The 23rd edition of the Scarborough Jazz Festival took place in South Bay’s Victorian coastal spa from 25 to 27 September. John Settle’s Vibe-ology kick-started Friday morning in the Grand Hall with Settle on vibes, Al Morrison guitar, Bob Birch Hammond organ and Joe England drums. Their lively set included Big John Patton’s Let ’Em Roll, Wes Montgomery’s Jingles, Lalo Schifrin’s theme to the 1968 film Bullit and Bock To Bock by Montgomery’s brother, Buddy. Alan Barnes guested on baritone for the latter and also played alto in the band’s rendition of Jean De Fleur from Grant Green’s Idle Moments album. Billy May’s Somewhere In The Night from Street Of Dreams followed and the set finished with Batucada from Marcos Valle’s Samba 68 album. This was a scintillating trip through the soul-jazz sixties and set the scene admirably for the weekend.
The members of the recently formed neo-soul octet Orchard, met each other at London’s Guildhall School of Music. Influenced by the likes of Roy Hargrove and Kokoroko, they brought a setlist of originals to Scarborough including Honesty, Moonlight, Everything Is Possible, Fate and a new one to be released next week as a single, Towards The Sun. Evie Hill took the vocals, Jemima Whyte was on alto sax, Matt Hill trumpet, Cat Eden trombone, Calum Harrison guitar, Diarra Walcott-Ivanhoe piano, Joe Orme bass and Lewis Kentaro drums. The band went down well with the Grand Hall’s audience.
Barry Green was sadly missing from his quintet, Expansion: McCoy Tyner Project owing to a recent illness. We wish him well. Fortunately for us, sitting ably in his place at the piano was 21-year-old Thomas Sladden, one of Barry’s students. Accompanying him were Gareth Lockrane on flute, Femke Mooren alto, Oli Hayhurst bass and Darren Beckett drums. They delivered an engrossing set of seldom-aired McCoy Tyner tunes including Utopia, Three Flowers, Search For Peace from the 1967 album The Real McCoy, Fly With The Wind and to close, Inception from Tyner’s 1962 debut album. It was a splendid performance all round that also included Geri Allen’s Unconditional Love.
After playing to much acclaim at last year’s festival, Shirley Smart’s Sextet returned to open Friday evening. She brought along more songs composed as a result of her experience in Jerusalem performing Arabic and North African music and teaching cello at the conservatory in Ramallah. The set began with Saba, translated as Good Morning or Desert Wind in Arabic, followed by Zricha, the Hebrew for Sunrise. Other tunes comprised an Algerian rhythm that she learnt from an Arab musician clapping to it in the back of a van and Azrac, meaning Blue in Arabic, based in the blue key of G. Her composition Midak Alley, named after a narrow street in Cairo, was inspired by Naguib Mahfouz’s novel concerning the juxtaposition between modernism and nostalgia found there. Alistair Martin was on trumpet, James Arben saxes and flute, John Crawford piano, Marcus Penrose bass and Demi Garcia Sabat drums. Musicianship was first-class throughout – the performance magnetic.
David Newton’s trio with Andy Cleyndert on double bass and Steve Brown drums came on next. Apart from his announcement that he wasn’t going to introduce any songs – “We’re just going to play and see how we get on” – the pianist was no longer to be seen. Throughout the set he remained hidden behind the Bösendorfer grand which had been placed end-on between pianist and audience, entirely blocking any view. There were no gaps in the music and while it was relaxing enough it may as well have been a tape recording that Cleyndert and Brown were improvising to as far as audience visuals went.
I’d not come across the London-based Levitation Orchestra before but their publicity described them as “genre-defying” and “a visionary artistic collective”. Their inspirations were said to range from Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra to Stravinsky and Ravel. It looked to be interesting but the performance closing Friday evening was somewhat tuneless to these ears. Lots of unnecessary moving about the stage and contrived chatting to each other whilst others were playing seemed a little pointless.
Jazz violinist Benet McLean and his quintet opened Saturday with some changes to the lineup he brought two years ago. Liam Dunachie was on piano as before but now Ben Treacher was on tenor sax, Wayne Matthews on fretless bass and Gwilym Jones on drums. They began with Archway written by McClean after hearing a police siren in London’s Archway in the 80s. Then, All We Know was followed by an arrangement of Stan Kenton’s Artistry In Rhythm with climactic drums at the end. A version of Tubby Hayes’s version of Young And Foolish with sublime violin soloing came next followed by a rendition of ’Round Midnight humorously entitled Ray’nd Midnight after a friend of McClean’s called Ray. To close, Alan Barnes guested on alto in a superb hard-bop finish in Jackie McLean and Freddie Redd’s O.D. The crowd loved it all.
Barnes returned to the stage to join versatile vocalist Brigitte Beraha and Dave Newton (sitting in for Barry Green) for the next set. The trio began with Tea For Two, one of the songs on the recent album by Beraha, Barnes and Green entitled Tea For Three. A bossa nova came next – Tom Jobim’s Wave followed by a composition from Beraha based upon a Tennessee Williams poem, We Have Not Long To Love. Barnes played clarinet on this. Other songs included a droll arrangement of Irving Berlin’s The Best Thing For You and Jobim’s Portrait In Black & White sung in Portuguese with Barnes on ultra-soulful clarinet. Then, the sweetly sad I Walk A Little Faster, which Beraha first heard sung by an 85-year-old lady with lyrics about clinging to a belief that love is just around the corner even though reality only offers repeated disappointment. This was followed by Autumn Leaves, sung movingly in French, then a poignant rendering of the Duke Ellington ballad Solitude. The set finished with Jobim’s Falando De Amor (Speaking Of Love) sung by Beraha in Portuguese. This often emotive set received a standing ovation from the audience.
