Tommy Smith & East West European Jazz Orchestra
Tommy Smith's latest band Karma opened this concert, drummer Alyn Coskerblasting in for a full-on assault. Karma - also the name of Smith's latest album - sees the saxophonist in jazz-rock mode. Joining Smith and Cosker were pianistSteve Hamilton and bass guitarist Kevin Glasgow. Cosker provided the motive force - a powerful drummer, he's equally adept ...
Scots saxophonist Tommy Smith returns to his and some other jazz roots with his new album Karma as well as paradoxically making a perhaps inadvertently radical statement. He tours the music in Scotland in late June and later elsewhere (see below). Tommy SmithI don’t think I’ve heard a better Tommy Smith record since his breathtaking Berklee ...
Karma, Spartacus ***** Tommy Smith’s new quartet includes pianist/keyboardist Steve Hamilton and drummer Alyn Cosker off his 2005 Forbidden Fruit album, but this no less brilliant successor is very different. New is Kevin Glasgow on six-string electric bass, and the lingua franca has become an amalgam of Scottish, Irish and Arab folk elements ...
Scottish saxophonist Smith, a teenage prodigy in the 80s, is nowadays one of the most widely respected of European jazz musicians – not just for his sax mastery, but for his influence on his homeland's jazz culture through the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and its youth wing he founded and still runs. Smith ...
In the photo I tried to capture one of those contempative, meditative Zen moments, with Tommy Smith crouching hidden next to the piano, musing as the band played on. I smiled as the thought came to me that perhaps he's been overcome by thoughts of his own Karma. Looking around at the audience, that mood ...
Tommy Smith has explored many directions over the years, and Karma adds another to that list with a shift into a more groove- and rock-based idiom. The band made their debut in a superb concert at last year's Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and this disc, recorded the following day, bears out the powerful impression the music ...
Hailed on arrival by critics as the toughest and most creative group of his career, Tommy Smith's KARMA sees the brilliant Scottish saxophonist lead a band of virtuosic musicians on a deeply grooving acid jazz adventure ...
Scottish National Jazz Orchestra with Kurt Elling, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh ***** IN AN era when singers of many different backgrounds like to dabble with jazz and swing, real jazz singers remain at a premium. There are no doubts in the case of Chicago's Kurt Elling – and saxophonist Tommy Smith's assertion that he is the greatest ...
Kurt Elling with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh WHATEVER John Coltrane imagined his A Love Supreme suite inspiring – world peace would have been reasonable reward – he surely can’t have considered someone arriving who could turn the melody and saxophone solo from that masterpiece’s Resolution into a work of blistering vocal art ...
Although he has worked with all three musicians in this new quartet before, saxophonist Tommy Smith promised a new direction for this debut. That shift was apparent from the opening bars of the first composition, Cause and Effect. It was too much to absorb fully at one hearing, but this could well develop into Smith's toughest ...
Tommy Smith has been so immersed in encouraging the next generation of jazz musicians, overseeing the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s programme and touring with bassist Arild Andersen’s trio that he has neglected his own career. Five years have passed since his last album, Forbidden Fruit, was released but somewhere amongst ...
On June 4th, 2010, Tommy was presented the Lord Provost's Award for Music by Lord Provost, Bob Winter at the Glasgow City Chambers. The annual awards for community service, education, sport and performing arts, among others, is being given to a variety of individuals whose achievements have helped to raise Glasgow's profile and brought honour ...
Written by Tommy Smith in 1999, with Joe Lovano in mind (and performed by the great US saxophonist, with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, during a weekend of concerts in Scotland in February 2000), Torah is a five-part suite inspired by the Pentateuch, a portion of the Bible that informs the foundation myths of all ...
The busiest man in Scottish jazz grabs the solo part on his big band album. Tommy Smith will be 43 in 10 days time, which doesn’t seem feasible. Somehow he has never lost the aura of being a super-talented much younger man. What he translates as, however, is a dynamic presence in Scottish music for over ...
Internationally renowned Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith leads one of Europe's leading jazz orchestras in a personal and spiritual journey of discovery. Featuring the cream of Scotland's thriving jazz scene, Torah is orchestral jazz at its most powerfully expressive. Originally written by Smith in 1999, for American saxophone giant Joe Lovano. The 2010 Torah recordings feature the ...
I was surprised on Friday at the SNJO gig to see a new CD on sale. “Torah” by The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra featuring Tommy Smith isn’t “officially” released till the end of April, so finding it for sale on a trestle table at the last gig was a real added bonus (though a very low ...
