Five highlights of the 2013 Edinburgh Jazz Festival

• Edinburgh Festival Guide
• 15 July 2013

This article is from 2013

Pharoah Sanders, Malene Mortensen, Snarky Puppy and Stan Tracey

Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert
Described as Ellington’s attempt to bring the Cotton Club into a church setting, he produced three Sacred Concerts between 1965 and 1973. The pianist-composer himself said this was ‘the most important thing I have ever done’ and here, Ellington devotee Stan Tracey revives the Duke’s spirit with a jazz/classical/choral performance.
Dunfermline Abbey, 23 Jul; Queen’s Hall, 24 Jul.

Hidden Orchestra
The acclaimed Edinburgh quartet led by Joe Acheson certainly pack it in with their jazz, rock, classical, electronica hybrid to produce lush and layered soundscapes. Their 2010 debut, Night Walks, is a great place to start for anyone looking to uncover the Hidden Orchestra’s beautiful depths.
Liquid Room, 20 Jul.

Snarky Puppy
Not so much an instrumental band as a jazz fusion collective, this rotational act has almost 30 members with a core team led by award-winning bassist and composer Michael League. Rising from the grassroots and becoming a genuine force for musical good, their community outreach projects are a way of giving something back.
Queen’s Hall, 22 Jul.

Malene Mortensen
The true test of a person is how you cope with adversity, and it doesn’t get much more adverse than coming last in the Eurovision Song Contest. That was 11 years ago, and it merely drove Mortensen on to become a massive jazz success in her Danish homeland. She now makes her Scottish debut alongside guitarist Carl Mörner Ringström.
Palazzo Spiegeltent, 25 Jul.

Pharoah Sanders & Phil Bancroft
Two heavyweight tenor sax players lead their quartets in a US/Scotland double bill with Bancroft unleashing his new band on us. Sanders first came to attention in the 60s alongside Coltrane and recently threatened to quit live performance due to the proliferation of illegal recordings at his gigs.
3 Bristo Place, 28 Jul.