Later in the afternoon, tenor saxophonist Xhosa Cole appeared with only Calum Gourley on double bass and Tim Giles drums – pianist Pat Thomas was unable to come due to illness. The absence of a chordal instrument seemed to cause problems, particularly as much of the programme relied upon the reimagining of Thelonious Monk tunes. Unfortunately, the result sounded a tad empty. Cole, in bright red tracksuit, looked out of sorts and lacked some fluidity in his playing. He put it down to having just come off the plane after flying overnight from Scotland.
Saturday evening opened with Dark Side Of The Big Band: Pink Floyd Re-Worked. This was a barnstormer of an ensemble – an electric rock band plus a full big band. Jointly led by guitarist Mark Roadnight and trumpeter Mark Armstrong they aimed to play most of Pink Floyd’s 1973 Dark Side Of The Moon album. This included Speak To Me And Breathe, a new fusion tune replacing Run (entitled Run, Run, Run), Time, The Great Gig In The Sky, Money and Us And Them. Roadnight took Roger Waters’ place in fronting the songs – he had an excellent rock voice and backing singers Sammy Mayne and Rebecca Grayson were spot on. It was stirring stuff and the crowd were cheering loudly at the end.
Earlier in the day I had seen Rory Ingham helping out with a school band in the Spa’s Sun Court – good for him. His Trombone Assembly were next on stage in the Grand Hall and accompanying Ingham on trombones were Mark Nightingale, Trevor Mires, Kieran McLoud and Andy Wood – the latter on bass trombone. Liam Dunachie was on piano, Sam Quintana electric bass and Kai MacRae drums. Among the numbers played were Sonny Stitt’s Eternal Triangle, Ray Noble’s Cherokee, Dexter Gordon’s Cheese Cake, Trevor Mires’ Bradshaw’s Lament and Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust. The band closed with a fast-paced cover of Clark Terry’s Tee Pee Time. The performance was well received.
One of the standouts of the festival, Soft Machine, closed Saturday night with John Etheridge on guitar, Theo Travis sax, flute and keys, Fred T. Baker bass and Asaf Sirkis drums. Songs included Open Road and Waltz For Robert from the band’s new album Thirteen, Burden Of Proof, Tale Of Taliesin and Song Of Aeolus from the 1976 album Softs, Out-Bloody-Rageous from the 1970 album Third and Joy Of A Toy, Soft Machine’s first US single, released in 1968. Partway through, Etheridge related some of the band’s history – he himself joined 51 years ago! Their set earned another standing ovation from the Hall’s highly appreciative audience.
Bryan Corbett leads four different jazz groups. He’s also toured with The Brand New Heavies, Ben E King and Tony Christie amongst others. On Sunday he presented his Instrumental Groove Unit, telling the audience that 95% of the music played would be originals where they dig holes for themselves and then climb out of them hoping we don’t notice. Alongside Corbett on trumpet and flugelhorn were Paul Deats on Fender Rhodes, Wayne Matthews on six-string fretless and fretted electric basses and Luke Harris drums. They performed numbers from their new album including the title track IGU along with Rubicon, Different Species and Aloelina, the latter named after the aloe vera plant. The music was jazz-funk oriented rather than jazz swing. I didn’t notice any holes.
Leading harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and her HipHarp Collective came on next with Tony Kofi on saxes and flute, Menelik Claffey double bass, Matthew Holmes drums and Joel Prime percussion. As always with Bzhezhinska this was a superb set and much appreciated by the audience. They played arrangements of John Coltrane’s Alabama, Dorothy Ashby’s Soul Vibration, Bzhezhinska’s Unspoken Truth, Joe Henderson’s Fire from his 1974 album with Alice Coltrane, Alice Coltrane’s Something About John Coltrane from her 1971 album Journey In Satchidananda with Pharoah Sanders, Tony Kofi’s For Alice and to close, Alice Coltrane’s Los Caballos. There were also two songs from the collective’s new album (not yet issued) but I didn’t get their titles. During one of these Bzhezhinska had the crowd clapping along and some of them dancing in the aisles.
Ian Shaw and Liane Carroll followed but the grand piano was again placed end-on, blocking the audience view. At times Carroll or Shaw stood at the front of stage but then walked off whenever the other began to sing at the piano thus making both invisible at the same time. People seated further back might have been able to see the piano being played via the high side-screens but several commented later that they didn’t come to the festival to watch television recordings.
The American 3D Jazz Trio captivated the Scarborough audience two years ago and they set about doing the same on their second visit. Jackie Warren on piano, Amy Shook double bass and Sherry Maricle on drums delivered a superb set of jazz and blues with great enthusiasm and good humour. Numbers included I Thought About You, Alice In Wonderland, Shook’s own Song For The Man In The Moon, June Night, Midnight Sun, Moonglow, Warren’s BT (about her brown tabby cat) and, to close, a Dolly Parton tribute in 9 to 5. The performance was a joy to behold. I’m afraid I had to miss Alan Barnes + 11. I was told it was a cracker.
The festival’s fringe events this year included two Carioca Soul sessions and two sets by the Tony Kofi Quartet in the Spa’s Jazz Lounge. There were also sets by the Al Morrison Trio with various guests and sitters in during each of the weekend’s 12 intervals.
This was another great festival at Scarborough. Early bird weekend tickets for next year’s are on sale now until January. Details available at www.scarboroughspa.co.uk.
The 23rd edition of the Scarborough Jazz Festival, Scarborough, 25 to 27 September 2026
