Scottish National Jazz Orchestra with Lucy-Anne Daniels, Edinburgh review: 'it lifted the heart'

The SNJO: Remembering Duke | Derek Clark

The SNJO with Lucy-Anne Daniels: Remembering Duke, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★★

The legendary composer and band leader Duke Ellington, along with his composing associate Billy Strayhorn, has long been an inspiration for saxophonist Tommy Smith and the mighty Scottish National Jazz Orchestra he directs. There was, therefore, a certain positive expectancy as SNJO pianist Peter Johnstone stabbed out the assertive opening chords of Black and Tan Fantasy as the rest of the band filed on. Then they were up and running on full power, with early eloquent solos from saxophonist Helena Kay and trumpeter Tom McNiven.

With hardly a break they were into the racy Hall of the Mountain King, the ballroom glissade of Le Sucrier Velours and the locomotive howl of Daybreak Express.

Guest vocalist Lucy-Anne Daniels goes from strength to strength, combining poise and controlled forcefulness, ranging from pensive to passionate in the Strayhorn ballad Sophisticated Lady and delivering a sassy Let’s Fall in love, brass responding with gusto.

If You Could See Me Now saw her complemented by tenor sax players Smith and Konrad Wiszniewski in full unison flight before she sparred gleefully with alto saxist Martin Kershaw in some spirited scatting.

We’d already been inducted into Ellingtonian realms during the first half, by a mightily impressive set by the SNJO’s “feeder band”, the Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra. It just lifted the heart to hear some two dozen youngsters, many still in their teens, launch into the iconic strains of Take the “A” Train, emergent aces stepping up to the plate with articulate solos.

Their vocalist, Laura Oghagbon, had been voted Rising Star in the Scottish Jazz Awards the previous week, and demonstrated why with her strong, limber delivery of numbers including the rumbustious Caravan and sensuous drift of Strayhorn’s A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing.