Benny Carter wrote the five-part The Glasgow Suite for, well, Glasgow, or at least that city’s International Jazz Festival in 1987. Carter was composer-in-residence then and left the score for future Glaswegian use. This explains its availability to local bandleader Mathieson who has reduced the original 18 parts to the nine represented by his Classic Jazz Orchestra, with Barnes taking on the Carter role. So, no pressure then. While the appropriately programmatic Suite takes up the album’s central strand, the CD opens and closes with a selection of other charts taken from Carter’s extensive back catalogue, bar that is, the opening ‘I Can’t Believe’ which is a Mathieson arrangement in the Carter manner. If the CJO title suggests a conscious desire to emulate early swing, put the thought to one side, for these players can handle Carter’s late-period material with the requisite panache and proper ensemble balance. Take ‘Easy Money’ from Carter’s ‘Kansas City Suite’ written for Basie in 1961, this version swinging easily with Harrison tinkling effectively, the CJO’s fullness a nearmatch for the big band original. Tenor and trombone solo commendably, with Lee’s warm soprano the highlight as the piece builds over a riff base. Much the same goes for the rest of a packed album, each soloist confi dent and apposite with Wiszniewski especially impressive on tenor. If Barnes is the name on the sleeve, it’s fair to say that he is simply the fi rst among equals when it comes to the solo work, albeit that he plays with his customary zest. But then so do his Scots companions. Make no mistake, Carter was a master tunesmith who always wrote shapely pieces and Mathieson’s adaptations and these performances more than do him (and them) justice.