Scottish National Jazz Orchestra mastermind Tommy Smith commissioned this Kenny Wheeler suite of ruefully lyrical themes from the late great trumpeter/composer in 1996 and premiered it two years later. On the 20th anniversary of that debut the SNJO unveil a classy recording of ‘Sweet Sister Suite’, with Smith, guitarist Rob Luft, pianist Pete Johnstone, and saxophonist Paul Towndrow among the contributors – though trumpeter/flugelhornist Laura Jurd is the sublime principal soloist, and Glasgow-resident Greek vocalist Irini Arabatzi a key presence both as a wordless extra instrument and a whisper-soft revealer of lyrics. The SNJO show their class on the coolly interlocking swing parts of the title-track, the swelling Gil Evans-like glow of their quiet riffing on ‘Worlds Apart’, and the dancing descents of the springy ‘Twilight Chant’. But Jurd is the star if such a collective enterprise has one, empathically reflecting Wheeler's signature tremulousness on held notes, the slow-blooming lilt of his quietly interval-jumping melodic sensibility, and the agility of his uptempo improvising in his prime – notably on the flugelhorn introduction to the lovely melody of the title, the bright, weaving lines of her variations on ‘Her Love Is Like An Endless Stream’ and the uptempo invention and canny spontaneous conversing (in a closing trumpet/tenor/voice exchange) on ‘Twilight Chant’. If such a thing were temperamentally permissible for such a diffident artist, Kenny Wheeler would have been proud.