Glasgow Jazz Festival
Georgie Fame Family Trio
Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow
Keith Bruce, four stars
ALTHOUGH it has not harmed Glasgow Jazz Festival to have its programme spread across city from St Lukes in the East to Hug & Pint in the West, with access (now happily restored) to the new Blue Arrow Club near Glasgow School of Art this year’s major concern, it remains a mystery why the event is not more enthusiastically embraced by Glasgow Life as far as the Merchant City home it discovered is concerned. On Thursday evening, however, the City Halls complex allowed fans of jazz keyboard to hear three contrasting talents about half a century apart in age.
The veteran was, of course, Fame, born Clive Powell 75 years ago on Tuesday, and here accompanied by his grown-up offspring, guitarist Tristan and drummer James. You would expect such a unit to be instantly in the groove, and you would right, with father in complete control at the Hammond organ, save for an excursion into Tex-Mex territory for Ry Cooder’s version of the Jim Reeves hit He’ll Have To Go featuring Tristan. Fame is a fund of fine stories in his anecdotage but they were not allowed to usurp the music, which included all the hits, including storming versions of Yeh Yeh and Carole King’s Point of No Return, and even The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.
The trio was supported by a duo of prize-winners at the Scottish Jazz Awards at the start of the month: Rising Star singer Luca Manning and Instrumentalist Fergus McCreadie. After his crucial contribution to Graham Costello’s Strata for their fine set with Sarathy Korwar at the Hug & Pint on Monday, here was another side altogether to the hugely talented McCreadie, while Manning’s vocal versatility ran from standards to the pianist’s own song about Orkney’s Ring of Brodgar.
Meanwhile, in the Recital Room upstairs, a Steinway grand was getting the fullest workout by the astonishing Alexander Hawkins, an improvising composer with the most prodigious technique, captivatingly inventive at the same time as he was riffing with marathon energy.
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