Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2018: 40th Anniversary Jazz Gala

40th Anniversary Jazz Gala, Assembly Hall ****

The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival swung into action on Friday, with a special concert as its showpiece event. It’s 40 years since an embryonic version of the festival first took place and, on Friday, it revisited its old gala format with a sort of jazz variety show bringing together Scottish jazz stars who have notched up appearances in every full decade of its life.

Pianist Brian Kellock’s relationship with the jazz festival dates back to even before his official debut there, in the 1980s. On Friday, reunited with drummer John Rae, his trio was in high spirits – though it was the languid Ballad For Very Tired and Very Sad Lotus Eaters that stood out.

Tenor saxophonist Tommy Smith, who also cut his jazz teeth in the festival’s first decade, joined Kellock for a trio of tunes – notably a gorgeous Without a Song and a Sweet Georgia Brown that sent sparks flying – which highlighted their rapport and showed how attuned to each other’s musical thought processes they are.

It was disappointing that Martin Taylor, one of the leading jazz guitarists in the world, got a little lost in the mix kicking off a second half which was to be dominated, time-wise, by a gypsy jazz group which only came on the scene a few years ago. Taylor’s meander through Henry Mancini’s bittersweet ballad Two For the Road was a mini-masterclass in the art of solo guitar.

It would have been even more of a treat to hear him play with singer Carol Kidd (pictured above, with pianist Paul Harrison) but she had done her bit, bringing the house down at the end of the first half with two stunning ballads – by Billy Joel and Richard Rodgers – which served as appetite-whetters for her concert next Saturday.

Nobody got more of the spotlight, however, than singer/violinist Seonaid Aitken, who was in her element hosting the show on the jazz festival’s behalf, duetting with its stars and leading her band, Rose Room, through the longest set of the night.

• An edited version of this review appeared on HeraldScotland on Monday, July 16th

 

Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2017: Rose Room Orchestra Fantastique

Rose Room Orchestra Fantastique, George Square Spiegeltent ****

In recent years, gypsy jazz bands with a Hot Club-inspired line-up have become as much a feature of jazz festivals as trad and Dixieland jazz groups and the most exciting ones are those in which the violinist and the lead guitarist are on equal musical footing (the Tim Kliphuis Trio, with Nigel Clark on guitar, springs to mind), or the band is doing something a bit different with the classic gypsy sound (Evan Christopher’s Django a la Creole, for example). 

 

Rose Room, the Glasgow-based quartet which boasts violinist extraordinaire Seonaid Aitken as its star, ticks neither of the above boxes on its own – but, on Friday, it brought in special guests to turn what could have been an enjoyable but unremarkable gig into something more becoming of a jazz festival opening night. Saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski injected a welcome dose of edginess to proceedings which, thanks to the jaunty, cheery tunes and Aitken’s 1930s BBC radio dance band singing style, often sound cosily retro, while the addition of The Capella Quartet to a series of tunes from Rose Room’s regular repertoire put a different spin on the music, and added depth and class.

 

Indeed, The Capella Quartet provided one of the highlights of the evening – a beautiful, unusual arrangement of Moonlight in Vermont which managed to just about block out the thumping, pumping beat emanating from the tent-next-door’s soundcheck. Blues in My Heart – possibly the jolliest blues I’ve ever heard – also stood out because it featured Aitken’s lovely vocals with a funky accompaniment from guitarist Tom Watson, playing chunky chords, and Wiszniewski at his downright raunchiest.

* First published in The Scotsman, Monday July 17th

Review: Cyrille Aimée, Dundee Jazz Festival

Cyrille Aimée Duo, Gardyne Theatre, Dundee, Wednesday November 19th ****

A fresh breeze blew into Dundee on the opening night of its jazz festival on Wednesday, in the shape of the exuberant young French singer Cyrille Aimée, who was making her Scottish debut, accompanied by her regular guitarist Michael Valeanu.

 

It was clear from the off that Aimée is a unique new addition to the jazz singing scene. The voice is gentle, beguiling, soft-edged and infused with an uplifting quality on many of the songs, and she revealed a great set of scatting chops – most sensationally on the piece de la résistance vocalese version of Thelonious Monk’s Straight No Chaser towards the end of her set. That number was a surprise even though Aimée had already demonstrated that hers is a repertoire that can’t be second-guessed: everything from Serge Gainsbourg to Antonio Carlos Jobim, via Edith Piaf (whose T’es beau, tu sais offered the first opportunity of the evening to hear the New York-based vocalist sing in her own language).

 

Indeed, with her petite physique and very expressive hands, Aimée was a bit like Piaf – a happy Piaf – though, unlike the Little Sparrow, her expressive hands were often used to simulate slide trombone solos when she scatted. She also demonstrated a knack for reimagining even the most familiar of songs.

 

It was a wonderful debut but met with a rather reserved response from the crowd which, it turned out, was saving its clapping strength for Rose Room, the Hot Club-inspired Scottish quartet which made its mark at a previous edition of the jazz festival.

* First published in The Scotsman, Saturday November 22nd

Review: Rose Room

Rose Room, Arlington Baths, Glasgow, Friday June 8 ***

They may have opened to members in 1870 but the Arlington Baths’ West End Festival gig last night was the first concert in its 142-year history. Anyone who inferred from the festival programme that they might be sitting round the pool watching the band perform was in for a surprise/shock as the hour-long performance actually took place in the cosy bar where the band looked set to contend with noisy weans, diners and oldies out for a Friday night pint.

From the off, however, this Quintet of the Hot Club of France inspired quartet grabbed the attention of the punters and held on to it for most of the gig. Their stock in trade is jaunty, unpretentious, feelgood, gypsy jazz and their not-so secret weapon; the element which elevates it above what it would otherwise be, is Seonaid Aitken who sings in a ladylike style that contrasts with the passion of her more reckless-sounding violin playing which is dynamic and occasionally dazzling.

Indeed, whenever the attention of the audience began to wane – unsurprisingly, given that the punters hadn’t paid for tickets and were (children aside) somewhat the merrier for the cheap bar – it was Aitken who drew it back. In a programme, and genre, dominated by fast or mid-tempo tunes, it was the ballads which stood out. Blues in My Heart was a stylishly arranged and executed example of Rose Room at its best, with lead guitarist Tom Watson serving up a particularly groovy solo and Aitken’s vocals a delight.

Ditto for the concert’s stand-out Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me on which the gentle swing of Watson’s and Tam Gallagher’s guitars plus Jimmy Moon’s bass proved the perfect setting for her dreamy voice.

Catch them in a full concert at Oran Mor on June 22.

First published in The Scotsman,  Saturday June 9