Wynton Marsalis has great reverence for the history of jazz. Accordingly, musical policy with the 15-piece Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO) focuses on the Blues and masterpieces from the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

The virtuoso musicians of LCJO have the uncanny ability to sound like the famous soloists from the bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Ted Nash does Johnny Hodges, while Marcus Printup becomes a bubbly Clark Terry on C Jam Blues, then a hot and throaty Charlie Shavers on Froggy Bottom Blues. Walter White's stratospheric trumpet tops the brass section on Frank Foster's Blues In Hoss's Flat.

Vocalist Jennifer Sanon is new to LCJO and while providing visual variation, gets a yellow card for venturing into the dangerous territory of "shabba-dabba" and "scooby-ooby" that is scat singing.

Extracts from Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige Suite close the first half on a high, but so far nothing written after 1950.

Great music, and 15 musicians moving together as immaculately as a Swiss watch, but the focus on history fuels criticism (by some) of Wynton's young fogey-ism as he marches backwards into the future.

The second half begins brightly with Ornette Coleman's Ramblin', previously thought avante-garde, now sounding mainstream. Wynton plays a jokily anachronistic washboard in duet with drummer Riley, and a similarly anarchic arrangement of Ornette's Bonita follows.

This high-profile, celebrity concert closes with an original Marsalis composition, Inyaki's Decision, but a standing ovation from the ecstatic audience brings him back, in a quintet of rhythm section and Walter Blanding (tenor saxophone), for a 15-minute calypso/blues encore.

Top marks to Harrogate Festival for bagging this acclaimed musical package.

Updated: 09:42 Monday, August 02, 2004