Like most Bobby Wellins enthusiasts I was only aware of a fragment of this music from Stan Tracey's New Departures Quartet recording from 1964. A tantalising mention in Victor Schonfield's notes about the single ‘Culloden Moor’ track on that album tells how it was drawn from a suite for the quartet ‘and a 14 piece big band’ from a legendary but unrecorded 1961 concert. That was about as close as most of us got to it. A brief 1970s revival (encouraged by my BBC Radio 3 colleague Charles Fox) was about the only time the music has been heard again since its composition. So all praise to Tommy Smith for not only encouraging Bobby to dust off the charts, but having Florian Ross do some subtle tweaks to the score to make it work with the SNJO forces. The end result is a powerful piece of music in five movements that sounds as fresh and contemporary as if it had been written last week. It captures plenty of the raw emotion that Bobby felt when he first read John Prebble's book on Culloden and then visited the site of the battle where Highland forces were routed. Although there are solo cameos for Tom MacNiven, Steve Hamilton and drummer Alyn Cosker (who also provides the militaristic underbed for the ‘March’ movement) this is really all about Bobby Wellins. His tone is as blurry and magnificent as it was in the 1960s, his phrasing as oblique, yet centred, and his ability to channel forceful feelings while appearing not to, is quite magical. His duet with the drums on ‘Battle’ and his reflective keening on ‘Epilogue’ are as fine as anything he has ever recorded. We are lucky to have such an individual voice in our midst.