Latest news with #ColinSteele
The National
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Glasgow Jazz Festival showcases more than 200 artists
Across 35 performances many shows sold-out, including those by the Grammy Award winning, New Orleans artist Jon Cleary, the jazz fusion outfit Mammal Hands, Scottish jazz ensemble Rose Room and the Scottish jazz trumpeter Colin Steele. Events included free jam sessions, one-off collaborations, a children's music workshop and book reading, alongside an exhibition by the Glasgow-based photographer Alan Donaldson, which captured local musicians. Rachel Duns supporting Neil Cowley Trio on stage at Saint Luke's (Image: Campbell Skinner) The festival aims to promote female musicians, subscribing to Keychange, an organisation which aims to promote inclusivity in the music industry. Three-quarters of the performances this year featured female artists. Jill Rodger, the director of Glasgow Jazz Festival, said: 'From packed venues to incredible performances, the energy brought by both artists and audiences has been wonderful.' Rodger said this iteration of the event has been "one to remember". The festival has hosted some big names through the years. Legendary jazz artists which have performed at it through the years include Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett. Creative Scotland supported the Glasgow Jazz Festival 2025. The festival is set to return for its 40th edition next year.
Scotsman
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Colin Steel Quartet, Glasgow Jazz Festival review: 'a measured tribute to The Blue Nile'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Colin Steele Quartet, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Green Room ★★★★★ A sultry midsummer Glasgow evening: a fitting setting, perhaps, for trumpeter Colin Steele and his peerless quartet to launch their album The Blue Nile. The third of their trio of 'songbook' albums which have already re-imagined the music of Joni Mitchell and the Pearlfishers, this tribute to the fabled Glasgow band and its urban nocturnes was on its second sitting, an earlier extra concert having been organised due to demand. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Colin Steele PIC: Archie MacFarlane You'd think the Blue Nile's Heatwave might make an appropriate opener but, no, they went for Downtown Lights and almost immediately, even over Alyn Cosker's rumbustious drumming, you were conscious of Steele's measured mute trumpet phrasing evoking Blue Nile frontman Paul Buchanan's wistful vocals (some of us thought Buchanan might just make a brief appearance on stage to endorse this superb jazz tribute: in the event, he blessed the occasion by sending flowers). The musical homage continued with the slow yearning of Let's Go Out Tonight, with its cool drift of trumpet, while pianist and arranger Dave Milligan delivered a lovely, almost baroque piano solo. Then it was Heatwave, trumpet singing sparely over gently ticking piano and Cosker letting off steam in a drum break. Steele's penchant for ballads was well exercised, not least with the beautiful stillness of Easter Parade, its plaintive melody introduced by double bassist Calum Gourlay.
