Jools Holland returns to Carlisle this weekend with his usual big band and huge range of songs.

The ever-popular presenter of the long-running BBC2 series Later...With Jools Holland reckons the bigger the band, the better the sound.

He explains: “We’ve got a whole big band, which is unusual, it’s not just like a horn section, it’s a whole five saxophones, three trombones, three trumpets, organ, singers and all of that

“Drums, guitar, bass, led by the piano. And that is the same configuration that people like Count Basie or Duke Ellington would have had.

“So it’s a big configuration, a very dynamic configuration, because when all the horns play, it’s like a really exciting thing, and we’ve got, as well as playing our own modern things, we’ve got things from the past just boogied up a little bit more, like Lionel Hampton stuff or ska music that kind of gets you wanting to dance, and I think it sounds magnified by putting it through a big band.”

The size of the band allows him to switch from music style to music style: “Sometimes we’re playing old things, and sometimes there’ll be a spot where we’ll do a blues song, and we’ll just play a different blues song each night, because we’ve got a whole repertoire of them.

“Or a boogie song, we’ve got different ones we sling in. And I think we’re always trying to update the shape of it. So you’ve got boogies in there and ska numbers, and then they change and get updated.

“Also, of course, it’s a great way of showing off the soloists in the band, and we’ve got Michael ‘Bami’ Rose, who’s one of the great original ska players from Jamaica, so it’s a great vehicle to let him rip out on it.

“And it’s great when we just try something once or twice in a rehearsal room, but our real way of playing it is playing it to the people, because then when you’re looking into their eyes, and you can see them starting to involuntarily move, then you know it’s working.”

Jools Holland, The Sands Centre, Carlisle, Sunday. For tickets, call 01228 633766 or go to www.thesandscentre.co.uk