Over the last two decades, drummer Brian Barlow calculates he has performed in or produced over  90 shows at Picton’s Regent Theatre.

And coming up is a very special return of his 16-person big band for a Christmas show featuring Duke Ellington’s 1960 jazz rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1892 Nutcracker Suite.

“I have such a soft spot for The Regent,” says Mr. Barlow. “It was love at first sight. So I’m happy to come back. It’s a great place, a really important part of the community. There are small towns all over Canada that would love a theater like that downtown, on Main Street. I’ve been playing Ellington’s Nutcracker in Toronto every Christmas for 10 years and I’ve always wanted to bring it out here.”

Duke Ellington played a big role in Mr. Barlow’s musical life. He was a teenaged drummer in a group that was hired to play the intermissions between the Ellington band’s shows at Toronto’s Hook and Ladder Club in 1971. “So, for a week, I got to hear the Ellington band, for free — every night. We were hanging out with them backstage. And when the curtains were closed, and there was nobody there, I got to look through Ellington’s book!”

And since then, Mr. Barlow has found opportunities to play Ellington’s music in as many formats as possible. He performs Ellington’s Shakespearean suite, Such Sweet Thunder, at the Stratford Festival this coming summer, to mark the piece’s 70th anniversary.

Mr. Barlow is excited to present a living version of Ellington’s update of Tchaikovsky. “Ellington never sounded the same from one date to the next. It changed, depending on the players and their moods. So, so when we play The Nutcracker I don’t think we really sound like Ellington because we’re not trying to, and that makes it better for sure, because that makes the individual voices in our band come out, which is what Ellington would have wanted.”

The Regent Christmas concert will feature, in addition to Ellington’s Nutcracker, some piano trio renditions of the well-known Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as everyone’s Christmas favorites from “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to “Feliz Navidad,” featuring singer Justin Bacchus.

“Justin has sung with the Big Band before and recorded with us,” says Mr. Barlow. “I really like his singing — and I don’t say that about a lot of singers! There’s just got to be a realness to it for me. I like Justin’s personality, I like his soulful approach to singing. We’ve had some rehearsals, and he just sounds delightful: it’s real.”

After more than half a century in the music business, Mr. Barlow is still excited to play.

“Someone asked me, why are you still doing this?” he reflected. “And then I was finishing a show at the National Arts Centre and I realized how I was smiling. I was watching the audience, and they were just freaking out. They loved the music so much, and there was just such joy there. And I thought, you know, that’s what I like: this joy.

“There’s the joy of actually playing that I love. What’s bigger than that, though, is the connection with the other musicians. I was sitting on the stage the other day and the piano player and I just had this unbelievable connection, and we were both looking at each other and beaming.

“And there’s the joy that people feel. People live difficult lives, and if they’re not difficult, they’re at least really busy lives, and so if people can have an hour or two hours of just listening to some music, it really makes me happy. To be able to play Ellington’s music and do some small part in keeping it out there, I just think it’s really important. And especially if we can make it feel alive.”

The excitement of the performer is palpable just talking to him. The show promises the joy of the season. 

Brian Barlow’s Big Band appears at the Regent Theatre on 13 December. Tickets are available at the Regent box office, or website, theregenttheatre.org.