As a wandering he heard an incredible range of so to speak pre.jazz music. There were what he called 'specialists', pianists with only the one number but expert in it. Bob Morton (no relation) was one, and when Little Brother Montgomery played "Bob Morton Blues" the origin of "Dippermouth Blues" became clear. Louis Armstrong's "Potato Head Blues" is a cousin of the Morton tune into which Ken incorporates the original classic trumpet solo. That's another way of getting inside the music, but it also recognises the unsurpassable, like Armstrong's last chorus in "Chicago Breakdown". Morton didn't record that at all, Ken builds supporting parts for the other instruments around solos which he handles in that way. Scholars will know that George Russell had rather more to work with when scoring the Miles Davis "So What" solo for band.

Remembering bluesmen who played items on one chord only (later recorded examples: George Noble and Robert Pete Williams) Morton composed, with a politically very uncorrect title, "Jungle Blues" for a band recording which pulls out every stop in terms of colour, though Johnny Dodds could solo normally on very blue note-bending clarinet. Ken refers to the extreme modernity of this first recorded modal blues, but his band realisation speculates on the prospects of solos on this.

"King Porter Stomp", based on the piano style of the obscure unrecorded Porter King, is another matter. It inspired the two later unsurpassable orchestrations of which Ken has simply written reductions for five horns plus three rhythm: Fletcher Henderson in the 1930s, Gil Evans for New Bottles, Old Wine. Ken rightly remarks that the original arrangements survive reduction very well, though readers can be reminded that accurate translation's seldom easy.

He also emulates the late Nat Pierce's work in realisations of both 1950s Count Basie band music and Bill Challis's 1920s charts on Beiderbecke recordings. Pierce wrote the latter for a band with Pee Wee Russell, Bud Freeman and Ruby Braff. Ken of course worked with both Braff and Freeman, back when Sonny Stitt, Al Cohn and others played in the Black Bull outside Glasgow, a happily remembered touring venue. Some day Ken would like to lead a band in the apparently still never played charts Morton wrote for big band in the 1930s, when fashion had relegated that great musician as supposedly old hat. Sheer fashion has left too much jazz development unheard (not least by Ken Burns), I never mentioned Burns's tv series to Ken, whose own approach might stir even more interest internationally.

The band's programme on a recent date at Henry's in Edinburgh was:

Morton's "Mister Joe", "I'm Watchin' the Clock" - King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators; "Song of the Islands" based on Sy Oliver's chart for Satchmo's Musical Autobiography; "Down South Camp Meeting" - a reduction of the Fletcher Henderson chart; "Singin' the Blues" - trombone feature but including an orchestration of Bix's famous solo; "Dusk" - Ellington 1940 tone poem; "Dooji Wooji" - Johnny Hodges blues; "Stompy Jones" a reduction of Ellington's mid 1950s chart.

"Flight of the Foo Birds", "Late Date" and "The Kid from Red Bank" - reductions of Neal Hefti charts for Basie; "Groovy Samba - original chart on a Sergio Mendes theme in Shorty Rogers style; "Pra Dizer Adeus" - original chart on slow bossa ballad featuring alto; "Moondog" - Dicky Wells blower from Buddy Tate's Celebrity Club Orch; "Swingin' Along on Broadway" - Buck Clayton's Songs for Swingers album; "Caribbean Clipper" - Jerry Gray's Glenn Miller flagwaver; "When Lights are Low" - based on Benny Carter's own lead sheet.

Immediately upcoming gigs at time of writing are:

Glasgow Jazz Festival: 25 June
Edinburgh Jazz Festival: 2 August
Ayr Jazz festival: 23 October.

Plus regular appearances at Henry's in Edinburgh, very approximately monthly, and other one-off gigs all over Scotland and the North of England currently in discussion. European festivals are a possibility in 2006, depending on media publicity in the interim.

I hope continentals get to hear this inspired band.

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