Tommy Smith

SAY Award shortlist announced

Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat, Mogwai and Rustie nominated for inaugural Scottish Album of the Year

17 May 2012

The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) shortlist has been announced today. After some toothcomb sifting and careful deliberation, the judging panel have whittled down the nominations from a beefy 20 to a lean top 10. Through some hi-tech gadgetry, savvy…

Scottish Album of the Year Award 2012 long list announced

Includes Remember Remember, Rustie and Conquering Animal Sound

12 Apr 2012

The long list of nominations for the inaugaral The Scottish Album of the Year Awards has been announced, after 12 months of organisation and deliberation. The 20 albums chosen cover a wide range of genres and include many well-known bands - from…

Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra - Emergence

Ensemble playing and the soloing achieves a very high standard

28 Feb 2012

(Spartacus Records) Tommy Smith set up (and funded) this orchestra to encourage the cream of Scotland’s emerging jazz talent to flourish, and it is clearly working. There are only occasional passages on this fine recording where you might guess that you…

Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival 2011 - highlights

Tommy Smith, Courtney Pine, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and more

8 Jul 2011

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble A high energy blend of New Orleans horns and live hip hop beats, this Chicago nine-piece return to raise the Spiegeltent from its moorings. Barack Obama, Jay-Z and David Byrne are among the fans of this exciting block party…

Scottish National Jazz Orchestra with Kurt Elling

Legendary jazz vocalist gets backing of the country's biggest jazz band

4 Mar 2011

As mouthwatering prospects go, this meeting of arguably the world’s top jazz singer and arguably the UK’s finest jazz big band is as good as it gets. Elling has only performed once before in Scotland, also with a big band (from Norrbotten), and the…

The World of Gods

23 Mar 2010

Tommy Smith is never short of imaginative ideas when it comes to cooking up repertoire for the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, but this pushes even that estimable band’s envelope – and then some. I can’t be absolutely sure, but I’d guess that this is…

SNJO with John Scofield dates for Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling

23 Feb 2010

Conventional wisdom insists that the jazz big band had its heyday in the Swing Era before the advent of bebop, but it has remained popular with both jazz fans and musicians. Two home-based projects this month also demonstrate that the big band has been…

Edinburgh festival highlights: The top 30 shows

August’s finest entertainment at a glance

13 Jul 2009

We bring you a selection of the best shows at Edinburgh this year across all the festivals, including barnstorming retelling of the Goethe story Faust, former Talking Head David Byrne in experimental mood, The Wire's creator David Simon and theatre…

Scottish Jazz Expo at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

A showcase of new bands and fresh collaborations

13 Jul 2009

Like the Homegrown weekend at the Glasgow Jazz Festival, the Scottish Jazz Expo is aimed at raising the profile of our country's musicians. This year’s programme includes an impressive range of the most exciting developments here, alongside projects…

SNJO: Rhapsody in Blue Live

9 Jul 2009

It has been a source of regret that so little of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s mighty achievements of the past decade and more have made it onto commercial CD release. This is only the second disc they have been able to issue (although Tommy…

Alyn Cosker: Lyn’s Une

9 Jul 2009

The Ayrshire drum maestro’s current high-power trio with guitarist David Dunsmuir and bass guitarist Ross Hamilton provides the foundation for his debut album. The energised music foregrounds the funk and groove elements of Cosker’s playing to great…

Homegrown

25 Jun 2009

The Homegrown showcase at the Glasgow Jazz Festival is now in its fifth year and offers an opportunity to both the public and a number of invited promoters and agents to catch up with the latest work of a range of Scotland’s best musicians. More…

5 Reasons To Go See - Fife Jazz Festival

5 Feb 2009

1 It just got bigger This is the second jazz festival over in the Kingdom, and it has expanded a good deal, with more venues, more musicians and more diverse programming, not to mention the debut of the new Fife Jazz Orchestra (not to be confused with…

Andersen, Smith, Vinaccia

27 Nov 2008

JAZZ Norwegian bass maestro Arild Andersen teams up with our own Tommy Smith and Italian drummer Paulo Vinaccia in a superbly creative trio that has its immediate origins in the rather unlikely location of Islay. Andersen was invited to write some…

Islay Jazz Festival

4 Sep 2008

If the idea of a successful jazz festival on Islay once seemed more than a touch outlandish, the actuality has been quite the opposite. The Islay Jazz Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with a line-up that typifies the programming policy…

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…

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…

SNJO plays Steely Dan

19 Jun 2008

GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Tue 24 Jun The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra have always covered a wide-ranging repertoire, from swing era staples such as Ellington, Basie and Goodman through to newly commissioned…

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…

SNJO plays Woody Herman

15 Nov 2007

JAZZ Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 24 Nov; Byre Theatre, St Andrews, Fri 30 Nov; RSAMD, Glasgow, Sat 1 Dec The SNJO have already featured the music of Ellington, Basie and Goodman, so it seems only natural that Tommy Smith and his troops should now…

Tommy Smith and Courtney Pine

19 Jul 2007

Kenny Mathieson finds two British sax greats paying tribute to Coltrane

Tommy Smith and Arild Andersen

27 Nov 2006

This collaboration between Scotland’s leading jazz saxophonist and one of the great names in Norwegian jazz, bassist Arild Andersen (pictured), first saw the light of day at the Islay Jazz Festival a couple of years ago, and gets a further airing here.