Reviews & features: Jazz

Blurt - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Sun Jul 29 2012

Poet, puppeteer and post-punk provocateur

In the silence, Ted Milton sits behind a microphone centre-stage and blows up a balloon he ties and places at his feet. With a set of carefully placed clips, Milton hangs up a piece of white material too big to be a handkerchief, too small to be a…

Archie Shepp - Summerhall, Edinburgh, 1 Aug 2012

Avant-garde fire may be toned down, but 75-year-old Shepp still honks a mighty blues

'I continue to listen gamely to Archie Shepp (who is wearing a beard now) in the hope that one day it will all cease to sound like 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' scored for bagpipes and concrete-mixer' wrote Philip Larkin in 1966. One can relish the poet…

Leroy Jones Band - Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

The trumpeter visits Edinburgh after appearances in TV drama Treme

‘I was in an episode two weeks ago with my local quintet. I was performing one of my original compositions for about a minute and twenty seconds.’ Bandleader and trumpeter Leroy Jones is bubbling with pride over his recent appearance in an episode of…

Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival 2011 - highlights

Tommy Smith, Courtney Pine, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and more

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble A high energy blend of New Orleans horns and live hip hop beats, this Chicago nine-piece return to raise the Spiegeltent from its moorings. Barack Obama, Jay-Z and David Byrne are among the fans of this exciting block party…

Trombone Shorty profile - Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2011

Youthful jazz pioneer and composer set for Edinburgh date

'Oooooh! Trombone Shorty! My man!' This is how the 25-year-old jazz musician from New Orleans is greeted by fellow (and fictitious) horn player Antoine Batiste in David Simon's new HBO television show, Treme. Simon's follow-up to his hard-hitting cop…

Sarah Connolly

Mezzo soprano returns to jazz roots

Among other things, 2010 is likely to be memorable as the year of the mezzo-soprano at the Edinburgh International Festival. Joyce DiDonato, Petra Lang and Christine Brewer, who replaces the indisposed Susan Graham, are just three of the famous names…

Ali McGregor

A versatile diva, doing jazz this time

As soon as Ali McGregor takes to the stage to sing she has the audience captivated for the rest of the evening. A seasoned performer (she has appeared in La Clique, and in The Opera Burlesque at previous Fringes) she commands the stage with her warm…

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Chicago fusion of jazz, hip hop and funk

This nine-piece comprising eight horns and a drummer are not what you might expect at the Jazz & Blues Festival.

Five hirsute gents tickling our fancies (and chins) this month

Look out for these bearded men at this year's Festivals

Phil Kay Furry Fringe veteran Kay makes no fewer than four fuzzy-faced appearances this year. His kids’ show Gimme Your Left Shoe makes a welcome return; there’s a solo show in the evening called In Tweed; a late-night radio show titled RadioFree; and…

NeWt play Led Zeppelin at the Jazz Bar

Hyper-imaginative and unconvential jazz trio

What Is It? A hyper-imaginative and unconventional jazz trio formed by Australian trombonist Chris Greive, Aberdonian guitarist Graeme Stephens and American drummer Chris Wallace, all Edinburgh residents. Who are these guys? Three of the best…

Ali McGregor – Jazz Cigarette

A sexy soulful rendition of songs that inspire

It’s a fine woman who can wrap her vocal chords round Ella, Billie and, er, Britney, with suitable pizzazz. This is sexy soulfulness at its finest, with a harp thrown in. Having warmed up with stints in La Clique and Variety-Nite, here she keeps it real…

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2010 - Curtis Stigers interview

The 'jazz warbler' on sex, lies and ballet recitals

In Edinburgh for the Jazz & Blues Festival, Curtis Stigers talks to The List about sex, lies and ballet recitals First record you ever bought ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, by Elton John. First film you saw that really moved you I remember…

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2010 begins

China Moses, Niki King and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble among highlights

The ten-day fest kicks off again, and among our recommendations, we would include China Moses, an American singer based in Paris, with a soul background and a near obsession for the troubled diva, Dinah Washington; Niki King, Scotland’s own smoky-voiced…

Porgy and Bess takes centre stage at Edinburgh International Festival

Opéra de Lyon's production of Gershwins' crossover classic

As operas go, it’s fair to say that Porgy and Bess blew in like a hurricane. When George and Ira Gershwin’s self-styled ‘American folk opera’ featuring a libretto by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward appeared on the New York stage in 1935, its cast of…

Tam White and the Sermon Orchestra

Preaching a funky lesson

Tam White is Scotland’s best-known blues voice, but he has a lot more than a 12-bar in his locker. His baptism as a pop singer in the 60s eventually led to the jazz-tinged blues of The Dexters, and on to settings that ranged from a celebrated duo with…

Living Room

Improving on improv

Austrian acts have been too few and far between since the halcyon days of classical music. The multi-faceted session-like duo of Living Room take both a step into chamber music and another into the world of jazz improvisation. Messrs Christoph Pepe Auer…

Valery Ponomarev Quintet

Sharing A Global Language

JAZZ It’s late August, it’s The Jazz Bar, so it must be time for Valery Ponomarev. The hard-hitting Russian has been coming to Scotland on a regular basis since the early 90s, and this Fringe residence for Bill Kyle has become something of a staple…

Music from the Penguin Cafe

Revisiting a musical phenomenon

The death of Simon Jeffes in 1997 seemed to bring an end to the intriguing story of the Penguin Café Orchestra. Jeffes had founded the group in the early 70s as a vehicle for his musical concept, which – as he told me when I interviewed him in 1994…

Music hitlist

The best music from the festival

The Bang Bang Club, David Byrne, Dub Syndicate, The Edge, Rough Cut Nation, Rough Cut Nation, Shooglenifty, The Stranglers, Time(less) Machine

Kind of Blue - Colin Steele Quintet

The year 1959 was something of a landmark in the annals of modern jazz, and yielded a number of classic jazz recordings, including Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, Charles Mingus’s Ah Um! and John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Pre-eminent among them, though, is the…

Venezuela Viva

Attracting five-star reviews and much whooping from its appreciative audience, Venezuela Viva was a smash hit at the 2005 Fringe. Now, the 12-strong dance troupe and live band are back for another round of spectacular music and movement. Celebrating the…

Baptiste Trotignon

Sometimes the setting is everything, and for one of the real Edinburgh Jazz Festival highlights this year, the programmers have taken the ingenious step of putting French pianist Trotignon in the hallowed environs of Rosslyn Chapel. Trotignon has shown…

Barbara Morrison

Ebullient and expressive jazz singer

Los Angeles-based singer Barbara Morrison has been a popular visitor to Scotland in recent years, and settles in to a Fringe residency via a couple of outings within the Jazz Festival programme. Raised in Michigan, she has an ebullient, wise-cracking…

Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestra

Burns meets big band jazz

The second of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestra’s two concerts turns from familiar ground with Duke Ellington into rather more uncharted waters. Robert Burns has been even more ubiquitous than usual in the course of this 250th anniversary year, but…

Continental shift at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

This year sees a fresh influx of New European Jazz

While American jazz remains a central plank of the Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival programme, its European counterpart is still well-represented. The Festival is an opportunity to both welcome back seasoned artists (or in the case of…