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Jim Mullen plays My Luve is like a Red, Red Rose.
Jazz for Burns Night
25 Wednesday Jan 2012
Posted in Scottish Musicians
Jazzy stuff at Celtic Connections: Week 2
24 Tuesday Jan 2012
As in its first week, there’s little out-and-out jazz at Celtic Connections over the next few days, but plenty of stuff which might be of interest to jazz lovers.
Wednesday 25th January
Rock, blues, and occasionally jazz bassist and singer Jack Bruce teams up with folk trio Lau (a great band in their own right).
Thursday 26th January
The main auditorium at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall hosts a triple bill of fiddling from round the world: Scottish traditional music from Session A9; Canadian “atomic world-jazz flamenco” from the Sultans of String; and Western Swing from the Quebe Sisters.
Friday 27th January
Salsa Celtica (Salsa meets Scottish dance music) share a bill with Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara.
Singer and flute player Nuala Kennedy‘s band includes Euan Burton on bass.
The Quebe Sisters have a headlining gig of their own
Saturday 28th January
Linn begins at 40. Concert marking 40 years of hi-fi company and recording label Linn, featuring singers Maeve O’Boyle, Barb Jungr and Glasgow jazz legend Carol Kidd.
Sultans of Swing have a headlining gig of their own.
The Federation of the Disco Pimp play the late afternoon jazz slot at Brel.
Sunday 29th January
Catford, an Aberdeen-based band who apparently “blend American and Scottish folk influences with rhythms borrowed from across the globe” are joined by star saxophonist Nigel Hitchcock. They’re sharing a bill with singer Eilidh Grant.
Electro-folk dance outfit The Peatbog Faeries have a hot hot horn section, the Wayward Boys, who generally feature Rick Taylor on trombone and Nigel Hitchcock on sax.
Monday 30th January
Singer-songwriter Bridget St John, legendary improvising saxophonist Lol Coxhill and the National Jazz Trio of Scotland (who are one of Bill Wells‘ projects) play the Strathclyde Suite. It’s not clear if they’re appearing separately or together.
Of course, there’s also plenty of really interesting music on that’s got nothing to do with jazz: the Wrigley Sisters, Martin Simpson, Dick Gaughan, African music from Orchestra Boabab, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra, and many more.
Details of venues, times and prices from the Celtic Connections website.
And to get you in the mood, a snippet from Nuala Kennedy’s set at the 2010 Celtic Connections. This line-up doesn’t have Euan Burton in it, but it does have Brian Kellock playing piano. And you might catch a glimpse of Mario Caribé right at the end.
Tuesday night jazz at Slouch
23 Monday Jan 2012
Paul Harrison’s been in touch to let me know about a new series of Tuesday night gigs at Slouch at 203-205 Bath Street (towards the Charing Cross end). This is what he has to say about them:
Jazz nights at Slouch on Bath Street are about to begin on Tuesdays, with music beginning at 10pm. I don’t have the full listings but can tell you about a couple of gigs – Tuesday 24th is Herschel 36 (free improvised electronica with Stu Brown (drums) and Paul Harrison (keyboards). Tuesday 7th Feb features Breach which is Graeme Stephen (guitar), Chris Wallace (drums) and Paul Harrison (organ). The late set at Slouch most weeks will be a jam session. Although Slouch is essentially a pub the bar is in a separate side from the music room which makes a relaxed atmosphere but one conducive to appreciation of the music! Entry to all gigs is free.
Here’s a taste of what to expect this Tuesday. Herschel 36, incidentally, are named after the star at the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, which is apparently the youngest main sequence star known.
Thanks, Paul!
David Berkman Trio: live review
22 Sunday Jan 2012
Posted in European Musicians, Live reviews, U.S. Musicians
Glasgow Art Club, 19 January 2012
When David Berkman last played Glasgow, the thing which stuck out about his set was the quality of his compositions. This time round, the emphasis was much more on Berkman the piano player. We still got some fine originals, including dedications to trumpeter Tom Harrell and pianist Kenny Kirkland, but at least half the performance was taken up by (often radically-reworked) standards, including “How High the Moon”, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, and a darkly dramatic “Desafinado” which made much of a repeated set of chords from Berkman’s left hand.
Berkman has a very interesting piano style: there’s a crisp propulsive sound to some of his chording reminiscent of Duke Ellington, but this is part of an overall musical language which owes much more to the post-bop mainstream than to the stripped down Ellington-Monk approach. He got very good suppport from the remaining members of the trio, Martin Zenker on bass and Rick Hollander on drums, who provided him with strong, generally unobtrusive, backing and contributed decent solos when required. Hollander had a technique which meant you could hear every note he played. He didn’t hammer away at the drums, but gave crisp flicks which meant that even the most delicate tap of a drum or brush of a cymbal sounded out into every corner of the room.
Overall, a most enjoyable gig. It’s a great pity that funding problems mean that there are likely to be fewer of this sort of mid-scale concert in the near future. There are more informal pub gigs for young musicians than there were a few years back, and the large scale concerts put on by the SNJO and Glasgow Jazz Festival are still there, but it’s a sad loss not to be able to hear good but not big-name players from outside Scotland as often as we used to.
Rob Adams gave the previous night’s gig in Edinburgh a four-star review in the Herald, and if you want to find out more about David Berkman, there’s an interesting interview with him on the Jazztruth web site.
Jazzy stuff at Celtic Connections: Week 1
18 Wednesday Jan 2012
Glasgow’s folk and world music festival, Celtic Connections, starts tomorrow and runs until Sunday 5th February. It’s not a jazz festival, but tucked away in the extensive programme there are a few jazz concerts, several bands who incorporate a significant element of jazz, and rather more instances of jazz musicians playing in a non-jazz context. There’s also hunners of interesting concerts by fine musicians who play in styles from traditional unaccompanied singing to electronic folk-dance fusion and have absolutely nothing to do with jazz.
Here’s the jazzier bits I’ve spotted during the first week:
Thursday 19 January
If you’re not going to see David Berkman at Glasgow Art Club, there’s a Celtic Connections gig by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Forget all the banjo jokes. Jazz meets bluegrass meets…
Friday 20 January
Fraser Fifield (saxes and whistles) and Graeme Stephen (guitar). Duo set from two musicians equally at home playing jazz or folk.
Carolina Chocolate Drops. Reviving the African-American string band tradition of the twenties and thirties, with a repertoire which overlaps with the jazz and blues of that time. Excellent when they played Celtic Connections a couple of years ago, but this is a slightly different line-up.
Saturday 21 January
Brel has its usual late afternoon session, featuring a band from London called Origami, who are a jazz-funk quartet including drummer Corrie Dick.
In the evening, Ailie Robertson‘s band includes Fraser Fifield and Chris Wallace.
This is How We Fly are a Dublin band described as combining Irish and Swedish folk music with jazz improvisation and electronica. Their line-up includes a bass clarinet which suggests the evening certainly won’t be 100% traditional.
Sunday 22 January
Another appearance by Fraser Fifield, in a band called MOVE who also feature guitarist John Goldie. They’re supporting Shooglenifty’s “part gig, part ceilidh” Shoogle Project.
Monday 23 February
One of the festival’s few out-and-out jazz gigs, by Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan.
Details of venues, times and prices are available on the Celtic Connections website.
Since he’s a very busy man this weekend, what better to finish this post with than a clip by Fraser Fifield?
