How do you make jazz Scottish? How do you make it English? How do you make jazz Welsh? How do you make it Northern Irish? Is it even possible?
How long do you have?
The short answer isn’t even obvious but it goes like this: meld “obvious” jazz language (chords, instrumentation, meter, feeling, style, tradition, heritage) with one or more of any number of local traditional musics in any of the above places and beyond.
Pianist Fergus McCreadie does that here in his own country’s case with his most Scottish statement to date in The Shieling and interestingly producer Laura Jurd (who is Hampshire born) on her own new album Rites and Revelations explores her own Scottish roots.
The results land in a third space which is interesting: it’s not jazz as Louis Armstrong, Clifford Brown, Terence Blanchard or Wynton Marsalis would play jazz; it’s not Scottish traditional music either although you feel the gracenotes and lilting accents of the idiom here and there; instead it’s a hybrid that has its own ideas shaped by the format and the way the much garlanded McCreadie writes.
Tunes are McCreadie’s and exceptionally pretty, neat and nimble they prove. Long time piano trio members double bassist David Bowden and drummer Stephen Henderson are on board. Recording in the remote Outer Hebrides seems to suit all concerned.
