Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival
Laura Macdonald
Teviot Row
Keith Bruce
****
THE academic strand in this year’s Edinburgh Jazz Festival programme that was evident in Euan Stevenson and Konrad Wiszniewski’s Classical Connection concert on Saturday and in the presence of Richard Michael’s Herald Angel-winning History of Piano Jazz show, was clearly also in the mind of the organisers for this appearance by alto saxophonist Laura Macdonald, fronting a quartet with pianist Paul Harrison, bassist Mario Caribe and drummer Doug Hough.
Billed as a History of Jazz Saxophone, Macdonald would always, however, have taken a very personal approach to the brief, even without the booking happening to fall on her birthday. That coincidence was dealt with in a delightfully school-marm fashion when she instructed the audience to sing for her, dictating the style of performance, choosing the key and counting us in. A few Edinburgh folk were perhaps affronted by such a forward approach from the West-coaster.
On her day, her path through jazz sax history was the one that had formed her own playing, ranging from the work of Duke Ellington orchestra alumni Paul Gonsalves and Johnny Hodges to the more contemporary stylings of Kenny Garrett and Michael Brecker. She prefaced the performance of the Hodges-featuring Isfahan with an interesting aside about the distinction between emulation and inspiration, illustrated in a performance that demonstrated all the note-bending technique while reminding us that Laura Macdonald has her own distinct, stylistically adaptable, sound.
That observation could be applied to the whole band, with Harrison in particular clearly enjoying a repertoire that spanned a chunk of the 20th century. Lonnie’s Lament was a far-from-obvious choice of Coltrane tune, Charlie Parker’s Confirmation was given a fine, raw bluesy treatment (in contradiction of the leader’s confession of dread of its intricacies), and Joe Henderson clearly has a special place in her heart from her days at Berklee in Boston. A pantheon of sax heroes suitably, but very specifically, honoured.
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 here