Versatile jazz musician known for his mastery of many instruments

Born: October 13, 1956;

Died: October 10, 2018

STEPHEN Coutts, who has died aged 61, was a musician whose unassuming manner hid a talent that was appreciated both in Scotland and far from his regular gigging circuit at home by musicians with international reputations including the violin virtuoso Stephane Grappelli and legendary jazz guitarists Mundell Lowe and Charlie Byrd.

As the long-time lead guitarist in the Edinburgh-based band that has changed its name every year since forming as Swing 1980, Stephen showed an innate musicality and a great gift for melodic improvisation, although the guitar was just one of the string family of instruments that he mastered.

He began playing the ukulele at the age of five and was soon picking out the melodies of tunes he heard on the radio. Three years later he started violin lessons and made rapid progress, going on to become leader of Paisley Grammar School Orchestra. Shortly after he began studying violin, he began teaching himself to play the guitar and later he took up the banjo, mandolin, bass guitar and double bass.

By the early 1970s he had become a regular at the Black Bull Jazz Club in Milngavie where he would sit in on jam sessions with the house trio and club guests. At this point he was known largely for his violin playing and showed great fluency as an improviser, something that he transferred easily to his guitar playing. He soon became a busy freelance player – on violin, guitar and both basses – around Glasgow.

Regular gigs included sessions at His Nibs in Holland Street, a residency in The Albany Hotel in Bothwell Street, general functions, jazz clubs, radio and television work and a tour with the Islanders folk group. Among the jazz musicians he came into contact with were the STV studio guitarist Ron Moore, bandleader Jimmy Feighan and most importantly, the pianist Sandy Taylor, one of the great characters of Glasgow’s music scene who would go on to help singer Carol Kidd gain international recognition as her long-serving accompanist. Stephen and Sandy worked together in a variety of settings for some 40 years before Sandy died, aged 92, in 2015.

They played in many prestigious hotels and restaurants, including Inn on the Green, the Supper Club in the Merchant City and Gleneagles Hotel, often accompanying singers and working in larger groups but it was their rapport as a duo, where the slightest disharmony might have been exposed, that their musical compatibility really showed.

Ken Mathieson, the drummer who ran the Black Bull Jazz Club before becoming the first director of Glasgow Jazz Festival and later forming his own much admired Classic Jazz Orchestra, remembers Stephen and Sandy playing as if they were reading each other’s minds as they improvised chordal variations that sounded as if they might have been rehearsed for weeks beforehand.

Although he was not someone who would push himself to the front of the queue in jam sessions, Stephen’s natural musicianship gave him the confidence to play with some of the leading jazz musicians of the time. As a fellow violinist, as well as an extremely capable accompanist on guitar, he enjoyed a good relationship with Stephane Grappelli and in addition to the aforementioned Mundell Lowe and Charlie Byrd, guitarists’ guitarists both, he gained the respect and admiration of the cornetist Warren Vache and guitarists Howard Alden, Al Casey and Martin Taylor.

Stephen’s sumptuous tone, his ability to swing and his tendency to caress a melody rather than show off his “chops” – although he had them in plenty – together with his harmonic knowledge, made it easy for him to move around from musical style to musical style and from role to role. He was as comfortable playing folk music as he was playing swing and although diffident by nature he gave workshops and shared his knowledge happily and led his own quartet when not working as an accompanist.

In later years he worked with the multi-reeds specialist Dick Lee’s septet, lent his guitar mastery to the Manhattan Jazz Trio, toured briefly with violinist Tim Kliphuis (sometimes known as “the Dutch Grappelli”), played Neapolitan songs on the Edinburgh Fringe and elsewhere with Philip Contini’s Be Happy Band, and saw editions come and go of the currently named Swing 2018, which has included violinist, singer and radio presenter Seonaid Aitken alongside its founder, rhythm guitarist John Russell.

A musician who will be missed by players across the generations, he is survived by his wife, Ann and his brother, David.

ROB ADAMS