Few musicians in British jazz have covered as much ground as Alan Barnes. In a career spanning more than thirty years, he has recorded over thirty albums as leader or co-leader, picked up more than twenty-five British Jazz Awards, and twice been named BBC Jazz Musician of the Year. His session credits take in everyone from Björk to Jamie Cullum. His live work has put him alongside Ruby Braff, Freddie Hubbard and Humphrey Lyttelton. His current project, Copperfield, is a full Dickensian jazz suite for octet — the kind of ambitious, literary programme that only someone with Barnes’s compositional range and sheer musical confidence would attempt. The Guardian put it well: he plays music rooted in jazz history, but delivers it with such passion and energy that it sounds freshly made. A genuinely rare talent. Very welcome back to Googlies.