Gig review: Joe Temperley quartet

Published on Tuesday 4 August 2009 18:55

JOE TEMPERLEY QUARTET **** THE HUB, EDINBURGH

BARITONE saxophonist Joe Temperley's main assignment in this year's Jazz Festival is to lead the Edinburgh Festival Jazz Orchestra in their maiden voyage tonight, in a programme of music by one of his former employers, Duke Ellington.

This quartet – and later quintet – was a chance to reacquaint himself with old friends on the bandstand, pianist Brian Kellock and bass player Dave Green, and in the audience. He acknowledged this by opening with Just Friends.

It launched a characteristic Temperley programme of standards and blues tunes. Alyn Cosker completed the quartet on drums, and they were joined after a couple of tunes by a special guest, Carl Majeau, a prize-winning young saxophonist from Seattle.

Temperley set him something of a test piece in Billy Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge, and the youngster responded well, but there was no doubting which saxophonist had the five decades of top-level jazz experience behind him, and who was still learning.

Whether on that lovely ballad outing, a couple of mid-tempo blues or a standard tune such as What Is This Thing Called Love?, Temperley's rich, mellifluous sound on the baritone and his gorgeously sculpted phrases reminded us all just why he was able to make the transition from his native Lochgelly to the top end of the New York scene. Majeau's lithe tenor and later clarinet playing provided enough evidence to suggest that we will hear more of him.