Edinburgh Jazz Fest Memories: Roy Percy

Roy Percy & Dave Blenkhorn, Edinburgh Jazz Festival, July 2017 (c) Alison Kerr

Scottish bass player Roy Percy was a student when he first became involved with the jazz festival; these days he can usually be seen in different line-ups throughout the event, and he’s kept busy the rest of the year as one third of the acclaimed Tim Kliphuis Trio and one quarter of the popular Swing 2018 band. He says:

“My earliest attendance of the jazz festival was in August 1984, when my school band was supposed to take part in the youth competition at the King James Hotel in the now demolished St James Shopping Centre. We didn’t play in the end (no-one can remember why!) but we attended and watched the bands and lots of speeches.

“I first played the festival in 1986 with John Elliot’s Dixieland Band. We won the youth band award that year. It was sponsored by Avis car rentals. The award had their motto on it – ‘We Try Harder,’ which we thought was very funny, everything considered.

“The bands were only allowed one older member (over 25, I think) and in our case that was banjoist Bev Knight, who now plays for Jim Petrie in the Diplomats of Jazz. Everyone in the band was at the Edinburgh Uni except for me. I was a proud Stevenson College boy!

“My first big thrill of the jazz festival was that first year – I was a festival volunteer and one evening I filled in for Milt Hinton’s driver. I carried his bass into Meadowbank for him. He was nice – chatty and friendly – but I was a bit shy of asking him too many questions. I loved hearing him play. He slapped the bass a little too, which I hadn’t expected him to be doing. Fantastic!

“The following year, I played at the festival in Swing ’87 – with Dick Lee on clarinet, and John Russell and Martin Leys on guitars. (I joined in November 1986.) We had Fapy Lafertin join us that year. In his prime, he was the best of the gypsy guitarists, and still not surpassed by anyone since.

“That same year, I drove Al Casey to Pollock Halls of Residence (where he was staying, almost unbelievably!) in my 1964 Rover P4. I took the longest route I could think of so I could chat to him, as he was friendly and happy to chat. He kept asking:  ‘Is this a Rolls Royce?’

“At the halls, I made him a hot chocolate in the shared kitchenette and asked him about Fats Waller. ‘Best fun, strongest pianist I ever knew. So inventive too. I was a kid and learned so much, so quickly too. I gotta pee now.’ And that was it. Afterwards he went back to asking me about my car!”

Next: Fiona Alexander

Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2017: Alison Affleck’s Copper Cats

Alison Affleck’s Copper Cats, George Square Spiegeltent ****

“And Now For Something Completely Different” could have been the title of the early evening concert given by Alison Affleck’s Copper Cats on Friday. Unlike any other gig in the jazz festival programme, this hour-long show drew almost exclusively from the early jazz and blues era – and did so from a woman’s point of view, giving a rare airing to songs by such pioneering women as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. Leading the charge on Friday and shaking the dust off the early jazz repertoire was Edinburgh-based American singer Alison Affleck, whose informative and sassy introductions to the songs ensured that the audience was receptive and entertained even before she began singing. 

 

Despite her fairly stylised, slightly theatrical mannerisms, Affleck brought an authenticity to such ancient numbers as Downhearted Blues and A Good Man is Hard To Find. Her natural American accent played a big part in this, along with an obvious inclination towards blues-singing. But where she particularly excelled on Friday was as a musical storyteller. St James Infirmary and The Black-Eyed Blues were stand-outs because Affleck didn’t just churn out the lyrics; she used them to bring the characters mentioned in these songs to life, and to create atmosphere and drama. 

 

Of course, she couldn’t have done all this as enjoyably without a good band playing with her; her piano-less quintet – boasting the crack team of Colin Steele (trumpet) and Dick Lee (clarinet) – did a terrific job of keeping the music swinging in suitably hot style.

