Longlist Announced
Inaugural Longlist of twenty albums announced winning artist to receive £20,000 prize

Thursday 12th April, The Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA) is delighted to announce the inaugural longlist for The Scottish Album of the Year Award. Featuring the twenty highest scoring titles to emerge from the award’s exhaustive nomination process, the list champions an eclectic range of extraordinary albums and artists. From jazz to reggae soundsystems via folk, electronica, house, rock, dub, modern classical (and everything in between), The SAY longlist provides an exhilaratingly diverse snapshot of Scotland’s musical landscape and establishes the award as one of the UK’s most exciting and progressive arts prizes.

Vote here from May 14, 2012

“I am so very honoured and flabbergasted to be considered for the long list. This recognition will go a long way to cradling the miniscule and spontaneous genre I represent. Many congratulations to the SMIA for supporting Scotland with this brave new initiative. I wish everyone great success and many thanks for the vote of confidence.” Tommy Smith

Tommy Smith’s KARMA sees the saxophonist exploring new sounds and atmospheric textures with a brand new band: featuring some of Scotland’s finest musicians and new music focussing on the reactions of the group.  Comprising Smith on tenor and soprano saxophones plus Shakuhachi flute, mega-talented pianist and keyboardist Steve Hamilton, six string bass guitar sensation Kevin Glasgow and jet-powered drummer Alyn Cosker, KARMA presents music of gob-smacking energy and superb inventiveness.

Cosker provided the motive force – a powerful drummer, he’s equally adept at the slower, more subtle numbers which call for much more sensitivity. The set was equally balanced between rockier numbers and slower tunes infused with a celtic-folk sensibility. Smith played some exquisite soprano on the evocative “Land of Heroes”, mimicking Scots piping.

The band could lay down a good groove, too, Glasgow plucking the bass with his thumb to great exact. Smith sounded great on tenor as well a soprano – and he even played recorder on one tune. The alternation of fast-loud and slow-gentle tunes felt a little Jekyll and Hyde-like, but this was an enjoyable set.

The gig really got strange after the break though. I felt distinctly in the wrong place. Pelbo are not jazz; in fact they are about as not-jazz as it is possible for an avant garde pop band to be. This was pop stripped of any blues sensibility; the only jazz-like characteristic they had is that one of the trio played a tuba. Interesting as it was, it was more suited to a rave club than a concert hall, and was especially jarring after the jazz of Karma.

So it feels more than a little odd to be reviewing Pelbo for LondonJazz in the middle of the London Jazz Festival – but I have eclectic tastes, so here goes…

For three people, they create one hell of a sound. The dominant feature was the drums of  Trond Bersu, but it was a heavy, rich drum sound and he had the verve and technique to pull it off. Ine Hoem sang, using electronic loops to create choirs of soaring vocals. Kristoffer Lo also used electronics and loops to change the sound of his tuba, producing deep organ-like roars and rumbles: his tuba became the bass.

It was dark if energetic dance music, reminiscent of Mezzanine-period Massive Attack or, when Bersu was thrashing his cymbals, Spiritualised. Lo did some amazing things with his tuba, dancing manically around producing wailing feedback: “heavy metal tuba” are three words I couldn’t ever have imagined writing as a phrase – but that’s what it was.

Tommy SmithI don’t think I’ve heard a better Tommy Smith record since his breathtaking Berklee Tapes of 1984. Technique is to the fore, so those who think extreme competence signals insincerity might want to turn away now. Here, technique, creativity and no little sincerity are wedded to produce a stunning outcome. Smith was always the most impressive of the 1980s British crop and that’s underlined by Karma. Few if any other British players have the chops for the apparently casual (possibly Brecker inspired) decoration he sprays around this set.

The “fusion” compositions (about half the set) are equally virtuosic, not only harmonically and technically but in several amusing split-second shifts of tempo. There are also modal “worldy” pieces that add respite and contrast. The rest of the band’s virtuosic too, most obviously Kevin Glasgow, a bassist with the speed and range of a guitarist (thanks in part to his multi-stringed instrument). Hard to imagine, but he seems to have taken John Patitucci’s achievements of decades ago several steps further on.

