Jazz & Blues Festival

Festivals

5 Jun 2008

Until 8 June Leith Festival Various venues, Leith, Edinburgh, prices vary www.leithfestival.com Leith Festival showcases its trademark brew of home-grown talent and big name headliners with over 100 musical acts, 50 comedians and a dozen visual…

Nikki King & Marcus Ford

9 Aug 2007

Singer Niki King has covered a lot of ground in stylistic terms, but her work with guitarist Marcus Ford has been the strand most deeply rooted in a mainstream jazz approach. This gig is part of their current promotion of a new duo album bearing the…

The Bad Plus

19 Jul 2007

He’s already familiar to Edinburgh audiences as the drummer in the Bad Plus, alongside pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Reid Anderson. But Dave King is also featured in another equally unconventional jazz-rooted trio, Happy Apple, featuring saxophonist…

Tommy Smith and Courtney Pine

19 Jul 2007

Kenny Mathieson finds two British sax greats paying tribute to Coltrane

Colin Steele

edfest.tv - video

5 Aug 2008

Trumpeter Colin Steele's ten-piece band produces music that interweaves jazz, chamber music and folk melody to create something quite magical.

Anderson/Smith/Cosker

Nordic cool meets Scottish heat

31 Jul 2008

Saxophonist Tommy Smith’s current relationship with the Norwegian bass maestro Arild Andersen dates from 2005, when they got together as a duo at the Islay Jazz Festival. It was by no means their first encounter, however – Andersen was one of Tommy’s…

Stu Brown's Raymond Scott Project

Reviving a forgotten genius

31 Jul 2008

Drummer Stu Brown regards American pianist Raymond Scott as one of the great unrecognised musical geniuses of the 20th century, and has dedicated this project to performing the unique and often zany music of the man whose compositions earned him a cult…

Burt MacDonald with Lol Coxhill

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

22 Jul 2008

A reunion with free jazz, lyrical flourishes and popcorn machines. One of Scotland’s most adventurous jazz groups, the Burt MacDonald Quintet are reuniting with Lol Coxhill. A legend of the soprano saxophone, Coxhill has worked with the band on five…

Best of the rest - Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

22 Jul 2008

The Big Chris Barber Band. Blues standards, New Orleans classics and tunes from Duke Ellington and Miles Davis are all in the Barber repertoire as he and his band do early jazz like few others. Paul Towndrow Quartet ‘Better drowned than duffers…

Scottish Arts Council funding shift causes controversy

1 May 2008

A redistribution of Scottish Arts Council funding, announced today, has readjusted the balance of financial power within the Scottish arts. Among those to benefit under the new plans are: Arika , who run experimental music festivals Instal and Kill…

BBC Big Band Play Atomic Basie

1 Aug 2007

Basie fans will need no nudging to spot the reference in the title of this Jazz Festival celebration of the great pianist and bandleader’s music. The Atomic Mr Basie was first issued in 1957, and remains one of the touchstone recordings in the…

Topsy Chapman

edfest.tv - video

5 Aug 2008

A special fundraising gospel concert in aid of charity. Led by one of the great treasures of New Orleans.

Up close and personal - Niki King

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

22 Jul 2008

For Niki King, intimacy is something to be embraced rather than feared. Claire Sawers lends an ear as the local singer gently explains why she loves getting confessional on stage.

Omar Sosa

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

22 Jul 2008

Diverse, dynamic and daring approach inspired by Afro-Cuban folklore. You never know what Omar Sosa will do next. The Cuban-born virtuoso musician has turned his hand to everything from composing and arranging records to producing them, leading bands…

Festivals - Capital Gains

5 Jun 2008

Kicking off the capital’s world famous summer festivals in late July, it’s the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (25 Jul–3 Aug) which is the longest running jazz festival in the UK. Following hot on its heels is relative newbie to Edinburgh’s festival…

Benny Golson Quartet, Al Foster Quintent, Jeff 'Tain' Watts Quartet

19 Jul 2007

Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival Roll with it Jazz goes back to its roots in the Festival’s ‘American Icons’ strand, as Kenny Mathieson discovers

Hitlist - The best events, talks and sport

16 Jul 2007

• Cut the Carbon rally Soweto Kinch, local hobbit Billy Boyd, Harry Potter snogger Katie Leung (pictured) and musician Amy MacDonald are part of a star-studded line-up at the Edinburgh leg of this Christian Aid-run rally to raise awareness of…

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2008

edfest.tv - video

5 Aug 2008

All that Jazz & Blues Festival time again. Festival Director Fiona Alexander kicks things off…

Paul Towndrow

edfest.tv - video

5 Aug 2008

The alto-saxophonist is one of Scotland's best known jazz exports and for good reason.

Mike Hart

edfest.tv - video

5 Aug 2008

Jazz Festival founder, Mike Hart, marks the 30th anniversary with a special concert featuring his own all star selection.

After the flood

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

22 Jul 2008

Hurricane Katrina not only devastated a whole city, it nearly destroyed a legendary jazz culture. Malcolm Jack hears how Edinburgh has opened its arms to the top New Orleans players.

Little Feat

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

22 Jul 2008

Formed in 1969 by Lowell George, one of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Little Feat were always going to be different from the blues bands of the period. Small in stature, guitarist and lead singer George was a talented firebrand of R&B, country…

Dick Lee Septet

9 Aug 2007

Clarinetist Dick Lee is a regular at this venue, and leads his seven-piece expansion of Swing 2007, featuring a four-horn frontline in which he is joined by Anne Evans, Duncan Nairn and Martin Foster, a combination that gives him access to a wide…

Tony Monaco Trio

9 Aug 2007

Ohio-born Hammond organ star Tony Monaco started out on accordion as a kid, but was converted to the B3 when a heard a Jimmy Smith album as a youngster. It sparked a passion that ultimately took him onto the international festival circuit, while his…

Alyn Cosker Trio

19 Jul 2007

Alyn Cosker has emerged as the top young drummer on the Scottish jazz scene, handsomely fulfilling the promise he showed as a teenager in the Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra. He has gone on to work in a variety of other contexts, from the Tommy Smith…