BURNLEY-based tenor saxophonist Geoff Kelly brings his combo Sounds 18 to the Rhythm Station at Rawtenstall next Tuesday when lovers of big band jazz are in for a real treat.

This East Lancashire outfit has been delighting fans for an astonishing 31 years, an unbelievable achievement given the bewildering shifts in musical tastes during that time.

Those of us old enough to remember the wonderful days of the 1940s and 50s, when professional and semi-professional bands numbering 12, 16, 18 musicians were belting out terrific arrangements, mourned the passing of the dance halls.

With them went an awful lot of musicians, followed inevitably by a gradual decline in the number of big bands playing jazz. It wasn't that the popularity of swing music declined, more the gradual disappearance of bands and musicians to play in them created a vacuum.

However, active pockets of resistance have remained in the UK, particularly the north, where enthusiasts have done their best to keep the genre alive and kicking. A number are still doing so.

The Swing Suite at Horwich RMI, in Bolton, for example, stages monthly big band concerts throughout the autumn, winter and spring which invariably attract significant crowds.

And Wigan Jazz Club, home to the magnificent Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra and its senior big band, made up of some of the finest musicians in this part of Britain, has been an active and influential base for our kind of music for many years.

However, back to Sounds 18 and their particular niche on the local jazz scene.

It helps that they have been together for so long, of course, but they now have a number of outstanding younger players alongside their 'veterans' and in Dave Minshull they have one of the very best big band drummers.

Sax soloists Geoff Kelly (tenor) and Alan Bookbinder (alto) are hugely experienced musicians and vocalist Joe McCarthy rounds off a thoroughly professional bunch. Give them a listen -- you won't be disappointed.

Talking of big bands and the excitement they generate, could it be that the movers and shakers who decide what the Great British Public will like, and therefore buy, may at last be thinking of restoring taste, diction, swing, musical awareness even, into popular music?

That's the definite impression I got from last Saturday's broadcast of Pop Idol, the latest public execution of showbiz wannabes to dominate prime time TV and the tabloids.

I thought the band was phenomenal but what impressed me most was the excellence of the young people asked to sing swing standards to big band backing. It must have represented as daunting a task as asking me to join the operatic chorus in 'The Barber of Seville'.

Gig Guide:

SOUNDS 18 BIG BAND: The Rhythm Station, Rawtenstall. Tuesday, January 22. 8.30-11pm. Adm £4. Tel: 01706 214039.

THE PENDLE JAZZMEN: Holden Arms, Grane Rd., Haslingden. Every first, third and fifth Friday of the month. Whitchaff Inn, Bury Rd., Rawtenstall. Every second and fourth Friday of the month. From 9pm each venue. Free admission. Burlington's (De Tabley), Blackburn Rd., Ribchester. EverySunday from January 20. 12.30-3pm. Adm free.

ART LESTER BIG BAND: Ballroom dancing. Swing Suite, Horwich RMI, Chorley New Rd., Bolton. Tuesday January 29. From 8.30. Adm £2.50 (door).

KEN WARD BIG BAND: Mercury Motel, Manchester Rd., Westhoughton, Nr Bolton. Every Tuesday. From 8pm. Adm free.

JERIATRIC JAZZ: Bebop and mainstream: Jolly Carter, Church St., Little Lever, Bolton. Wednesday, January 30. From 8.30. Adm free.