Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Tom Gordon Basie 7

Tom Gordon Basie 7, Festival Theatre Studio ****

One of the recurring themes of this year’s Edinburgh Jazz Festival has been the lack of information in the programme – both the brochure and the website, even at the eleventh hour – about the line-ups of bands specially put together for their festival concerts. Which means it can be a bit of a lucky dip for punters who take a chance – on Friday’s set by the Richard Pite Hot Five, for example, which turned out to have such stellar talent as trumpeter Ryan Quigley in its front line, or Sunday’s set by the John Rae Experience, which had an unadvertised Brian Kellock (the same unadvertised Brian Kellock who had played with singer Anita Wardell on Friday) in its ranks.

Just as with those bands, nobody other than the leader of the “all star” Tom Gordon Basie 7 got a namecheck in the festival bumf and, again just as with those earlier gigs, drummer Gordon’s could have been better attended. His band turned out to comprise a front line mostly made up of musicians from Sunday night’s Ellington celebration: trumpeter/vocalist Georgina Jackson, trombonist Gordon Campbell, saxophonist Stewart Forbes and guitarist Duncan Findlay.

The septet served up a delightful couple of sets which elegantly evoked the sumptuous sound of small group Basie, with Euan Stevenson doing a great job in the Count’s role. As with Sunday’s Ellington show, the Basie one benefitted from the lovely, breathy vocals of Georgina Jackson, especially on a gorgeous L’il Darlin’ and God Bless the Child, and the uptempo numbers were terrific, with Tom Gordon powering the band from the back of stage and the horns swinging in perfect synch.

* First published in The Herald, Thursday July 23rd

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Ellington 1945

Echoes of Ellington/Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestra: Ellington 1945 ****

The Echoes of Ellington and Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestras joined forces on Sunday night to celebrate a pivotal period in the history of the Duke and his band.

Drawing from a vast pool of compositions that date to the years on either side of 1945, Echoes’ leader/clarinettist Peter Long and a top-drawer band (decked out, it has to be reported, in two-tone dinner jackets that looked like they were either escapees from a 1970s gameshow or rejects from a Brotherhood of Man tribute band) played such a long concert that even the most devoted ducal devotee was at saturation level a couple of numbers before the end.

Still, until Ellington fatigue set in, everyone – onstage and off – had a great time. Among the many highlights were the big, familiar ballads sung by Georgina Jackson – I’m Beginning to See the Light and I Let A Song Go Out of My Heart, both of which were a first-time treat to hear being performed by full orchestra plus vocals. He Makes Me Believe He’s Mine – a completely unfamiliar (to everyone in the audience, judging by the blank expressions when Long asked who knew it) song with words and music by Billy Strayhorn – was another sumptuous stand-out.

But the biggest thrills were when this band – which included such terrific players as Enrico Tomasso and Ryan Quigley (trumpets), Calum Gourlay (bass), Nick Dawson (piano), Ian Bateman and Gordon Campbell (trombones) and Colin Skinner and Jay Craig (saxes) – let rip on such uptempo numbers as Stomp, Look and Listen, It Don’t Mean a Thing and, especially, the Duke’s extended Take the A Train.

* First published in The Herald, Tuesday July 21st