 

* First published in The Scotsman on Monday July 24th

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Ken Mathieson Classic Jazz Orchestra

Ken Mathieson Classic Jazz Orchestra – Hot Horns, George Square Spiegeltent ***

A performance by Ken Mathieson’s Classic Jazz Orchestra at the Spiegeltent has become an annual event at the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, and it is usually accompanied by this reviewer sitting on the edge of her seat as she thrills to the lesser-played Bix or Ellington tune being lovingly and energetically recreated by the gentlemen of the band.

On Saturday evening, however, the thrills were fewer and further between than usual – despite the participation of English trumpeter Enrico Tomasso as guest star. One of the ways in which the CJO normally gets the spines a-tingling is through the terrific unison playing of members of the top-notch front line, but for much of Saturday’s concert, the ensemble playing just didn’t have the usual pizazz and was actually a bit on the raggedy side. More loose like this than tight like that, as Louis Armstrong might have said.

Nevertheless, the CJO on a slightly off day is still preferable to most alternatives, and there were treats scattered here and there through the concert, among them Dick Lee’s impish clarinet breaks and Phil O’Malley’s eloquent ones on Wild Man Blues, Lee’s funky penny whistle solo on Savoy Blues and Konrad Wiszniewski’s dynamic tenor solo on Swedish Schnapps.

As for Tomasso, he demonstrated once again that when it comes to emulating the style and sound of Louis Armstrong, he is the leader of the pack. No-one Else But You was the first of a run of tunes which burst into life as soon as he came in on trumpet.

* First published in The Herald on Monday, July 27th

Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2013: Jerry Forde New Phoenix Jazz Band

Jerry Forde New Phoenix Jazz Band, Palazzo Spiegeltent, Edinburgh, Friday July 26th ***

The talented Martin Foster should take some considerable satisfaction in the fact that his place in the advertised line-up of the Jerry Forde New Phoenix Jazz Band  last night was filled by not one but two saxophonists (baritone and alto).  As one of the A-list front line of this reborn sextet, Foster would have been a draw, alongside trumpeter Colin Steele and clarinetist/soprano saxophonist Dick Lee. But even with two deps in Foster’s place, the band still didn’t premiere The New Century Jazz Rag which had been flagged up in the festival programme.

Nevertheless, they did deliver on the theme of music from across the decades of jazz, and it was a treat to hear Colin Steele – not usually a player one hears in this kind of group – getting his chops around tunes by Jelly Roll Morton, Johnny Dodds and Louis Armstrong. Indeed, Steele revealed an Armstrong influence in his playing which was by turn exuberant, majestic and playful and stood out especially on Symphonic Raps, That’s My Home and Oriental Man. On Thelonious Rag, he played with a Louis-like swagger.

The more loosely arranged numbers, notably Riverside Blues, were most appealing but the evening’s two stand-outs both featured a young singer, Christine Adams, who blew the audience away with her beguiling and quirky interpretations of the Billie Holiday song Endie and My Sweetie Went Away (last heard on these shores crooned by the much-missed Marty Grosz).

* First published in The Scotsman, Saturday July 27th

Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2013: Ken Mathieson CJO & Evan Christopher

Ken Mathieson Classic Jazz Orchestra with Evan Christopher, Palazzo Spiegeltent, Edinburgh, Tuesday July 23rd ****

It can be a bit of a political minefield when a band which has a brace of ace soloists in its line-up is joined by a special guest: egos can be bruised as the star mops up most of the solo space assigned to his given instrument. But when New Orleans-based Evan Christopher made his debut as a guest with the Classic Jazz Orchestra on Tuesday evening, bandleader Ken Mathieson made a virtue of the fact that he now had three top clarinettists in his group.

Three clarinets playing featured together can be a thrilling sound – and, from the off, Martin Foster, Dick Lee and Christopher made a terrific trio; Foster’s lovely, grainy tone contrasting strikingly with Christopher’s sweet and hot sound on Charlie the Chulo. Dardanella featured several examples of the thrill of the clarinet trio: early on, they were seductive, playing in unison, before letting rip separately but simultaneously at the exhilarating finale. Sidney Bechet’s Moulin a Café also climaxed with a showstopping three-way dialogue between Foster, Lee and Christopher.

