In the 1960s and 70s Canadian trumpet player Kenny Wheeler played with a number of important British musicians, including John Stevens, Mike Gibbs, and Tony Oxley. He’s also worked with Anthony Braxton and Dave Holland, and has been releasing his own albums since the late 1960s. On 2009’s Nineteen Plus One he teams up with the Italian big band, Colours Jazz Orchestra, to create a striking testimony to the resurgence of big band music in the 21st century; this album is another sign that the form is alive and well. Wheeler wrote all of the charts for this set of seven covers plus one original. Featured vocalist Diana Torto serves double-duty. She expressively interprets the song lyrics, but at other points she wordlessly vocalizes, lending the arrangements an additional, horn-like texture. Wheeler plays a number of fine fluegelhorn solos, and the other soloists are excellent. The album wraps up with the Wheeler composition, “W.W.” The track is riveting from its opening flugelhorn/tenor sax exchange to the closing horn section blast.