Graeme Stephen likes to get audiences smiling.
The Aberdeen-born guitarist has developed a stage persona prone to make authoritative statements, about climbing Everest, for instance, which he then quickly and disowns. The audience smiles – and then smiles again when they hear the piece he’s been introducing.
Stephen has been developing the music on this Scottish Arts Council Tune-up tour over the past few years and it’s now of a quality to allow an appreciation of the man’s ability to use his musical imagination as an impressionist’s tool. He may only have read of the “second step” required to conquer Everest, but the composition it inspired conveys a sense, somehow, of stunning vistas.
The ensemble of fiddle, cello, and alto and soprano saxophones emphasises the chamber aspect of the compositions – although beguilingly they can easily slip into an east European dance metre or summon up memories of prog-rockers King Crimson in improvisation mode.
Star rating:****
