Herein lies a tale. When Charlie Watts was talking to Gerard Presencer shortly after the trumpeter landed a job with the Danish Radio Big Band in 2009, the drummer happened to mention that he had spent a few months working and jamming in Denmark in the early 1960s, prior to becoming a full-time Rolling Stone. Presencer, who has been a key member of Watts' Quintet and Tentet, quickly spotted a connection and sprung the idea of Watts returning to Denmark half-a-century later to play a concert with the DRBB at Copenhagen's newly opened National Concert Hall of Denmark. Together with Charlie's boyhood chum, bassist Dave Green, Presencer's adroit flugelhorn, arranging and conducting skills and the DRBB's finely honed artistic depth, wide colour palette and abundance of strong soloists, the collaboration has resulted in the drummer's first jazz release since 2004's Watts at Scott's, recorded with the Tentet at Ronnie's in 2001. The Big Band sets the opener up with aplomb as Watt's and Jim Keltner's, ‘Elvin Suite Part 1’, conjures a floating almost melancholic mood with Presencer's arrangement echoing Gil Evans in places, before ‘Elvin Suite Part 2’ changes gear with a pounding African groove and a propulsive Uffe Markussen tenor sax solo against an ascendant brass line. Presencer's naggingly addictive rewrite of (Satis)‘Faction’ takes his Watts At Scott's arrangement but gives it a more insistent samba rhythm over which he contributes a bubbling flugelhorn solo, while ‘You Can't Always Get What You Want’ becomes a swinging funky vehicle with a Hammond organ greasing the undercarriage and guitarist Per Gade slicing sharp fuzz-blues phrases against the DRBB's big brass swagger. Presencer scores again with a delicious darker, down-tempo take on ‘Paint It Black’, where Gade creates subtler shades rather than the exotic bite of the hit single's original Eastern-influenced melody: a guitar figure that was possibly inspired by the opening lines in Gábor Szabó's solo on ‘Lady Gabor’ from Chico Hamilton's 1962 album Passin' Thru. Throughout this surprising performance Presencer is in commanding form while Watts keeps it swinging, tight and economical in the back. His trademark strength of course, and a refreshing change from the often chops-heavy sturm und drang that some big band players simply can't resist.