Edinburgh Jazz Festival
Warren Vache Trio/Scott Hamilton Trio, Tron Kirk
Alison Kerr
five stars
It’s been too long since either cornettist Warren Vache or tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton – once fixtures of the jazz festival – played in Edinburgh, so their back-to-back sets at the Tron on Sunday afternoon were eagerly anticipated by those of us whose love of swinging, tuneful, unpretentious jazz owes much to these two American stars.
A relaxed Vache kicked off proceedings with a gorgeous set which was warm, intimate and full of good humour – until the coffee machine and the venue’s WD40-deficient kitchen door joined in. (Any steam that might have come out of the Vache ears was channelled into a fiery, rafters-raising It’s Alright With Me.) Why the staff didn’t leave the door open and keep coffee off the menu for the duration of his acoustic set is a mystery and it clearly irritated both musicians and listeners alike, and threatened to upset the mood of the afternoon.
Despite the distractions, Vache was on great form. On such exquisite ballads as How Long Has This Been Going On?, his gentle, tender cornet was cushioned by the terrific duo of Danish guitarist Jacob Fischer – a dazzlingly attentive, responsive and inventive player who masterfully wove Vache’s melodic lines into his accompaniment or embroidered around them – and eloquent American bassist John Webber.
Scott Hamilton took over the same trio for his hour-long set which – despite his warming up on Vache’s closing number, How About You? – took a little while to get going, and climaxed with a couple of beautiful bossa ballads. (He even, in a historic Edinburgh first, played some piano!) Early on, he explained that he was confining himself to the tempo at which his fingers could work on a borrowed sax. “I flew up with Ryanair,” he said. “Need I say more?!”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here