Featuring such a player and such material is near revolutionary in a critical climate in thrall to free improv, neo-classicism and indie-rock paraphrase. Karma may, in sometimes echoing Weather Report and Return To Forever, seem derivative but its inspirations are topical: Smith cites Wayne Krantz and heavy metal groups. Why not? Haven’t metal guitarists have taken on the mantle of virtuosity and rhythmic dynamism divested in the sniffier quarters of the jazz world some years ago? A brave and right proper modern jazz record.

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 spiced with funk, fusion and heavy metal. In lesser hands this could have been an exercise in multicultural retro-ish virtuosity, but the conceptual clarity binding these disparate ingredients together is Smith’s, whose tenor (he also plays soprano, shakuhachi and synth) is now the uniquely personal voice of a great player. He shines in a superb band that takes the music’s odd metres, rhythm shifts, convoluted lines and uptempo unison playing with staggering aplomb and a visceral precision and imaginative interplay that sweeps all before it.

read on The Guardian website

This show was dedicated to the performance of tracks from his latest album, Karma. Jazz improvisation, and sounds reminiscent of Weather Report were mixed with Indian rhythms, the rituals of Japan, but there is also a chilled urban feel, tasteful electronic keyboards and funky/hip-hoppish drumming.

The arrangements were thought-provoking and showed a great understanding of how to combine all of these disparate elements. Smith has written specificially for musicians whom he knows well – which added to the distinct character of each composition.

Tommy is now the musician’s musician, at least to judge by the number of colleagues who were not just present, but were also clearly showing their appreciation of, and admiration for this new project. They weren’t alone in that: this is one album I will definitely be buying.

(Pizza Express, April 28th 2011)

Smith’s saxophone playing bristles with invention and a majestic sonority, both in the up-tempo workouts and the more folk-influenced ballads, with their keening, Garbarek-like sound. Alyn Cosker’s powerful but subtle drumming is the perfect driver for this kind of project, and is ably supported by Kevin Glasgow’s virtuoso electric bass playing. Pianist Steve Hamilton both solos and accompanies to great effect in a band that is fulfilling my post-concert prediction that it may prove to be his toughest and most creative quartet yet.

Published Date: 29 March 2011

Tommy Smith "Karma"

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 that draws on influences from around the world.

featuring Tommy Smith (saxes, shakuhatchi, synth), Kevin Glasgow (electric bass), Steve Hamilton (piano, synth), Alyn Cosker (drums)

1. Cause And Effect
2. Land Of Heroes
3. Good Deed
4. Body And Soul
5. Tomorrow
6. Karma
7. Star
8. Projection
9. Sun
10. Who Are You

Comprising Smith on tenor and soprano saxophones and Shakuhachi flute, mega-talented pianist and keyboardist Steve Hamilton, six string bass guitar sensation Kevin Glasgow and jet-powered drummer Alyn Cosker, KARMA presents music of gobsmacking energy and superb inventiveness. Writing for these musicians has given Smith a new edge. KARMA’S ten brand new compositions, while acknowledging past masters including Weather Report and Jan Garbarek, drive forward concisely and urgently into the urban club culture of the current age with occasional pauses in a chill-out zone that evokes Smith’s native Scottish landscapes, Japanese meditation rites, Indian rhythms, Arabic tones and Irish sentimentality.

Jazz standards featured strongly, including SNJO trombonist Chris Greive’s orchestration of Benny Carter’s arrangement of I Can’t Give You Anything But Love and a very different arrangement of Vernon Duke’s April In Paris to the one that is already part of the SNJO’s repertoire.

Elling does not restrict himself to standards. Norwegian Wood received a darker and more dramatic treatment than the original, while a lucidly beautiful version of King Crimson’s Matte Kudasai was one of the high points of the concert.

As well as interpreting lyrics with masterly skill, Elling likes to scat, and brings a genuine improviser’s sensibility to what can be a token business in other hands. The musicians also had ample opportunities to exercise their soloing abilities, with notable contributions from Smith, alto saxophonist Paul Towndrow, pianist Steve Hamilton and trumpeters Tom MacNiven and Ryan Quigley among the many highlights.