Glasgow Jazz Festival 2013's main core of concerts doesn't begin until Wednesday but this "one week from now" overture could hardly have been bettered as an appetiser.
Saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski and pianist Euan Stevenson's New Focus has developed a life and identity of its own since its premiere at Edinburgh Jazz Festival in 2011. It's been praised from here to London and back. Its recorded version was longlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year award and, possibly most pleasing of all, on the evidence of the new material played here, it's moving into an equally attractive-sounding, potentially even more rewarding new phase.
The basic triumph of the project has been well rehearsed but stands being repeated: a jazz quartet working with a string quartet and concert harp in compositions and arrangements that bring these apparently diverse elements together into a natural, flowing music. The way Wiszniewski's tenor merges with the strings is at times heart-breakingly gorgeous, and while Stevenson's phrasing on solos is the essence of cool, the heat that the nonet can generate degree by degree, with the expert shovelling on of coal from Alyn "Fireman" Cosker on drums, is truly exhilarating.
A brand new – finished that morning – ballad for cello, piano and tenor confirmed Stevenson's master-of-his-materials composing credentials, with superb melody sharing between the three players, and the waltzing The Simple Life, for all nine instruments, danced its way into the repertoire with gracefulness, an easy swinging pulse and an improvising bite from Wiszniewksi that, like the music as a whole, hit home with a huge sense of satisfaction.
HHHHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article