More alarmingly good alchemy, as Colin Steele levers even more jazz into the Scottish tradition, a marriage of mingled mayhem re-avowed with passion.

UNEXPECTED

Well, I didn’t see this coming, learning only this week of this follow-up to the best chamber/trad/bebop fusion album of all time. And, by the way, that’s not hyperbole it is officially true, if subject to such trifles as opinion. Too early for ATB to have reviewed it at the time, but we did catch the live show at 2024’s Celtic Connections, still bathing in the warm glow dispensed. Despite being only the second best received jazz album of 2008 (Sunday Times), it was perceived too folky for the jazzers, and, yes, you’ve guessed it, too jazzy for the folkies.

Since then, the likes of Fergus McCreadie and Matt Carmichael have shown just how fertile an interface there is between the two musics, and what was once mildly shocking is just now part of another constant in the increasingly vibrant scene, that is normal, these days, for north of the border.

9 PONY PISADOR

Gathering around him many of the same individuals who helmed the original, Steele shows that it was no one trick pony. So we get the likes of Dave Milligan and Phil Bancroft back again, each lifers in Scottish jazz, on piano and saxophone respectively, with Milligan also coasting on the crest of a well-received current creative partnership with Karine Polwart. Similarly, Rory Campbell reprises his role on highland pipes and whistles. Not on the original album, but featured in the live show of ’24, the string section of Seonaid Aitken, Patsy Reid and Su-A Lee are also here, likewise fiddler, Chris Brain, there being a nominal difference in deliveries as well as nomenclature. Finally, again from the live show, are the rhythm section of Steele’s current quartet, Calum Gourlay on bass and Alyn Cosker on drums. That’s a line-up!

F*** FUSION!

A first impression, on listening for listening’s sake and pleasure, is that this is broadly jazzier than was the first album, and that, given the increased accessibility obtained in the interim, this is no bad thing. Indeed, I’d go far as to say it is refreshingly so, the market somewhat too awash with folk-jazz of late, sometimes on the blander side of that road. This is decidedly, like the aforementioned McCreadie and Carmichael, jazz folk. In fact, scrap that, this is just jazz!

The set opens with Declaration Of Arbroath, which set the scene well, a gathering of the respective clans, the disparate backgrounds all convening here. A minute or so under ten, it begins as an atmospheric calling on, with tinkling piano and a keening horn. Gradually, following a rolling drum beat, there is the entry of strings, dancing gently with each other, pizzicato to start, in a gentle waltz, before Stout bows off, joined by Steele. Subtly and slowly the mood transplants, as Bancroft gently enters, with the backbeat steadily expanding, courtesy Gourlay and, especially, Cosker, abetted by some nimble finger work from Milligan. It is a magnificent start, the strings returning for some widescreen counterpoint, delivering no small sense of satisfaction.

ROB ROY AT THE COTTON CLUB

A syncopated fiddle jig opens Elgin Laddie, underset by some spiky piano/rhythm section calisthenic. Aitken effortlessly peels off a gypsy jazz fiddle solo, before a Satchmo style trumpet break from the bandleader. Enter Bancroft, on tenor, and this is superb, the walking bass of Gourlay marching all over the shop. This is pure Harlem, Rob Roy at the Cotton Club. Or is it Duke Ellington at the White Heather Club? You choose.

Earl Of Hospitalfield changes tack to a more stately chamber direction, Campbell’s whistle first to the fore, before Steele picks up the same melody, it becoming a statement of swirls from competing genres, melding easily without argument. Steele, who famously lost ability to play his instrument in 2011, courtesy some bad advice around hie embouchure, and having to relearn to play, is now streets ahead of his even then stellar capabilities, and back to better than his best. Milligan also shows why he is in such demand. This whole track is as cool as, well, that, not least as the strings come reeling back in.

FIERCE & FEVERED

Steele shows a no doubt reciprocated tribute to Fergus McCreadie, naming the next tune in his honour. This is a fierce predominantly piano trio extemporisation, with spiky fiddle motifs seething around the edge, with warm wafts of brass keeping them company. Being jazz, we got a brief drum solo in the last song, and here Gourlay gets his turn. Milligan then peels off, followed by Steele and, eventually, by Campbell too, he giving it a full and fevered Rufus Harley on the pipes. Glorious unisonics draw it to an end.

Covesea Bay is then a delicate strings and piano construct, with highland whistle. That scaffold has each player adding their own architecture, and the whole is redolent of a bekilted Bruce Hornsby composition. An unabashed call out to the distillery in question, will they offer a reward, I wonder, for my saying Benromach offers one of the warmest glows here, starting with the lone castle turret pipes of Campbell. Buoyed by precise military drums, as the horns arrive the same sense of distinguished dignity is maintained, even then as Milligan scatters notes forth for a prolonged middle eight. Some brief Hot Club fiddle and the pipes are back, alone and then bolted on to a more swinging rhythm.

COMPLEX AURAL TWEED

A breather needed after that one, a near reprise of melody from the opening track ushers in Song From Long Ago. The interplay of instruments finds a complex weave, aural tweed, maybe, and the combination of Steele’s production and Milligan’s arrangements is masterful. From tradfolk metromony, a swagger slowly saunters in, a rolling sway that is just lovely. Knowing we don’t cover that much jazz here, this is certainly jazz album of the year, with all bets off as to the end rankings in the folk department.

Sticking in a brisk canter mode, Cairns is another effective pairing of ceilidh and smoky basement dive. Fiddle solos get thrown between players, with Bancroft and Steele playing a similar game of tag. I’m struck how, irrespective the myriad solo breaks made by each of the musicians, it is the ensemble play that sticks hardest. This is amply exemplified by the possibly most orthodox, jazz-wise, of the melodies here, Bangers And Stramash. Besides an arf for the title, this is a splendid bluesy improvisation involving most the players in turn. A sudden and unexpected sideswipe sees it carefully double-declutch, into a controlled overdrive, for a joyous short finale.

A GALRAVAGE?

Should you forget, a stramash is a commotion, an uproar, or a brawl. To be fair, this is none of these, as was, neither, really, the first. This is more of a hooley, a party or a celebration. Ceilidh is effectively the Gaelic for such a gathering, but reeks of rather more staid surrounds. There is also a word, galravage, and I think that does just dandy!

Here’s Elgin Laddie:

Colin Steele: Website

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