The New Wave of Scottish Jazz, Teviot Row ****
Teviot Row, this year’s base camp for the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, was the scene for a show featuring the festival’s pick of the jazz talent that has recently erupted out of Glasgow. But it will be a testament to their youth if the musicians who performed didn’t feel like stretcher cases after their appearances on the stage in the airless auditorium – usually the university’s debating hall – on Saturday night. The heat was unbearable, the atmosphere sticky and suffocating; all the moreso because there was no break until 80 minutes into the concert.
This didn’t seem to bother the dazzling young pianist Fergus McCreadie whose talent and trio were the main focal point of that long first half, and who electrified the audience with a series of atmospheric numbers which recalled the style of the American pianist-composer Dave Grusin.
Like the Mark Hendry Octet, which played rich, multi-layered pieces after the break (and was listened to, by the casualties of the first half, from the bar), this was original, contemporary material very much catering to a specific jazz sensibility.
Much more accessible were singer Luca Manning’s trio of songs, accompanied by ace pianist Alan Benzie, which kicked off the proceedings. Manning’s breathy, vaguely Chet Bakerish, vocals combined with his evocative way of telling a story were especially well showcased in the Steve Swallow song City of Dallas.
- First published in The Scotsman, Monday July 16th
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