[Dixielandjazz] Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2008

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi All,

This year's Edinburgh International Jazz Festival ended just over a week ago and from what I heard, it was a great festival.

My band had a concert on which Duke Heitger and Topsy Chapman guested and a belter of a gig it turned out to be. Here's a link to a review in the Glasgow Herald newspaper:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/edinfest/music/display.var.2416392.0.ken_mathieson_classic_jazz_orchestra_spiegeltent.php
The reviewer's dissatisfaction with a previous concert featuring Topsy with the Swedish Jazz Kings seems to have been a matter of personal taste about chosen repertoire rather than performance. For my band's gig, Topsy and I agreed the material, keys, tempos, codas etc in advance so everything worked out fine. The set list was: CJO: Goose Pimples; CJO plus Duke: Sleepy Time Down South, Cornet Chop Suey, Ev'ntide, Atlanta Blues, Coal Cart Blues; CJO+Duke+Topsy: I Cried for You, Sunny Side of the Street, What a Little Moonlight Can Do; CJO on its own: Jungle Blues, Grandpa's Spells, Buckini, Blues my Naughty Sweetie..; CJO+Duke: Song of the Islands, Wild Man Blues, Mahogany Hall Stomp; CJO+Duke+Topsy: Do You Know What it Means to Miss N.O., Them There Eyes, St Louis Blues. 

I was also involved in a storming little jam session with Bob Barnard and Jon-Erik Kellso with a couple of fine local players: Paul Kirby (piano) and Brian Shiels (bass). All the music played was outstanding, but Paul and Brian kind of stole the show with Prelude to a Kiss.

Duke Heitger and Becky Kilgore put together a lovely concert built around the material recorded together by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Becky sang beautifully and the band was pretty good too: Duke, Dan Barratt, Evan Christopher, John Sheridan, David Blenkhorn (gtr), Sebastian Girardot (bs) and me (dms). The last gig of the festival was also a great one with Becky and Topsy headlining with a band of Duke, Dan, John Sheridan, Roy Percy (bs) and me.

As well as the gigs I was on, I caught a fine set by the Wild Bill Davison Tribute Band with Randy Reinhart, Bill Allred, Alan Vache, the wonderful Dave Green (bs), a fine pianist from Bern Switzerland, whose name now escapes me, and a fine young German drummer, Bernhard Fleger. I wonder if they lived up to Wild Bill's reputation off-stage, but didn't hear of them being kicked out their hotel for outrageous behaviour and stealing everything that wasn't bolted down.

Evan Christopher's midday concert of Django a la Creole was excellent too, with a fine eclectic mix of Hot Club and Jelly Roll Morton in their repertoire. I also caught a storming session of Johnny Hodges material by an octet led by the wonderful saxophonist Alan Barnes, featuring Bruce Adams (tpt), Art Themen (tenor), a fine American trombonist whose name I missed, Dave Green again on bass and 2 home-grown Scots: the outrageous Brian Kellock on piano and the fiery Alyn Cosker on drums.

An interesting concert of Jelly Roll Morton's music featured a fine band with Jon-Erik, Orange Kellin and others playing (in the main) transcripts of Morton recordings. However the show was stolen by the fantastic piano-playing of Gunnar Morten Larssen: his solo set was outstanding and his contributions to the band lifted their performance markedly.

Among the other concerts getting rave reviews was one by the Tommy Sampson Big Band. Tommy is a legendary figure in the UK music scene, having led big bands since the late 1940s and arranged for just about everyone in the business. He recently celebrated his 90th birthday and, although he's taking things a bit easier nowadays, he wrote a few new charts for the occasion and the band played out of its skin for him.

I haven't heard of a single sub-standard gig on the festival and I hope the bottom line works out black when they tot the figures up.

Cheers,

Ken Mathieson
www.classicjazzorchestra.org.uk