Artist: Oytun Ersan
Title: Fusiolicious
Label: Self-Produced
Genre: Funk-heavy Jazz Fusion
CD available on: CDBaby, iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Tidal, Google Music Store, and major streaming sites.
Review by Fiona Mactaggart
In all seriousness, fasten your seatbelts for bassist Oytun Ersan’s high energy, sometimes Zappa-reminiscent, funk-heavy jazz fusion new release Fusiolicious. It’s a blast, and you may need a lie down after.
Artist: Sam Bevan
Title: Emergence
Label: Self-produced
Genre: Jazz
Buy from: CDBaby, iTunes, sambevan.bandcamp.com (release date August 2018)
Review by Fiona Mactaggart
The free-flowing fluency of bass player Sam Bevan’s music is remarkable given the complexity of his compositions, and speaks of his wide-ranging musical background and the quality of the musicians he has chosen for this, his fourth CD release as leader. The buoyant feel, the numerous cheerful melodies, the asymmetries and quirky changes, and the confident organizational and rhythmic clarity offered by Bevan’s bass, makes this a standout jazz release of this year.
Artist: Hakon Skogstad
Title: Two Hands To Tango
Label: Avantango Records
Genre: Tango/Latin
CD review, by Fiona Mactaggart
Based in Trondheim, Norway, Hakon Skogstad is a pianist specializing in Western classical and Argentine tango. His May 2018 solo piano release, Two Hands To Tango, proves that neither relative youth nor living a great distance from the home of tango, need impede the production of a careful and sensitive tribute to Argentine tango and to the Argentine concertina, the bandoneon, which contributes so much to tango’s distinctive sound.
Venue: The Jazz Bar, Edinburgh, Scotland
Date: 17 May 2018
This rare concert from curiously monikered electro-acoustic jazz band with a difference, Sugarwork, is to be celebrated. Four illuminati of the Scottish jazz scene, each known for their musical accomplishments and interests stretching deeply into and beyond jazz. Led by pianist, composer and producer, Manchester-born Paul Harrison, who composed most of the tunes aired tonight, the quartet present their eponymous debut album in this popular subterranean Edinburgh jazz venue.
Based in Glasgow where he teaches on the jazz degree course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Harrison has also long been active in some of Scotland’s most thought-provoking and diverse music projects: the highly esteemed Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and McFall’s Chamber Orchestra, Simon Thacker’s Ritmata (highly crafted world music), Trio Magico (presenting the life-enhancing music of Brazilian, Egberto Gismonti) and club-friendly electronics – drums duo, Herschel 36.
It is often the case across Scotland’s central belt that musicians collaborate across musical genres, so it is no surprise to learn that Sugarwork’s members have played together in other Scottish bands. Thus drummer, percussionist, composer and producer Stuart Brown plays in the last three of the above listed bands, his knowledge of non-western musical styles, added to dub-wise sensibility and a facility with electronica, having led to work with esteemed names such as David Byrne, Gilad Atzmon and Sun Ra Arkestra’s Dave Gordon.
Date: May 13, 2018
Venue: The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland
Review by F. Mactaggart
Photo by Adam Bulley
The sense of excitement is palpable as Scottish Trio HLK arrive briskly on stage at 8pm sharp, and persists undimmed until they take their modest final bows to the thrilled home crowd precisely two hours later. Such exactitude regarding time feels in keeping with a band whose music is predicated upon unrelenting changes particularly in time signature and tempo, a stuttering, gleeful symphony of polyrhythms and harmonic complexity.
