Functioning as a kind of break-out group from the Skelton-Skinner Big Band, this smaller line-up released a well-regarded first album, also on Diving Duck, some time ago. Now, here's the follow-up, these musicians still sticking to what we can broadly call the Ellington-Basie combo axis, and given the kudos of the participants, doing it rather well. I've heard them live a few times and liked them on each occasion. This time round, they've raised their game; Skinner's arrangements are more varied and imaginative, and the playing even livelier than hitherto. Skinner's version of ‘Cottontail’ is all bustle and hurry, the old warhorse transformed and reimagined. Campbell takes the first solo before trading flurries with Barnes on tenor, Barron closing the door as the band riffs pile in. Similar things happen with Skinner's look at ‘It's Only a Paper Moon’, all stop-start and to-and-fro. Barnes deploys his baritone on Strayhorn's ‘After All’ to magisterial effect, letting the melody breathe while Campbell shows his lustrous tone and perfect command on Mandel's ‘Emily’. If the writing sometimes suggests a pared down big band, that's only to be expected, the bright attack offered by these players of a very high order indeed. Lovatt plays cornet on Vache's ‘Off We Go’ and sounds good doing it, Neal Hefti's title-track a complete delight ahead of the album's rousing closer ‘Shiny Stockings’, Brown and Skelton excelling. Too many good things to itemise here: just buy the album.