Some tome back, I was emailed by Karyn Weber, a founder-member of Clarinet Fusion - a clarinet choir in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Karyn kindly let me know that they had recently bought my Lone Ar-ranger for the ensemble, and that it had gone down well with audiences at recent concerts in June and July.

Karyn went on to say: ’Our group is playing a benefit concert at a church at the end of September for which the theme is “A Night in New Orleans”. When the Saints Go Marching In would have been perfect!’

I was able to come up with this in time, and have given it a traditional jazz-band treatment where each of the players gets a chance to elaborate on the tune, either singly, or in conjunction with another instrument. There’s also a customary key-change thrown in for good measure, and there are ’snippets’ as well of a few other tunes along the way, but not, of course, in the way this happens in The Lone Ar-ranger or Can-can alla Rossini.

Having created a Clarinet Choir version, as with many of my other arrangements, it seemed logical then to adapt this to suit the other instrumental combinations I usually write for, of course, with some harmonic adjustment here and there, to accommodate a different number of players, and sometimes a change of key, to get the best out of the particular instruments involved.

Very often, it’s the Piano Duet version that comes first, but on this occasion, it’s the other way around!

If there’s a part you’d like, and it isn’t already included, then I can usually come up with it!