Other highlights included trombonist Phil O’Malley’s spare and elegant contribution to Mood Indigo and tenor saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski’s slinky solo on Barney Bigard’s Lament for Javanette.

Indeed, Mathieson quipped that Barney Bigard’s estate would be having a bumper night, royalties-wise, but it was Jelly Roll Morton’s which received the bigger boost since the CJO performed a string of Morton numbers, including a couple which had never been played before – anywhere. None of these proved as electrifying, however, as an impromptu Blue Horizon in which Christopher, soloing with rhythm section, wowed the audience with a masterful display of his sultry, southern-drenched sound.

* First published in The Herald, Thursday July 25

Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2012 in Videos: Classic Jazz Orchestra

To read my review of this concert, click here

Edinburgh Jazz Festival: Fapy Lafertin/Swing 2010

FAPY LAFERTIN & SWING 2010, THE HUB

****

Many guitarists try to play like the legendary Django Reinhardt, but the great Fapy Lafertin, who shares a Belgian gypsy background with his hero, is probably the only one who sounds exactly like him – and sounds like him in a completely natural and unforced way.

For Sunday afternoon’s performance, Lafertin – whose one-time swashbuckling look has been replaced with a more avuncular appearance – was reunited with the Edinburgh band which – as its leader, John Russell, explained – was formed 30 years ago as a direct result of Lafertin’s sensational performance at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival.

Which accounts for the laid-back rapport between Russell and Lafertin. The band’s usual solo guitarist, Stephen Coutts, had to make way for the guest star – which made for a slightly solo-heavy opener, Djangology, as both were featured. But thereafter, everything worked as if they had been playing together for years. The dependably excellent clarinettist Dick Lee seemed particularly inspired by the presence of Lafertin, and their unison playing at the start of many of the faster numbers was terrific. By the time they got to the thrillingly fast encore, China Boy, the energetic Lee was practically bouncing off the walls.

However, it was the ballads which brought the house down. “Oh, wow!” exclaimed one woman, unaware that she was thinking out loud, as Lafertin brought the dreamy ballad Manoir de mes reves, to a spectacular climax. She was only echoing the thoughts of most of the audience, though, which was blown away by Lafertin’s uncanny musical resemblance, in every way (from the notes he chose to the manner in which he played) them) to one of the giants of jazz.

Edinburgh Jazz Festival: CJO & Duke Heitger

KEN MATHIESON’S CLASSIC JAZZ ORCHESTRA & DUKE HEITGER PLAY LOUIS ARMSTRONG, JAMHOUSE

****

Ken Mathieson certainly knows how to pick his musical collaborators. Last year it was multi-instrumentalist Alan Barnes who joined the CJO for a concert of Benny Carter tunes; this year it’s American trumpeter Duke Heitger who proved to be the ideal guest star for a programme of mainly Louis Armstrong-associated music. Heitger, no stranger to Edinburgh audiences, is an excellent trumpeter with a majestic, proclamatory style of playing which recalls the great Satchmo’s sound.

On Sunday night at the Jamhouse, which this year has been given over to the traditional and classic jazz strand, the CJO and Heitger gave the audience a taste of what’s on their new Celebrating Satchmo CD, as well as such extra-Armstrong treats as Duke Ellington’s Happy Go Lucky Local.

This band seldom fails to impress – and no wonder: it has some of the best Scottish players in its front line, notably, on Sunday, Dick Lee and Martin Foster on clarinets and saxes (on Coal Cart Blues in particular). And it’s as strong on its ensemble playing as it is on its soloists’ contributions.

For his part, Heitger served up his own, inspired, takes on the “breaks” with which Armstrong dazzled listeners on such classic Hot Five and Seven tunes as Wild Man Blues, Savoy Blues and – especially – Potato Head Blues, which Mathieson, ever the wag, dedicated to Wayne Rooney.