available.
RealDigital Records released the album "The New Sultans of Swing".

For the next album, contacts were made with an online studio in the USA, they were sent as sheet music, the songs were played with the true American feeling of Swing and with this format more albums were recorded.

On Amália Rodrigues' centenary, the New Swing Orchestra released the album "Amália" with Big Band Swing sounds and Portuguese guitars.
The album played on some local radio stations in Portugal and Canada.
This was followed by "Jazz Pharaoh" (an adventure in the Egyptian pyramids), an album that was well accepted internationally on streaming channels.
At the beginning of 2023, a new album "Monterose" was released, which featured the collaboration of saxophonist, former member, Aniceto Toscano on two songs.

"Twin Souls" feat Aniceto Toscano was released as a single on October 22, 2022.

The second single featuring the voice of José Côrte-Real was released in 2023.

The album contains two songs sung by José Côrte-Real and the other two with Sax by Aniceto Toscano.

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