The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
International Jazz Day concert will pay homage to classics
Concert hall show has been boosted by resurgence being enjoyed by musical genre
The success of musical La La Land and a resurgence in vinyl records has heightened interest in a concert to mark International Jazz Day in Perth.
The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra (SNJO) will perform Sketches Of Spain and Porgy And Bess, two iconic albums by musicians Gil Evans and Miles Davis, at the concert hall tonight.
The gig, part of a whirlwind tour of Scotland, is expected to get a boost from a renewed interest in classic jazz, which has been linked with increased sales of record players in recent years.
Oscar nominated films like La La Land have also helped burst the stigma that jazz is an elitist music form, listened to by only a hard core of fans.
Guest soloist Laura Jurd will take to the stage in Perth as musician Miles Davis. The award-winning trumpeter has taken the UK jazz world by storm with her band Dinosaur, as well as her acclaimed work with the Ligeti Quartet.
Laura has also written commissioned music for the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia and BBC Radio 3.
Two years ago she received the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Instrumentalist of the Year. She recently joined the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music as a teacher of composition.
The jazz orchestra’s trumpet soloist, Tom MacNiven, will also perform in the show. He has been a first call collaborator for countless jazz projects over two decades and has inspired generations of jazz trumpeters.
The session musician has played on several albums – and TV themes – and performed at all of Britain’s major music festivals, including T in the Park.
A spokesman for the SNJO said: “This promises to be a landmark concert for an orchestra that has become accustomed to making history of its own.
“The two works in this programme couldn’t be more contrasting, more iconic and more perennially popular as defining jazz of the 20th Century.”
Gerswhin’s Porgy and Bess, from 1959, was radically rewritten by Gil Evans to global acclaim.
The album was followed up with the classic Sketches Of Spain, a record in which Evans turned Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez on its head, with Davis transforming traditional Spanish folk melody into urbane jazz.
The show at Perth Concert Hall begins at 7.30pm.
This promises tobea landmark concert for an orchestra that has become accustomed to making history of its own