Edinburgh Jazz Festival

Martin Kershaw Octet

Piccolo, George Square, Edinburgh

Keith Bruce, five stars

A SPONTANEOUS standing ovation for a previously unheard 50 minute jazz work would be worthy of note at any time. That Thursday evening’s came at the end of a night that made absolutely no concessions to shallow “entertainment”, with the band leader on a sincere quest to pass on his enthusiasm for the inspiration for his music, was more than inspiring in itself.

If many of the audience knew little about David Foster Wallace, who took his own life ten years ago, when they arrived, they departed much better informed, as well as having heard some of Scotland’s finest players at the top of their game. Leading a quartet with pianist Paul Harrison, bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer Doug Hough, Kershaw’s first set focused on the writer’s modernist doorstop Infinite Jest. The tune Gately, introduced as “a tortured chorale” was actually a lovely ballad, the already-recorded And But So pivoted on a piano figure that suggests a sentence forever beginning again, and newer clarinet feature Peemster included a fine solo excursion by Gourlay.

After the interval, the premiere of Dreaming Of Ourselves was preceded by a reading by Kershaw from The Pale King. The piece may have been composed as a memorial to Foster Wallace but it is far from gloomy, as carefully structured and full of wit as the best prose writing. Stylistically it seemed to owe debts, at different times, to America’s Gil Evans and Britain’s Mike Westbrook and stood comparison with the best of both.

Having been the featured soloist before the break, the composer gave opportunities to all of his band – now completed by guitarist Graeme Stephen, trumpeter Sean Gibbs, trombonist Chris Grieve and Adam Jackson on alto sax, with the leader on soprano and tenor. Gourlay and Gibbs produced particularly apposite responses to the score, while Stephen added a fine Fripp-esque wig-out towards the end of a compelling narrative without a single dull moment.

As well as being one of Scotland’s finest players, Kershaw is also a very popular teacher, with at least one former pupil in this band. Everyone in this audience now knows why.