THAT BIG BAND SOUND

"I'm going to go to a Jazz concert tonight..."

"Oh dear... What on Earth did you do to deserve that...?"

The divisive nature of the form aside, Wednesday the 11th of December is one of those nights destined to go down in musical history and not only because of the numerological significance of that big ol' 11/12/13 combo.

It's a day to be remembered because this not-so-hep cat pointed his zootmobile towards the beating heart of the metropolis and went to hear some sweet tunes blasted out by one of the finest horn sections this side of the great divide, a drum kit that was simply owned, man, all fronted up by the smoothest of smooth clarinet playing by an undisputed master of the art.

"Yeah, man..."

This year's festive Big Band show at the Royal Northern College of Music found them fronted by Pete Long and endeavouring to recreate the Big Band sounds from the legendary Benny Goodman 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert and they utterly nailed it and they quite simply blew the roof off the RNCM Theatre as they tried their very best to do so.

From the opening awesome blast of an astonishingly powerful brass section, to the closing excesses of the simply awesome "Sing, Sing, Sing" the whole evening was an utter blast, and the undoubted highlight of one, rather incredible, night of music from an era when swing was indeed king.

The thing about listening to concerts at the RNCM is that you are getting a heck of a lot of bang for your buck and, if you were so inclined, could make a full evening of it if you booked the restaurant and attended the "value added" events like the short lecture preceding the show, heard some of the brass section warming up in the lobby by playing Christmas numbers, and stuck around to listen to the gospel choir singing in the bar afterwards.

It doesn't matter that some of these young performers might not yet have matured into the confident musicians that one day most of them undoubtedly will, or that their worry about not getting it wrong might still overwhelm the sheer fun of  performing such great music, because one day that will come for them, but, in the meanwhile, they are some of the most highly skilled and best trained musicians that it will ever be your pleasure to hear and, by hearing them whilst they are developing into the greats they will no doubt become, you are getting to hear some fine musicianship at a, quite frankly, bargain basement price.

And, to be honest, it helps when you can tell that the very best of them really loved that sound, certainly by the end of the evening when they saw the joy it gave and heard the reaction of a very appreciative audience to a wall of sound that, from the sublime trumpeting, the awesome trombone section, the incredible saxophone sounds and that utterly awesome rhythm section as they brought the hairs up on the back of my head as totally as they brought the house down.

At the front, drawing the very best out of these young performers whilst, at the same time educating his audience with potted anecdotes from the Big Band era, was the mighty clarinet playing of the frankly awe-inspiring Pete Long who once added his dulcet tones to the Stereophonics' "Handbags and Gladrags" (which is probably what he's most widely know for to the general public) and has had a long, long career working with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Jools Holland, John Schofield, Chick Corea and Supersax, and producing arrangements for some of the very best in the business.

He was, quite frankly, magnificent...

In fact, I think that the RNCM Big Band may have been a little bit awe-struck by his astonishing presence, and rightly so of course, but I hope that he counts his evening spent fronting up this vast wealth of burgeoning talent as a career highlight, because it really deserves to be.