Edinburgh Jazz Festival

Remembering Alex Welsh, Tron Kirk

Alison Kerr

four stars

Anyone who knew Alex Welsh, the Edinburgh-born trumpet star who died in 1982, and who was at Sunday evening’s tribute concert, will have been heartened by how well he is still remembered and how he inspired arguably the best concert of the final days of this year’s jazz festival.

Of course it helped that the septet comprised two members of Welsh’s famous band – the English trombone star Roy Williams and guitarist/banjoist Jim Douglas. The eloquent Williams, an old favourite of Edinburgh audiences, in his introduction to a gorgeous Cole Porter rarity entitled You Are Everything I Love, told the packed house: “It’s wonderful to be doing this – and quite emotional too, because we had some great times. You may have noticed that we were five minutes late starting the gig – that was a tradition of the Alex Welsh band!”

Explaining that it’s only recently that he has come to appreciate how good the band sounded, Williams described the day-to-day reality of playing the same tunes with the same guys every night. Trumpeter Enrico Tomasso, who was just 11 when he met Welsh, paid verbal and musical homage in style: a veritable jazz dynamo, he was in tremendous form throughout – as was the rest of the front line, which included ringmaster John Burgess (clarinet/saxophone) and which made even the oldest of old warhorses sound fresh, energetic and exciting.

Burgess may not have had the firsthand experience of encountering Alex Welsh – he didn’t say – but it was clear that it was his love of the band’s recordings which prompted this project, and so much fun was had by all that we can undoubtedly expect a reunion in the not-too-distant.