Celtic Connections

Leo Blanco Blue Lamp Quartet, Strathclyde Suite, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Stewart Smith

Four stars

Celtic Connections celebrated its South American links with the reconvening of Venezuelan pianist Leo Blanco's Blue Lamp Quartet, featuring Scottish jazz musicians Paul Towndrow on alto saxophone, Alyn Cosker on drums, and Mario Caribe on bass.

Valentina Montoya Martinez and Voces Del Sur open proceedings with a fine set of modern South American folk music. Based in Edinburgh, the Chilean singer is a regular with McFall's Chamber, and accompanied by Mario Caribe on bass and David Russell on guitar and tiple, she offers a lyrical selection of songs from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

Blanco's academic research into the connections between African and South American music has inspired a compositional approach that incorporates rhythms, melodies and song forms from both continents into a distinctive contemporary jazz sound. On record, Blanco often enriches his music with South American folk instrumentation, but tonight's concert presents his compositions in an acoustic jazz format, bringing his piano skills into sharp focus. Blanco plays with grace and fire, bringing an urgency to even the airiest of melodies. Poconos, inspired by the music of the Congolese pygmies, opens with rippling chords that build to a trance-like intensity as the rhythm section of Caribe and Cosker gradually turn up the heat. The earthy grooves of Peru Lando and closing number Africa Latina see the Quartet really coming into its own, with hot ensemble playing and some compelling solo features. Towndrow, whose smooth alto tones make Blanco's melodies sing, gets to cut loose on the latter, working over funky licks and running cartwheels up the scales. Cosker brings the show to a lively conclusion with an outbreak of hard polyrhythmic funk against Blanco's gutsy salsa riffs.