Black Bottle Islay Jazz Festival 2004

13 Sep 2004 in Argyll & the Islands, Festival, Music

Various venues, Islay, 10-12 September 2004

ISLAY may seem an unlikely location for one of Scotland’s best jazz festivals, but that is exactly what has been created over the past six years on an island better known for its distilleries – all seven of them – and its scenery and wildlife than its arts scene.

Donnie McCaslin blows hard at Gruinart

Stuart Todd of Islay Arts Association explains elsewhere on the site how the event got underway in 1999, in association with jazz promoters Assembly Direct. It has grown both in scope and quality since then, but remains satisfyingly self-contained and manageable. Occasional tough decisions have to be taken when events clash, but for the most part the size and choice on offer is about right.

The venues have an improvised feel to them, but that is all part of the charm, and jazz sounds just as good in the RSPB Centre at Gruinart as it does in a club or concert hall – and Gruinart, like Portnahaven, has the added attraction of excellent home baking (the local SWRI view the lunchtime concert at Portnahaven as their principal fund-raising event in the year, and they certainly shifted mounds of sandwiches and cakes at a bargain £2.50 per plateful).

Islay itself is one of the stars of the show, even in a weekend where wind and rain dominated the weather scene. The blind bends and undulations of the snaking single track road out to Bunnahabhain Distillery sticks in the mind for reasons both good and bad, but the views all over the island added value to an already memorable experience.

Appropriately enough, the festival has gone hand in hand from the outset with the main local industry – or should that be art? Black Bottle are the overall sponsors of the event, and samples of their wares were dispensed gratis at every gig, while both Bunnahabhain and Ardbeg Distillery hosted concerts.

“The SNJO once again dispatched this difficult but absorbing music in impeccable fashion, and the audience responded enthusiastically to what is a challenging programme even for hard-core jazz fans.”

The festival got underway with a short performance by guitarist Haftor Medbøe and saxophonist Susan McKenzie (with a little help from percussionist Signe Jakobsdottir) at the lighthouse at Port Charlotte. Plans to have the musicians perform on the lighthouse itself were dropped for safety reasons in favour of just below it, and a plaintive curlew added its own musical contribution to the welcome. Unfortunately, the glorious sunshine of the day had taken its leave by this time, and Susan McKenzie watched her sheet music for one of the tunes slowly turn into black rivulets down the page in the smirring rain.

The subsequent gales and downpours of the weekend did little to dampen the enthusiasm of either the musicians or the generally capacity audiences around the venues, and hiccups like missed ferries and the arrival of a fun fair outside the hall destined for the festival’s main concert were adroitly dealt with – in the latter case, by switching the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s Saturday evening concert from Port Ellen to Bowmore.

The orchestra played Ellington and Mingus on their last visit to the festival, but this year chose the uncompromising programme of ten specially commissioned “re-compositions” of the music of Thelonious Monk they premiered at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival in August. Tommy Smith had shuffled the running order and tightened up one or two of the pieces, but the principal change for this concert was the addition of two American guests, tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin and alto saxophonist Jesse Davis.

Their presence gave the SNJO’s saxophone soloists a lean evening, but also brought a new twist to the music, while the contrast in styles between McCaslin’s more contemporary approach and Davis’s bop-rooted style added its own fascinating dimension to proceedings, especially on tunes like Joe Locke’s arrangement of ‘Evidence’ and Tim Garland’s ‘Epistrophy’, where both were featured.

The SNJO once again dispatched this difficult but absorbing music in impeccable fashion, and the audience responded enthusiastically to what is a challenging programme even for hard-core jazz fans. Tommy disagrees, but I still feel the programme would benefit from at least a couple of Monk’s own arrangements as a reference point for the new departures. Great concert, though, and all the more admirable given that the band had a rough journey and ferry crossing earlier in the day.

“The foursome provided the highlight of the festival for me in a remarkable, massively energised version of Joe Henderson’s ‘Inner Urge’, a wonderful (near) ending to what had been a notably imaginative trio performance.”

