"Make A Jazz Noise Here"

[rhythmaning]

Colin Towns write big music, for a fittingly big band. His previous discs have been with his Mask Orchestra and the Mask Symphonic (basically, the Mask Orchestra with strings); now, he has just released three different recordings with the NDR big band from Hamburg, and they were touring to shift some product celebrate the fact.

Celebration is appropriate - Towns' music is uplifting. Maybe it is something in the way he orchestrates the chords - big slabs of sound, rich and fulfilling. He likes lots of musicians.

In Edinburgh, Towns and the NDR played sets based around two of their new CDs: the first set featured the vocalist Norma Winstone, with new arrangements by Towns; and the second set featured Towns' orchestrations of Frank Zappa's music. (The third disc in the set features new arrangements of Towns' own compositions.)

Winstone's set comprised of reinventions of standard and classic pop(ular) tunes. She opened with a radical rearrangement of Smoke Gets In My Eyes: Towns had worked such magic with it that it was unrecognisable until she started singing. The band worked through tunes by Joni Mitchell (Big Yellow Taxi), Elvis Costello (Fifteen Petals), Leonard Cohen (The Sisters of Mercy), Randy Newman (It Feels Like Home) and Sting (Moon Over Bourbon St was the encore); and there were a couple of wordless tunes over which Winstone energetically wailed and scatted - including a wonderful version of Jaco Pastorious' Liberty City, taken at a fast pace which had Winstone scatting the bebop lines like a virtuoso.

It was a great set - the band were lively, not overpowering - all the words could be heard (and seemed to resonate with the mood in the Queens Hall). The arrangements brought old songs to life - full of verve and dynamics.

If the first set was great, the second set was ecstatic. The band really let rip, and they were wonderful. This was music of real, intricate beauty. The band seemed happy with Zappa's anarchic music - Towns conducted the band loosely, dancing in his obligatory dreaming blue suede shoes and bringing in the different sections of the band. The soloists were good, particularly the guitarist - though the music had been arranged for the whole band, the guitar remained at its core. The band were very together, swinging despite the rock beats laid down by the drums.

This was exhuberant, fun, exciting, witty music, wonderfully inventive and rousing. A really great concert. Wonderful.