What happens when one of the UK’s leading saxophonists gets together with “one of Britain’s best soul singers” (Blues & Soul Magazine) and they, in turn, recruit some of the most celebrated UK jazz and pop musicians to form a new band? The result is, literally, Some Kinda Wonderful! This is not a tribute band, per se, but a collective of incredible musicians performing the songs of Stevie Wonder. Always honouring the originals with respect and integrity but adding their own dimensions to classic dance hits including ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’, ‘Superstition’ and ‘Higher Ground’ to beautiful ballads such as ‘If It’s Magic’, ‘My Cherie Amour’ and ‘For Your Love’, since their first gig in March 2017, the band has been delighting audiences with their incredible interpretations. Everyone leaves their performances with wide smiles and requests of when they can see the band again!

Fronting the band are Derek Nash and Noel McCalla and this has proven an incomparable and very special musical relationship. It was in 2016 that Derek (a long-standing admirer of Noel since his Morrisey Mullen days) approached Noel to see if he had any interest in forming this band. Noel’s initial reaction was an emphatic “no!” Even for someone of his divinely given vocal talents, there was an initial reluctance to approach what he considered to be “sacred musical ground” and protestations that “only an idiot would do Stevie Wonder!” were offered and, thankfully, ignored! As a fellow professional musician, Derek totally understood where Noel was coming from. He states: “there is always something; some aspect of your playing that you feel you could be better at and you are always on this eternal quest to be a little bit better, a little bit faster, a little bit smoother, a little bit sweeter, a little bit of whatever direction you are going in. Then, once you start working alongside premier league musicians, you want to be as good as you can possibly be to support them because there are some amazing musicians out there and this is the way it is with the Some Kinda Wonderful band. If you look at the pedigree of the musicians, and whom they’ve played with, it’s just fantastic and amazing things happen when you put all these guys in one room!”