Folk, jazz etc: Tommy's funky Beast will be a masterpiece for Bill to get stuck into

ONCE upon a time, in a city far away, there was a young saxophonist named Tommy Smith, who was so intimidated by the demonic playing of a jazz giant called David Liebman that once he had earned his chops and become a formidable jazzer in his own right, he composed a devilishly complex piece of music for Liebman, inspired by the folk tale Beauty and the Beast.

That was in 2001, which may not be a long time so far as fairytales go, but in the interim, Smith has rewritten the piece for another renowned US saxophonist, Bill Evans, who makes his first visit to Scotland later next week to play it with the mighty Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, which Smith directs.

They'll perform it along with another of Smith's compositions for large-scale jazz forces, his magisterial suite Torah, based on the creation stories shared by the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions.

Beauty and the Beast remains a demanding piece, as Smith admits: "I wrote the first version for Dave Liebman in 2001, the year after I wrote Torah and I wanted to push myself a bit further and write something which was just all one movement, rather than a suite of smaller parts like Torah.

"So far as the tale goes, it's basically good and evil again," says Smith. "Seeing Liebman playing when I was a kid in Boston (where the Edinburgh-born Smith attended Berklee College of Music], I always thought he was pretty demonic in his performance and he really terrified me. So I wrote this to encapsulate his 'evil' style of playing but also his more lyrical side."

Inviting Bill Evans to solo in this reworked version with the SNJO follows a certain rationale. It was Liebman who commended the then young Evans for Miles Davis's band in the early 1980s.

"So there's a link," says Smith, "but, knowing Bill's music, I needed to rewrite the piece."

Speaking from his home north of New York, Evans remarks that his inclination on receiving the 16-page manuscript a week ago was to offer Smith some choice epithets on the phone. "But do you know what?" he laughs. "It's amazing writing… a masterpiece."

Evans may possibly wreak his revenge on Smith on the golf course when he arrives in Scotland, but fresh challenges are something the horn player with the trademark bandana seems to take in his stride.

Since playing with such ground-breaking musicians as Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Evans's sinuous sax has been heard in funk and hip-hop collaborations, and this week he gigs in Spain with his Grammy-nominated Soulgrass band, splicing jazz with the fiddle and mandolin sounds of bluegrass."I'm a saxophone player first," is his pragmatic explanation, "and I'm inspired to play different kinds of music and these different kinds of music make me play differently." Going by his current album with Soulgrass, The Other Side of Something, he's hit on a potent fusion.

"Bill Evans is one of these contemporary players who can fit in all sorts of genres. He's a very rounded musician, and he loves the folk element, which is why I like his playing a lot," says Smith, who has his own solo sax showcase with the orchestra in Torah. It's Beauty and the Beast, however, he reckons will be the biggest challenge for all concerned: "It's very funky, a big fusion of all kinds of grooves, but for the orchestra it'll be one of the hardest pieces they're ever going to play."

A beast of a piece, then, but well worth getting to know.

• Bill Evans, Tommy Smith and the SNJO play in Greyfriars Church, Lanark on 19 May, the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh on 20 May, the RSAMD, Glasgow, on 21 May, and the Caird Hall, Dundee, on 22 May. See www.snjo.co.uk and www.billevanssax.com