The Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra's association with Glasgow Jazz Festival is almost set in stone, the orchestra's creation coinciding with the festival's first instalment, and its annual appearance at the event provides a welcome opportunity to both show its current strength and draw in potential new members.
Budding players would no doubt be taken by orchestra leader Stewart Forbes, whose hard work alongside his trumpet-playing colleague Gavin Spowart was given further testimony here in the quality of the section work and the promise of the various soloists. Indeed, some of them are not far from following the only slightly less youthful – no, they didn't bribe me to say that – quintet who were playing upstairs in the recital room in the same time slot. Trumpeter Tom MacNiven and trombonist Phil O'Malley are colleagues in the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra but their playing on Saturday suggested they have plenty mileage as a frontline partnership.
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