There have been three very different saxophone gigs in the last few weeks.

YolanDa Brown chose to visit Kirkcaldy as one of only two Scottish dates on what she declared was a world tour celebrating her ten years as a professional player .  I fear she may not come back since the Adam Smith auditorium wasn't more than about a third full. .

She's a very chatty, lively and engaging performer and  and those who were there were enthusiastic and enjoyed her mix of jazz, funk and what she calls posh reggae.  She even managed to get us all up to ..... well dance would be too grand a description.  Let's say sway more or less rhythmically.

Here's an audience doing a bit better than we did.


Back in Edinburgh Sir James MacMillan's new saxophone concerto was paired with Glazunov's and played by the SCO with Amy Dickson as soloist.  MacMillan's concerto has three movements each inspired by a Scottish musical form.  The first by marches, strathspeys and reels, the second by Gaelic psalm singing and the third by jigs.

I certainly enjoyed it but can't share it with you since I was too law-abiding for surrepticious recording and it hasn't made it onto Youtube yet.  However there are three short Youtube videos of MacMillan and Dickson discussing the piece.  There is a tiny snatch of music in the second of those so here it is.

Youtube has lots of versions of Glasunov's concerto. Here's one in which the orchestra is the SCO. It's from the World Saxophone Congress in St Andrews three years ago.

 The third event was the last in the jazz series at St James church by Leith Links, or the hall thereof since the church itself appears to be boarded up. Tommy Smith and Brian Molley appeared in previous months. This time it was the wonderful tenor player Konrad Wiszniewski and New Focus, the group he runs with the equally wonderful pianist Euan Stevenson.  In fact it was the jazz quartet subset of the group which in its entirety includes a string quarte. Here they are at Whighams one Sunday evening.