Nikki Iles Jazz Orchestra soar and roar at RNCM Manchester

This could be a very short review: “Say no more!” For a big band, Nikki Iles’ compositions, arrangements and, indeed, choice of personnel and instrumentation, gave maximum pleasure and satisfaction, along with admiration for the quality and detail of every moment.

Big bands can so often be dull and formulaic. There are delightful exceptions of course – Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland, Loose Tubes, Gil Evans, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Keith Tippett’s Tapestry Orchestra – but the norm is more likely to be lazy cliché and sclerotic repetition. So it’s no wonder that Germany’s renowned NDR Big Band recently chose Nikki Iles to make sure that none of that was going to happen in her term of residency with them.

In the packed-out Royal Northern College of Music concert hall, Iles led her 18 hand-picked colleagues through two long sets of original compositions, including some of the music from her recent album Face to Face with the NDR Big Band. Every piece – from the loping, grooving, blues-inflected ‘Big Sky’ (an encore for an insistent and fulsomely enthusiastic audience) to the impressionistic ‘Lament’ – was a masterpiece of intelligent, imaginative, engaging composition. Iles’ arrangements made optimum use of the full range of instrumentation – from piccolo to tuba and everything between – in constantly evolving layers of harmony and subtle ever-changing forward motion from an impeccable rhythm section.

As with all the best bandleaders, Nikki Iles had not only chosen her musicians for their own particular qualities (including exemplary sight reading of delightful but complicated charts) but also had written for them. Almost everyone was given the opportunity for an expressive solo. Perhaps the most notable amongst such a fine group of players were veteran trumpeter Henry Lowther, his trademark plangent tone featuring on a tune expressly dedicated to him, and guitarist Mike Walker. Iles introduced Walker to the Mancunian crowd as “your local hero” – cheers from the Stretford end at this – and he duly shone in several features, as usual accompanying his soaring melodically-infused guitar with his own silent singing along in unison (a technique that seems to ensure that his solos always have the quality of a newly-imagined song).

Another, all too often observed quality of run-of-the-mill big bands, is the apparent indifference of the musicians to what is going on. Once again, not so on this gig. Alongside 100% commitment and concentration on getting it right for Nikki, the band members’ smiles and body language constantly expressed pleasure and admiration for each other’s solos and for the brilliance of the music that enveloped them.

In summary then: not a single clichéd note or phrase in a joyful evening of coherent, multi-layered, skilful, engaging music. Throughout the evening – even in ‘Misfits’ – a piece playfully composed to test out how to use combinations of notes and chords that were considered ‘incorrect’ (perhaps channelling Eric Morecombe’s “not necessarily in the right order”) – there was never a single wrong note or unfelicitous moment. Exquisite, bravura music – “Say no more!”

One thing more to say though: the sound front-of-house quality of the band equally matched the quality of the performance. With the balance and clarity that would grace a Radio 3 broadcast or the most expensive hi-fi, the (mighty) Paul Sparrow, surely one of our finest sound engineers, gave Nikki Iles’ Jazz Orchestra the best possible sound environment in which to express every subtlety of the music.