Thanks to Claire my participation in this year's Jazz festival has been immortalised.  The gig is the culmination of the Napier University Jazz Summer School which I've done a few times.  All have been fun to do but I don't know that my jazz playing is very much better than the first time I did it.  However, my motivation to put some effort into jazz has been given a boost, especially since I'm no longer taking regular sax lessons.

One of the perks of the summer school is that you get free tickets for evening gigs during the week.  Adding on the gigs that I bought tickets for at the two weekends that comes to 10 in total that I attended.  I'm going to put brief notes here as a reminder to myself of what I thought of them.

Richard Glassby Quartet -  I enjoyed the music but confess to having gone home after the first set because sitting twiddling my thumbs for 20 minutes between sets didn't appeal at 10 o'clock at night.

Xhosa Cole Quartet - Super gig headed by a former BBC Young Jazz Musician of the year on saxophone.

Noushy 4Tet -  I was a little bit disappointed.  I've heard Anoushka Nanguy play with the SNJO and was looking forward to hearing her trombone in a more prominent setting.  In this gig she sang quite a few numbers rather than played and also gave a lot of space to her fellow players.  Nothing wrong with either of those but it wasn't quite what I had hoped for.  

Brian Molley Quintet Play Getz and Byrd's "Jazz Samba" - This gig celebrated the 60th anniversary of the release of that album.  I very much enjoy latin music and I admire Brian Molley as a saxophonist so this gig was right up my street.  Loved it. 

John Scofield: Yankee Go Home - This was one of my free gigs so I shouldn't complain and indeed I'm not.  I'm just saying that it didn't float my boat.  Scofield is a guitar legend and people who enjoy the electric guitar more than I do will have adored this gig.  I enjoyed some of it.

European Jazz Workshop Big Band -  This was certainly the most original and impressive gig that I went to and possibly the one that I enjoyed most.  It started innocently enough with four original tunes from a young Glasgow quartet that included Rachel Duns, a saxophonist to keep your ear on.  Then the stage filled up with players from another four European cities, around 20 players in all.  They played for 75 minutes a piece that they had developed improvisationaly over a week long workshop.  Hard to describe, for me at least, there's an informed minute by minute review of the work here. 

Laura MacDonald's Cooking With Jazz - A well known and accomplished presence on the Scottish jazz scene for 30 years Laura hit the big time with the public when she made it to the finals of the  BBC's Masterchef show in 2021.  There's a fascinating write-up about it here.  At this gig in which the tunes were all food related she laid aside her alto sax to demonstrate making honeycomb (puff candy to me) and to serve a tangerine cake topped with chunks of the stuff.  Accompanying her on tenor but not in cooking was another brilliant Scottish player, Helena Kay.

Haftor Medboe and friends -  Haftor ran the Napier jazz summer school for over 20 years and handed over responsibility for it only this year to Sue McKenzie who joined him on saxophones for this gig.  Accompanied by Tom Lyne on double bass and Signy Jakobsdottir on drums and featuring a couple of songs from Jessie Bates he explored music from his Scandanavian homeland, all of it gentle, thoughtfull and moving. So good.

Federico Calcagno and the Dolphians - Their mission is to celebrate and extend the music of Eric Dolphy and in this gig specifically his 1964 album "Out to Lunch".  Classed as avant-garde at the time it's still a bit of an effort to listen to for those who like the Great American Songbook but I enjoyed the gig.

Archipelagos - Led by drummer Francesca Remigi this band's music is definitely avant-avant-garde but if you stick with it, which I did for the first set, it's rewarding.  Just as at my first fetival gig I didn't want to twiddle my thumbs for 20 minutes at this the last one so I left at the interval.  Had I been more in touch with the music, (or should that be vice versa?),  I might have stayed.