Folk, jazz, etc: Talent from home and away tunes up for aficionados

THE NEXT couple of weeks bring a rash of diary dates for Scottish jazz fans, with exponents of a wide variety of styles, from Scandinavian minimalist to Chicago funk brass, hitting clubs and concert halls.

Tonight, for a kick-off, Scots trumpet star Ryan Quigley leads his big band in a tribute to his hero, Maynard Ferguson, at The Ferry, Glasgow (www.the-ferry.co.uk). What promises to be a “full throttle” gig, ranging through the Ferguson repertoire from early swing and blues to his later, rock-influenced covers, will also feature an advance peek at this year’s Glasgow Jazz Festival programme, to run from 27 June-1 July. As well as the Quigley Big Band, reprising for the festival its highly successful Beatles tribute, organisers promise the Mobo Jazz Award-winning Kairos 4tet and, from the US, the Robert Glasper Experiment, which rolls jazz, hip-hop, R&B and rock into rumbustious fusion (see www.jazzfest.co.uk and www.facebook.com/glasgowjazzfest).

Getting back to this month, expect a real blast, too, when Chicago’s Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – a nine-piece featuring eight brothers – hits Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree on Saturday as part of Aberdeen Jazz festival and The Caves, Edinburgh, on Sunday, with a hip-hop and funk-driven horn barrage (www.hypnoticbrassensemble.com).

In striking contrast comes the only Scottish date, at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall on 24 March, from Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen and his quartet, touring to promote his album The Well. Aficionados of Gustavsen’s utterly luminous playing will know what to expect, as he is joined by regular cohorts Tore Brunborg on tenor sax, Mats Elertsen on double bass and Jarle Vespestad on drums. Two nights later, on 26 March, the Queen’s Hall also hosts American singer, saxophonist and general smooth operator Curtis Stigers, also promoting a new album, Let’s Go Out Tonight, which, in contrast to the multi-million selling artist’s earlier ventures, veers away from the great American songbook to cover material by such diverse names as Eddie Floyd, Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson and indeed, on the title track, Scotland’s own Blue Nile.

Meanwhile Edinburgh’s award-winning Jazz Bar (www.thejazzbar.co.uk) maintains a busy programme, with highlights including next Wednesday’s gig from London-born, New York-based electric bass virtuoso Janek Gwizdala in the powerful company of sax-player Bob Reynolds, Gary Husband on keyboards and drummer Louie Palmer.

Aberdeen Jazz Festival (www.aberdeenjazzfestival.com), which opened last night, continues until Sunday in the Blue Lamp, Lemon Tree and other venues, with guests including Trio Elf, comprising pianist Walter Lang, Sven Faller on bass and electronic sampling and Gerwin Eisenhauer on drums, and New York saxophonist Chris Potter with his Quartet. Guests from closer to home include Scots-based Brazilian bassist Mario Caribe’s Jazz Crusaders Timemachine; guitarist Preston Reed, the guitar-sax duo of Graeme Stephen and British jazz veteran Stan Tracey.

Emerging talent features day to day in the AJF 2012 Young Musician Showcase, a Saturday afternoon Jazz on the Green event that will see a variety of styles performed throughout the Granite City’s Merchant Quarter, while, straight from St Andrews’s StAnza poetry festival comes Kind of Larkin, a celebration of the famously cantankerous poet’s love of jazz, featuring the Dave Batchelor Quintet with actor David Hayman – the poet reviewed jazz for the Daily Telegraph for a decade. “I can live a week without poetry,” he once said, “but not a day without jazz.”