Glasgow Jazz Festival has long promoted a broad, inclusive definition of jazz and the 2015 programme reaches out city-wide with soul queen Gladys Knight and pop-funksters The Family Stone, as well as presenting British jazz diamonds including singer Liane Carroll, pianist John Taylor and free-improvising pacesetter Evan Parker.
The festival also nourishes young talent and new projects such as the nascent Cottier Jazz.
The event's heartland is Merchant City, where weekend open-air sessions in Candleriggs Square literally take the music to the people and the internationally acclaimed Scottish National Jazz Orchestra celebrate Scotland in music with their guest, Eddi Reader, in the Old Fruitmarket. The same venue also hosts Brazilian groove-master Marcos Valle, trumpeter Ryan Quigley and saxophonist Paul Towndrow's "With Strings" dedication to their 1950s heroes Clifford Brown and Charlie Parker, and a likely final-night, virtuosic energy rush with bassist Charnett Moffett, guitarist Stanley Jordan and drummer Jeff 'Tain' Watts.
Upstairs, the City Halls' intimate Recital Room welcomes a cast including the feverishly creative Vein, Shetland-born saxophonist Rachel Cohen, refined pianist Zoe Rahman, bassist Calum Gourlay, and Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year 2014, drummer Jonathan Silk's quartet.
Silk's successor will emerge on opening night in the atmospheric pop-up venue down the street, Rio Club. Emerging vocal stars Taylor McFerrin and Jarrod Lawson follow there, as do mobile funk parties Fat-Suit and Federation Of The Disco Pimp, Glasgow's own soul star, former Average White Band singer Hamish Stuart, and the uncompromisingly tough and adventurous Partisans.
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