Composer Adrian Johnston's music for the Louis Lester Band, the fictional 1930s black British jazz band whose story was told in BBC drama series Dancing on the Edge, written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, tackles (for him) uncharted jazz, and, specifically Ellingtonian, territory. The soundtrack leads off with the ‘hit’ song for the band, ‘Dancing on the Moon’, followed by catchy ‘Dead of Night Express’, ‘Downtown Uptempo’, and ‘Lovelorn Blues’, while Duke's jungle period is conjured in ‘Dowager’s Delight' written as the theme for Lady Cremone, played by the great screen actress Jacqueline Bisset making a rare appearance in a British television drama. There's jaunty piano from Englishby who also arranged the music, and superb trumpet from jazzmen Jay Phelps and Chris Storr on this tune, representing a transitional phase in the plot of the mystery, one of the standouts, along with the medium-slow ‘Big Ben Blues’, and ‘Lead Me On’. The vocalists who join the Louis Lester band, with the hero of the piece, pianist/bandleader Lester, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, making its unprecedented way in the high society circles of the day, are Jessie played by Angel Coulby, and Carla (Wunmi Mosaku), with Jessie recalling the style of Ellington singer Ivie Anderson vocally, and Carla a little bit more like Adelaide Hall.

A feelgood and fun album all in all.