This year's joyful collision between cosmopolitan music and Inner Hebridean splendour brings two major Swedish names to the island: singing star Viktoria Tolstoy (and, yes, she's the great-great-granddaughter of the epic Russian novelist), with her silky interpretations of jazz standards as well as pop and folk covers, and pianist Jacob Karlzon, who accompanies her and also appears with his own trio, following his powerful performance at the recent Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival.
More familiar names include the inventively muscular quadruple horns of Brass Jaw, the ever exuberant Brian Kellock Trio, with pianist Kellock also appearing with saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski's quartet, while the long-standing partnership of guitarist Graeme Stephen and saxophonist-bagpiper Fraser Fifield generates folk-infused fusion. Add to this a dash of soul from Subie Coleman and her band, and blues from guitarist Otis Grand and home-grown bluesman Sandy Tweeddale and his trio.
A long-time regular at the festival is the ubiquitous double-bassist Mario Caribé. who, as well as cropping up ... well, just about everywhere, has created two new bands for the weekend - the Boteco Trio, playing the music of his native Brazil with Stuart Brown on Brazilian percussion and Brian Molley on horns, and the Mario Caribé Jazz Crusaders Timemachine, recreating the funk, soul and pop-informed 1960s and 1970s jazz of the Crusaders with help from John Burgess on sax, Chris Grieve on trombone, guitarist Neil Warden and Paul Harrison on keyboards. Another new line-up from an Islay veteran sees drummer Tom Bancroft, whose long-standing Trio AAB recently triumphed at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, in collaboration with Indian musicians they met earlier this year at the Delhi Jazz Festival. Bancroft will introduce his new Trio Red, with English pianist Tom Cawley and Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen (the trio also plays Edinburgh's Jazz Bar tonight).
Folk, jazz etc: The Islay Jazz Festival preview
By Jim Gilchrist / Read more at: news.scotsman.com
