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 2016: Diplomats of Jazz

Diplomats of Jazz, City Art Centre ****

For several years, it was a tradition for this reviewer to request a ticket for the Friday afternoon gig at the Royal Overseas League – and to be told that it had sold out days before and there were no spare tickets. So it was great to see in this year’s programme that the ever-popular Edinburgh band the Diplomats of Jazz were playing their annual Jazz Festival gig at this event’s new venue, the City Art Centre’s fifth floor, which clearly holds a larger audience than the ROL.

It’s no wonder the Diplomats have such a strong following and can easily pack out venues even at a time of year when there are plenty of out-of-town bands around to choose from. They are wonderful purveyors of classic jazz which they play with good humour and style. And it’s always a delight to hear the combined sound of cornet, clarinet, banjo and sousaphone.

Last year, the band’s cornet-playing leader Jim Petrie had a not-so funny turn during their gig and had to be taken to hospital, but he was looking and sounding good on Friday – though his cornet had less of a work-out than his gravelly vocals, and he was suffering from the intense heat from the stadium lights on the stage.

Despite their discomfort, the fully dinner-suited quartet served up an hour’s worth of swinging tunes. Among the catchy highlights were East Coast Trot and Yearning, both of which showcased this band’s top-notch ensemble playing as well as some terrific clarinet solos by Bob Busby, whose spiky-round-the-edges sound brought the great Sandy Brown to mind.

First published on HeraldScotland on Sunday July 24th

Diplomats of Jazz, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Friday July 22nd

Angry

She’s Funny That Way

New Orleans Shuffle

Baby Won’t You Please Come Home

East Coast Trot

Yearning

Give Me a June Night, the Moonlight and You

Crying’ For the Carolines

Swing That Music

Review: Leith Jazz Festival, June 16-17, 2012

Leith Jazz Festival, various venues, June 16-17, 2012 ****

Like a phoenix rising from distinctly soggy ashes, the Leith Jazz Festival was revived over the weekend after more than a decade. And even the damp weather didn’t rain on the parade of the publicans who found their establishments packed out for (at least) the daytime gigs which ranged from hard core blues to 1920s classic jazz. For those who remember the old pub trail of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, nipping from one hostelry to another, often catching the first set in one pub before zipping along the road to catch the second set in another was a lovely nostalgia trip.

All the names on the bill were local – but they included some of the best on the Edinburgh scene, from pianist Brian Kellock, who was the unofficial artistic director of the event, and whose regular Sunday session at The Shore was a focal point of the weekend for many festival-goers, to the reliably excellent Swing 2012, which specialises in laid-back, Hot Club of France-inspired jazz, and who played on Sunday evening at The Granary.

Indeed, for the jazz aficionado, Sunday was THE day to get the walking shoes on. And the place to be in the early part of the afternoon was Sofi’s Bar where the alto saxophonist Martin Kershaw – a musician you’d rarely get to hear for free – and bassist Ed Kelly held an audience spellbound as they dished up a fantastic, full concert.

Kershaw, a supremely eloquent and lyrical player, was in terrific form, and was well matched with Kelly. Among the many highlights were an exquisite reading of the Antonio Carlos Jobim heartbreaker How Insensitive (which hinted at the Stan Getz influence on Kershaw’s upper register playing), a bouncy All The Things You Are and a hard-swinging take on Charlie Parker’s Marmaduke. Horace Silver’s Song For My Father was a lovely nod to Father’s Day.

The Compass proved not to be the best venue for singer Lorna Reid and her intimate duo gig with guitarist Graeme Stephen. While Kershaw had an attentive audience, she had to contend with noisy diners who were not there to hear the music and didn’t care who knew it. Nevertheless, those who did listen were rewarded with some lovely songs served in a tasteful, elegant style by the soulful-sounding Reid and her like-minded accompanist.

A late set by the wonderful Diplomats of Jazz – an Edinburgh institution which, like Swing 2012, used to feature on the old jazz festival pub trail – was the ideal way to round off the weekend. Decked out in their dinner suits, the Diplomats may have had to contend with the football on the TV at the other end of the Constitution Bar, but they did so in style: their exuberant playing on Crying for the Carolines and Sorry was a joy to behold.

* First published in The Scotsman, Monday June 18, 2012