Trumpeting the Aberdeen Jazz Festival's stellar line-up

The trumpet's loud clangour / Excites us to arms ...' John Dryden maybe had a thing about trumpets, although more than three centuries on from his Song for St Cecilia's Day, the sound of trumpets is more likely to elicit a rapturous response than armed belligerence.

New York-based trumpeter Ralph Alessi is appearing at Aberdeen Jazz Festival

The organisers of the forthcoming Aberdeen Jazz Festival will certainly be hoping so, anyway, as their programme this year features three acclaimed exponents of differing trumpet styles.

The festival, which runs from 16-20 March, brings some 30 acts to the Granite City over the weekend, with headliners including the UK hip-hop-influenced saxophonist Soweto Kinch, Colorado-based bluesman Otis Taylor and Louisiana Zydeco accordion star Dwayne Dopsie.

On the trumpet front, the Blue Lamp on 17 March hosts the cutting-edge New York trumpeter Ralph Alessi, direct from Ronnie Scott’s with his Baida quartet of Gary Versace on piano, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Nasheet Waits. Described by the New York Times as an “unstoppably inventive” player, Alessi and company can churn up quite a storm, although they’ll also be performing some of the more reflective and lyrical material from their freshly released album on ECM, Quiver.

A jazz trumpeter still carrying the torch for Louis Armstrong, whom he met as a child, and informed by such other giants as Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry, is the irrepressible Enrico Tomasso, who appears as the guest of Ken Mathieson’s Classic Jazz Orchestra at Queen’s Cross Church on 18 March. Mathieson quotes Miles Davis’s famous remark about Armstrong – “You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him, not even modern s**t” – and adds, “Rico’s obviously listened a lot to Roy Eldridge, Cootie Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry etc, and Louis was never far below the surface of their playing, so it’s hardly surprising that it’s the same with Rico.” The programme, he adds, will accordingly feature material from both Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

The 18th also sees the distinctive, Scottish folk-influenced lyricism of Colin Steele, as he appears at the Blue Lamp with his happily revived quintet with saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski, pianist Dave Milligan, Calum Gourlay on bass and Stu Ritchie on drums. Expect some of their old favourites as well as new material from their shortly to be released album.

The festival bill also includes the rip-roaring New Orleans-style rumpus of the Riot Jazz Brass Band, the Celtic-accented blues of Grainne Duffy and, returning to his hometown, the inventive cross-genre guitarist Graeme Stephen with his Go Get It quartet featuring saxophonist Phil Bancroft, bassist Mario Caribe and viola player Oene Van Gael.

Other Scottish talent at the festival will include the inimitable pianist Brian Kellock, appearing with saxophonist Alan Barnes, the folk-jazz big band Fat Suit, trad sounds from Alison Affleck’s Copper Cats, the rapidly ascending young pianist Fergus McCreadie, sharing a bill with Norwegian quintet The Zone, and hot club swing from Rose Room. Once again, the festival’s Sunday “Jazz on the Green” programme will present four hours of jazz, blues, soul and funk on various stages in the city centre, with more than a dozen bands performing.

The week before the festival, Aberdeen’s Blue Lamp is the venue (on 10 March) when the Guitar Journey Duet launch a Scottish tour which will take them through Cupar, Birnam, Kilbarchan and Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, to finish up in Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall on the 15th. Guitar Journey Duet is a pairing of two virtuosic acoustic players – Jonny Phillips, leader of the acclaimed London-based jazz fusion band Oriole, and Sardinian Giorgio Serci, who can claim to have worked with Dr John and the Berlin Philharmonic as well as such disparate talents as Martin Taylor, Jools Holland and Shirley Bassey.

Serci and Phillips perform repertoire from Iberia, North Africa and the Americas, seamlessly blending elements of flamenco and Latin-American music with a very contemporary sensibility that communicates directly with their audiences.

• For further details of Aberdeen Jazz Festival, see www.aberdeenjazzfestival.com; for the Guitar Journey Duet, see www.giorgioserci.com/Giorgio_Serci/Dates