Music review: Scottish National Jazz Orchestra & Lucy-Anne Daniels, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

“The essence and epitome” was the droll Ellingtonism quoted by Scottish National Jazz Orchestra director Tommy Smith when introducing the big band’s guest vocalist, Lucy-Anne Daniels, but its larger-than-life extravagance might have applied to the SNJO itself, in peak form reprising a repertoire for which it has become renowned, celebrating this monumental jazz composer.

The quest for authenticity extended to stage arrangement, dicky bows and vintage brass mutes, but the real deal was in the music. A flourish from pianist Peter Johnstone launched Black and Tan Fantasy and the band was up and running, its mighty dynamics shifting between ballroom glide and locomotive roar.

Band members all had their moments. Trumpeter Tom MacNiven’s waspish mute introduced the slinky blues of Concerto for Cootie, for instance, while Martin Kershaw’s clarinet rippled sweetly during Ellington’s swinging reworking of Greig’s Hall of the Mountain King and alto saxophonist Helena Kay led Prelude to a Kiss with beautifully wistful poise.

A vigorous stride intro from Johnstone was joined by rhythm section compadres bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer Alyn Cosker, becoming a fully-fledged and flying piano trio to open the exuberant Kinda Dukish before the orchestra kicked in. Smith himself brought a certain edge as well as yearning to his Single Petal of a Rose duet with Johnstone and a muscular tenor sax excursion during the closing Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.

Daniels, a young singer in the ascendant, revealed a voice mature beyond her years, escorted richly by the band through numbers such as Satin Doll, A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing and the reproachful holler of Nothing But the Blues, while an encore Cottontail saw her scatting forcefully, Kershaw’s alto sax answering back – the essence and epitome, indeed, of the show.