Music and Jazz

Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra - Exploration

17 Jan 2008

JAZZ (Spartacus Records) There is ample evidence here that the flow of talent on the Scottish jazz scene continues unabated. Saxophonist Tommy Smith launched this big band at his own expense in 2002 to help foster the cream of Scotland’s emerging…

Jamil Sheriff Octet - Backchat

17 Jan 2008

JAZZ (Jazz Services) This disc marks the launch of the new Recording Support Scheme begun last year by the UK’s jazz umbrella organisation, Jazz Services, and gets the scheme off to an auspicious start. Pianist Jamil Sheriff hails from Bolton, and…

Gwilym Simcock - Perception

4 Jan 2008

JAZZ Perception (Basho Records) Simcock’s flowing pianism and fertile musical imagination are constantly to the fore in a selection of his own impressive compositions on this much-anticipated and highly accomplished debut album, rounded out by…

Theo Travis - Double Talk

4 Jan 2008

JAZZ (33 Jazz) Theo Travis has a well-established love affair with the much-maligned genre of prog rock that continues to bear fruit in his own band as well as in Soft Machine Legacy, where he replaced the late Elton Dean. The saxophonist (who is also…

Trianglehead - Exit Strategy

13 Dec 2007

JAZZ (Trianglehead) The Edinburgh-based Trianglehead are one of the most adventurous jazz units to have emerged on the Scottish scene in recent times, and their second CD confirms that they have lost none of that exploratory spirit. The core…

E.S.T. - Live in Hamburg

13 Dec 2007

JAZZ (ACT) This double CD from an ecstatically received set in Hamburg on the Tuesday Wonderland tour in 2006 provides an authentic record of the band on a good night. When they are on song, E.S.T. (the Esbjörn Svensson Trio) are arguably the most…

Portico Quartet

15 Nov 2007

JAZZ Knee-Deep in the North Sea (Babel Vortex) The first release on the new label jointly run by Oliver Weindling’s The Babel Label and the London jazz club The Vortex features the debut album from a young group attracting a lot of attention at the…

Chihiro Yamanaka

15 Nov 2007

JAZZ Lach Doch Mal (Emarcy) This young Japanese pianist makes her Scottish debut this issue at The Lot, and follows in the wake of Hiromi in being snapped up by a major label. Like many of our own young jazz musicians, she has studied both in London…

Pat Metheny

18 Oct 2007

JAZZ Secret Story (Nonesuch) When Secret Story first came out in 1992, it marked something of a departure in the guitarist’s work. Reaction to it may well depend on what it is about that work that attracts you – the smooth fusioneer or the…

Lockerbie Jazz Festival

18 Oct 2007

The Lockerbie festival is establishing a good reputation on the Scottish jazz circuit, and boasts another strong traditional-to-mainstream line-up this year, headed by the likes of saxophonists Jesse Davis and Tommy Smith, pianist Brian Kellock…

Joe Acheson Quartet

Mark Edmundson

16 Aug 2007

1 They’ve got the credentials All young multi-instrumentalists, three members of this quartet are classically trained while the fourth has been playing professionally since the age of 13. Joe himself also has a FourTet-like ear for intriguing vocal…

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

Tommy Smith and Courtney Pine

19 Jul 2007

Kenny Mathieson finds two British sax greats paying tribute to Coltrane

Jacqui Dankworth

19 Jul 2007

Fans of Jacqui Dankworth’s solo work should expect a totally different experience when the jazz crossover singer performs with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland. ‘With a big band behind you, it’s like a steam train pushing you along,’ she…

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…

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…