To meet the print deadline for The Herald's Saturday Arts, I am writing this on Unesco International Jazz Day, Thursday April 30.
This is when Glasgow Unesco City of Music showcases school jazz bands in the afternoon and then a triple bill of professional outfits - Ken Mathieson's Classic Jazz Orchestra, duo Fraser Fifield and Graeme Stephen, and quartet Brass Jaw - in the Royal Concert Hall building, as well as providing a platform for the launch of the programme for this year's Glasgow Jazz Festival, which runs from June 24-28.
When Glasgow Unesco City of Music director Svend Brown and I discussed the matter, it was a mystery to us both why the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation had, as recently as 2011, decided that April 30 was the day for the world to celebrate the great music of the 20th century. When you consider that the previous day, April 29, is the birthday of the first great composer of the music, Duke Ellington, born that day in the last year of the 19th century, it begins to look like a bizarre scheduling error.
However, the On This Day column at the foot of Thursday's Herald letters page suggested a possible historically rigorous reason for the choice. Almost a century earlier, on April 30 1803, the US bought Louisiana and New Orleans from France for fifty million francs. The French origins of the cradle of jazz music are crucial, because it was French settlers who brought brass instruments over to New World, and with them the French tradition that every small habitation has its own band. Go to a Murrayfield rugby international against Les Bleus, and you may be sure that there will be a small marching band amongst the travelling support.
During the 19th century, many of the French people who had come to seek their fortune/exploit the resources returned home, while others were absorbed into the new American nation, sometimes finding themselves in reduced circumstances. As a result the pawnshops of New Orleans were filled with unwanted clarinets, trumpets and saxophones. Those previously-owned instruments were acquired by African Americans, and teamed with the guitars and pianos on which the blues was already played, in the creation of jazz music. It is a wonder there isn't a verse or two that explains this for Bing to sing in High Society, so Unesco are presumably just making up for that omission in the 1956 movie.
You may chose to believe my version of musical history or not, but what is beyond argument is the status of Glasgow Jazz Festival as the longest running arts event, never mind musical one, in the Dear Green Place. Next year will be the jazz festival's 30th birthday and this year's programme has concerts across the city, from Gladys Knight and Frank Sinatra Jnr at the Concert Hall, via The Family Stone at the O2 ABC, to two of Scotland finest young pianists, Pete Johnstone and Fergus McCreadie, at Cottier's in the West End.
The core of the programme can be found in the Merchant City, with venues from one end of Candleriggs (the Ramshorn) to the other (Wild Cabaret and the Tron Theatre). In the middle of Jazz Street are the two venues the festival has created, the Old Fruitmarket, rescued from its status as a car park in the 1990s, and the Rio Club, the more recent re-purposing of a basement at Merchant Square, which has the ad hoc feel of the former's early days. At the end of June, the jam there goes on until the small hours - so get your horn out the pawn.
www.jazzfest.co.uk
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