McCaslin and pianist Steve Hamilton were the musicians who missed the lunchtime ferry on Friday, and as a result managed only one set in the saxophonist’s Friday night gig at the Columba Centre (Paul Harrison led a hastily convened trio in the opening set). When the American did take the stage with Hamilton, bassist Aidan O’Donnell and drummer John Rae, they set about packing a full concert’s worth of energy and invention into their truncated outing.

He improvises in very logical fashion, using motifs and ingenious techniques of repetition and variation to build the intensity and develop the flow of his solos. By contrast, Jesse Davis took a more traditionally bop-oriented approach to melodic and harmonic development in his fiery set at an otherwise chilly Bunnahabhain Distillery on Saturday afternoon. The altoist stayed mainly in the realm of familiar standards and classic jazz tunes, culminating in a burning version of ‘Cherokee’, and received superb support from another excellent home-based rhythm section, featuring pianist Paul Harrison, bassist Mario Caribe and John Rae.

The timing and geographical distribution of the Saturday lunchtime gigs provided the chance to catch a set by the McKenzie Medbøe quartet at Islay House, over looked by stag’s heads and antlers. Trombonist Chris Grieve added to the trio featured in the welcome gig at Port Charlotte, and the band made attractive play of the unconventional sounds and textures of their instrumental line-up.

A dash down to Portnahaven then allowed me to catch the second set from saxophonist Laura MacDonald, playing a set built around the music of Cole Porter with Steve Hamilton, Aidan O’Donnell and John Blease. As well as playing in her usual inventive fashion on alto saxophone, she sang ‘Night and Day’ (only the second time I have heard her sing, but she has a fine voice), and was joined by Donnie McCaslin on tenor saxophone in a scintillating version of ‘Love for Sale’ and ‘Just One of Those Things’.

McCaslin also sat in on the last two tunes of tenor saxophonist Julian Arguelles’s set at the RSPB Centre at Gruinart on Sunday lunchtime, with O’Donnell and Blease maintaining the high standard they achieved all weekend. The foursome provided the highlight of the festival for me in a remarkable, massively energised version of Joe Henderson’s ‘Inner Urge’, a wonderful (near) ending to what had been a notably imaginative trio performance.

“The plethora of youthful talent around the festival did not mean the exclusion of more senior figures.”

O’Donnell and Blease are tremendous advertisements for the current good health of the Scottish jazz scene, and there were several more of the young generation of coming stars on show. Les Ecossais, a quintet featuring Fort William-born trumpeter Philip Cardwell, saxophonist Theo Forrest, pianist James Cairney, bassist Euan Burton and Elgin-born drummer Doug Hough, demonstrated in their opening set at Bruichladdich Hall on Friday that they are developing fast not only as consummate players but also as composers.

Singer Cathie Rae also performed at the Columba centre on Sunday afternoon, but I was only able to catch a short opening set (brought to a premature halt to allow a reorganisation of seating for the overflow crowd). The four standards she did get through were dispatched in accomplished fashion, and she continues to develop as a fine interpreter of the classic jazz repertoire (although she is not confined solely to it).

The plethora of youthful talent around the festival did not mean the exclusion of more senior figures. I was unable to hear singer Tam White’s gig with his Shoestring Band at Bruichladdich on Saturday, but I did catch the closing concert featuring the Scottish All-Stars at the Machrie Hotel on Sunday night.

The band are dedicated to recalling the triumphs of an earlier generation of Scottish jazz stars from the era of Sandy Brown, Alex Welsh and the Clyde Valley Stompers, and features ex-members of that latter band, including the wonderful clarinet playing of Forrie Cairns and singer Fionna Duncan. Trumpeter Lenny Herd and trombonist Dave Bachelor make up the front line, with Tom Finlay (standing in for Brian Kellock) on piano, Ronnie Rae in bass, and John Rae on drums.

The All-Stars are not simply in the business of recycling well-worn material. They tackle the warhorses of the jazz repertoire with vigour and a fresh approach that breathes new life into tunes that have been bashed out at a zillion trad sessions, but without abandoning the qualities that made this music great in the first place. A difficult conjuring trick, and one they pulled off with aplomb.

Islay an unlikely location for a jazz festival? Don’t you believe it.