Electric Contact: A Jazz tribute to Tom McGrath

Edinburgh International Film Festival presents Electric Contact, a Jazz Tribute to Tom McGrath featuring  Tommy Smith, the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and  actor Tam Dean Burn.  

A Tribute to Buddy Rich

The SNJO celebrates the centenary of explosive jazz drummer and bandleader Buddy Rich in a special concert for the 2017 Glasgow Jazz Festival featuring Alyn Cosker.

The Herald: A 5* Review for SNJO’s Porgy & Bess and Sketches of Spain

There will be jazz orchestra concerts that create much bigger musical storms and specifically Scottish National Jazz Orchestra concerts that feature more familiar instrumentation. This one, though, has to go down as particularly special. It was the sort of occasion that illustrates how there’s no substitute for being in the room where and when the […]

Porgy & Bess and Sketches of Spain: a 5* Review

The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra stopped off at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh tonight as part of an all too short performance schedule performing “Sketches of Spain” and “Porgy & Bess”.  These two visionary collaborations between Miles Davis and Gil Evans marked a watershed point in the critics’ and public’s perception of Jazz as a […]

In the Spirit of Django

The SNJO is delighted to welcome renowned jazz guitarist Martin Taylor to perform the music of Django Reinhardt, one of the most perennially popular figures in jazz.

SNJO prepare to take on Miles Davis’ interpretations of jazz classics

Porgy and Bess / Sketches of Spain: A concert preview. The SNJO covered both albums with Gerard Presencer early in its history. This time around, the now internationally celebrated orchestra features another guest trumpeter, plus a stalwart of their own, with Sketches being fronted by the acclaimed young player Laura Jurd, currently a BBC New […]

Beauty and the Beast: A great CD Review from Dan McClenaghan for All About jazz

A great CD Review from Dan McClenaghan for All About jazz The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, SNJO, under the leadership of saxophonist Tommy Smith, has proven itself to be one of the premier large ensemble outfits out there.

Mancini and Mandel: 5* Review

The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, playing the songs of Mancini and Mandel featuring Joe Locke and Kenny Washington, brought a slice of classic Hollywood film music to The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh for this show.

Modest Man of Modern Jazz Singing. Concert preview

Kenny Washington used to see Wynton Marsalis around New Orleans and be so awestruck that he didn’t dare go up to the trumpeter and say hello. He wasn’t to know back then that thirty years and more later, the awe would be reciprocal and that when Marsalis restaged his Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio, Blood On the Fields in 2013 […]

Beauty and the Beast: A Fabulous new CD Review

Beauty and the Beast: The SNJO with special guest Bill Evans

“The whole orchestra plays brilliantly,…….well worth the wait.”

From the opening drum salvo and funky bass/ piano, this piece hits you and carries you along in a wave of euphoria. For those who remember Tommy Smith as a lyrical hard-bop sax player, the music here might not come as a surprise. What is, perhaps, surprising is the depth and complexity with which he uses the whole palette available in this jazz orchestra to colour and build the pieces in this suite.The pieces are not named but numbered 1-7. The motivation for the seven pieces here was a meditation on the duality of the human psyche – hence, Beauty and the Beast (although, continuing the Scottish theme, it could as easily have been Jekyll and Hyde).