Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 30 October 2011

IT HAS been a long wait to hear both of the suites by saxophonist Bobby Wellins featured in this concert, but the SNJO did the music full justice.

Wellins, now 75 but sounding both as hale and as inventive as ever as the principal soloist, composed both The Culloden Moor Suite and The Caledonian Suite in the 1960s, but neither has been much played, and never before in big band orchestrations.

Saxophonist and composer Bobby Wellins

Tommy Smith, the artistic director of the SNJO, put that right by commissioning German pianist Florian Ross to orchestrate the five-part Culloden Moor Suite, and also commissioned five arrangements of the constituent parts of The Caledonian Suite, inspired by James Barke’s novels on the life of Robert Burns.

If The Caledonian Suite sounded more like five separate pieces, The Culloden Moor Suite had the hallmarks of a true suite in the coherent flow and vivid narrative enshrined within the music, whether evocative or specifically impressionistic, as in the tumultuous ‘The March’ – complete with the accompaniment of the players’ marching feet – and the tumultuous depiction of ‘The Battle’ and subsequent flight.

Ross’s orchestrations filled out the musical narrative with a light hand, and Wellins summoned all of his gifts for telling his own story within an improvisation. His flowing, astutely judged soloing was matched by equally effective contributions from pianist Steve Hamilton, trombonist Pat O’Malley, trumpeter Tom McNiven and Tommy Smith, also on tenor saxophone, not to mention Alyn Cosker’s snare drum feature and subsequent duet with Wellins.

The suite is a piece that has been much talked about but little heard over the years, and the opportunity to hear it at last in such a setting rates as one of the great highlights in the SNJO’s already impressive canon. Let’s hope that a recording will follow.

The second half of the concert was given over to The Caledonian Suite, a less impressive piece overall, but well worth a hearing. It also furnished one of the highlights of the concert in Wellins’ beautifully expressive solo on ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’, in an arrangement by American pianist Geoffrey Keezer.

Tommy Smith arranged the energised ‘Dreams Are Free’, and shared solo duties on it with his fellow saxophonist. Florian Ross again produced a fine orchestration on ‘Song In The Green Thorn Tree’, SNJO trombonist Chris Greive provided a poignant setting and an excellent solo on ‘Bonnie Jean’, and Christian Jacob’s arrangement of ‘The Tartan Rainbow’ maintained the high overall standard.

A memorable and historic occasion – just a shame there were not more there to witness it.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

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Bobby Wellins

SNJO