Glasgow Gets In The Swing
Monday, October 3, 2016
A new twice-weekly jazz programme launches in Glasgow this Friday when Bridge Music reboots its promotions in the city following a 15-month lay-off.
The promoters, fronted by Bill Kyle of Edinburgh's Jazz Bar, formerly ran the weekly Jazz Thursdays programme at Glasgow Art Club until funding difficulties forced them to look for a new venue and a new style of presentation. Following a long search for suitable premises with sympathetic management, they have announced a programme of national and international attractions to appear on Fridays at Swing in the city's Hope Street with a complementary informal jam session running on Tuesdays at the same bar. The Friday programme opens with Canadian piano and guitar partnership Ron Davis (pictured) and Kevin Barrett teaming-up in a quartet with Calum Gourlay and Alyn Cosker, bassist and drummer respectively with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.
"Swing is a lovely room with a good atmosphere, stage, lighting, PA, cabaret-style tables and chairs and a full bar service in the heart of the city centre," says Kyle, who has organised a two-month pilot programme with a view to seeking funding from Creative Scotland to continue into 2017 if the pilot series builds a supportive audience. Kyle, who is also a musician, has been promoting jazz in Glasgow on and off since the early 1970s, when he was involved in bringing artists including Miles Davis and Art Pepper to the city, and he sees the new venture as a partner to the Jazz Bar, where he presents jazz and related music seven nights a week, with at least three sessions a day.
Following Friday's launch session there will be a bonus event on Sunday, when Italian-American trio Pericopes add an extra Scottish date to their current European tour. The Friday programme will then continue with Glasgow collective Elusive Tree Sextet (14 October) and saxophonists Martin Kershaw (21) and Keith Edwards (28) with their respective quartets.
November's line-up features a new quartet co-led by saxophonist Brian Molley and pianist Alan Benzie (4), Paul Harrison's Spark Organ Trio (11), trumpeter Colin Steele's Adderley Brothers tribute band, Mercy Mercy Mercy (18), and pianist Chick Lyall's quartet (25th).
– Rob Adams