Various venues, Islay, 15-17 September 2006

Jaleel Shaw

THERE’S A THEORY that if everyone who ever said they didn’t like jazz was to try the Black Bottle Islay Jazz Festival just once, the conversion rate would approach 100%.

After all, what’s not to like about spending a gloriously sunny Saturday afternoon at Bunnahabhain’s waterside distillery, taking in the spectacular view over to the neighbouring island of Jura and the odd thimbleful of the sponsor’s product to a soundtrack that’s high on melody and as heady as the whisky?

Or driving out to beautiful Portnahaven, home to fishermen, seals and a fine beach, where the local village hall offers Brazilian rhythms, home-baked cakes and … the odd thimbleful of the sponsor’s product?

Maybe it’s something to do with those thimblefuls. Whatever, over the festival’s eight years Islay has established a deserved reputation as one of the most conducive places to listen to jazz – and the musicians who create it confirm that the friendly, informal atmosphere that prevails at all the gigs brings out the best in them.

This year’s festival was not only the biggest – with twenty gigs in venues spread across the length and breadth of the island – it was also, arguably, the best so far.

It was certainly the most dramatic, with two of the scheduled musicians hospitalised days before, causing replacements to be hastily drafted in; another (absentee Brian Kellock) breaking a finger; and a tale of two car crashes which wrote off the cars involved. The musicians who were driving them mercifully escaped unharmed.

New York-based alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw totalled his car the day before he left for Scotland. The experience, he said, changed his whole outlook on life, and it certainly hadn’t impaired his musicianship as he went head to head with fellow saxophonist Julian Arguelles in an exciting quartet.

Later, his soulful sound and ability to build flowing, purposeful solos lit up his own quartet concert and a special New York duet with pianist David Berkman at the Columba Centre in Bowmore.

Berkman, who’s no newcomer to Islay, is an engaging, quick-witted improviser, as his own trio gig highlighted, and his meeting with Shaw produced high class music that was lyrical, atmospheric and exuberantly spontaneous.

Bassists Tom Lyne and Aidan O’Donnell, who were involved in the second car accident while returning home, were the respective heartbeats of the two bands who wowed Saturday’s Bunnahabhain audience, and doubtless listeners to BBC Radio 3’s Jazz Line-Up, which was going out live from Islay.

Lyne’s unfussy, warm playing alongside Tom Bancroft’s apt and witty drumming gives pianist David Milligan’s trio a rhythmical hallmark that’s as instantly recognisable as Milligan’s concise phrasing and gently insistent touch. His funky, down-home ‘Comfort Zone’, which got several airings over the weekend, must be a leading candidate for the festival’s hit tune, although there’s a genuine consistency to the trio’s repertoire.

Milligan is also in the running for the festival’s hit solo award after a couple of titanic contributions to Stramash’s set. Colin Steele’s folk-jazz ten piece fielded no fewer than four debutants, but the trumpeter had chosen well and newcomers and band regulars alike played his Islay-inspired compositions with sensitivity, attention to detail and great gusto to produce a right old shindig.

The weekend’s heroic deputy award can have only one winner, Skye-based saxophonist Nigel Hitchcock. When saxophone quartet Brass Jaw’s tenorist, Brian Molley, took ill on Thursday, Hitchcock received an SOS call. He flew into Islay on Sunday and without having seen a dot of the quartet’s intricate and – to say the least – expansive arrangements, he sight-read their entire performance.

Judging from his amiable demeanour, it was all in a day’s work for the vastly experienced Hitchcock. Even so, the impromptu nature of his contribution – underlined by him pointing to a section of his part, asking “what happens here?”, and finding out it was his solo – made it all the more impressive. He played the solo in question – and others – with wonderful brio and an absolute understanding of the music’s structure.

For sheer versatility, Paul Harrison would take some beating. The pianist answered guitarist Martin Taylor’s call after Taylor’s planned guest, accordionist Jack Emblow, had to cancel through illness.

Having acquitted himself superbly in Taylor’s Bruichladdich Hall return, Harrison then went on to play his more customary role as keyboards captain of the zany, high-energy and adventurous electro-jazz trio Trianglehead. He then reverted to acoustic piano in the relaxed, swinging rhythm section accompanying American tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton’s popular first Islay appearance.

Such adaptability typifies the festival as a whole and is, of course, a reflection on island life. No-one sticks for a lift from one gig to another. There’s a real feeling of togetherness among complete strangers, and tips on how to make the most of your stay on Islay, as well as at the jazz festival, are as readily available as those thimblefuls of Black Bottle which greet everyone on arrival at each venue.

No wonder the first thing regulars do after the final concert is mark the dates for the next Islay Jazz Festival in their diaries. To save you asking, they are 14-16 September, 2007.

© Rob Adams, 2006

Links

• Black Bottle Islay Jazz Festival