After the success of the inaugural Nu-Age Sounds jazz showcase at last year’s Celtic Connections, Tommy Smith and his intrepid Scottish National Jazz Orchestra are back, ready to blow some minds and burst some eardrums.
Founded in 1995 by Tommy, the SNJO has been instrumental (no pun intended) in laying the groundwork for the current jazz revival in Scotland. In fact many of said revivals leading lights are or were members of the SNJO, and many of said lights are here tonight, performing solo in front of the SNJO for a specially-commissioned suite, ‘Planet World’. Think Gustav Holst but a hell of a lot funkier.
The brief for tonight’s performance is an interesting one. Each solo performer has been assigned one of the eight planets in our solar system (no dice, Pluto) and asked to imagine a time when each planet had their own bountiful ecosystems and unique civilisations, before some cataclysm wiped everything out. The character of each civilisation and nature of its specific downfall have been theorised alongside ideas of climate change, depletion of natural resources and population growth and migration, and each piece composed accordingly.
Big Themes then. And for Big Themes you need Big Talent. Well don’t you worry, Tommy has us covered.
First up, tackling Venus is Glasgow-based chanteuse kitti. As opposed to the rest of tonight’s soloists, kitti’s instrument is her voice, and what an instrument it is. Her impressively broad, Nina Simone-esque vocal range and lyrics recounting love found and lost in the stars effectively captures a romanticised planet Venus, before it became the blasted hell-scape we know and love today.
Next up we have a saxophone one-two, current SNJO member Helena Kay offering a smooth, laid-back interpretation of Saturn (perhaps the most underrated planet), before Matt Carmichael has a crack at Uranus (sorry). A more outwardly experimental sounding take on the butt of a lot of planetary jokes (also sorry) than the other pieces, Matt conjures darker, more ominous noises from Uranus (absolutely not sorry).
Rounding out the first half is the first of tonight’s corto.alto alumni, Anoushka Nanguy, aka Noushy. An accomplished singer as well as virtuoso trombonist, Noushy offers lyrics about rising up, painting a picture of some sort of Neptunian rebellion, before launching into a hip-hop inflected Big Band piece. I definitely heard the piano hook from ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’ in there.
Coming back after the break, former BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year channels his deepest muxiphobia to take on the Big Dog, Jupiter, on the double bass before the man himself, Tommy Smith, has a crack at Mercury.
Bringing out his band-within-a-band KARMA – consisting of drums, keys and Tommy on sax – Tommy launches into a frenetic and technically dazzling piece, convincingly evoking Mercury’s fleet-of-foot Roman namesake.
For the final two planets, arguably the biggest names in the solar system (and surely in everyone’s top 3 planets), you’re going to need the two biggest names in Scottish jazz. For Mars, the Bringer of War himself, enter Fergus McCreadie. Described by Tommy Smith as a ‘phenomenon’, the Mercury prize-nominated piano prodigy more than lives up to this label, taking the crowd on a frenzied journey over 12 rapturous minutes.
Bringin’ it all back home, somewhat literally, on the trombone is Liam Shortall, the eponymous driving force of corto.alto (check out my review of their Barrowlands gig a couple of weeks ago) for the final piece of the Planet World suite; ‘Earth’. Imagining an Earth where the rest of the solar system’s refugees have made their home after their home planets downfall. Liam’s effort brings together all the musical and metaphorical themes of the evening into one cohesive whole, before the rest of tonight’s soloists return to the stage for an uproarious and triumphant curtain-call.
Images by Garry McLean – @mayfoldunderquestioning
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