Tommy Smith & East West European Jazz Orchestra [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLWotCpJQ8A[/youtube]
Tommy Smith's Karma / PELbO
Tommy Smith’s latest band Karma opened this concert, drummer Alyn Coskerblasting in for a full-on assault. Karma – also the name of Smith’s latest album – sees the saxophonist in jazz-rock mode. Joining Smith and Cosker were pianistSteve Hamilton and bass guitarist Kevin Glasgow. Cosker provided the motive force – a powerful drummer, he’s equally […]
Tommy Smith's inadvertent radicalism
Scots saxophonist Tommy Smith returns to his and some other jazz roots with his new album Karma as well as paradoxically making a perhaps inadvertently radical statement. He tours the music in Scotland in late June and later elsewhere (see below).
"Visceral precision and imaginative interplay"
Karma, Spartacus ***** Tommy Smith’s new quartet includes pianist/keyboardist Steve Hamilton and drummer Alyn Cosker off his 2005 Forbidden Fruit album, but this no less brilliant successor is very different. New is Kevin Glasgow on six-string electric bass, and the lingua franca has become an amalgam of Scottish, Irish and Arab folk elements spiced with […]
'Karma' review in The Guardian (4 stars)
Scottish saxophonist Smith, a teenage prodigy in the 80s, is nowadays one of the most widely respected of European jazz musicians – not just for his sax mastery, but for his influence on his homeland’s jazz culture through the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and its youth wing he founded and still runs. Smith can play […]
Tommy Smith's Karma
In the photo I tried to capture one of those contempative, meditative Zen moments, with Tommy Smith crouching hidden next to the piano, musing as the band played on. I smiled as the thought came to me that perhaps he’s been overcome by thoughts of his own Karma. Looking around at the audience, that mood had communicated […]
Tommy Smith, Karma ***** (5-star)
Tommy Smith has explored many directions over the years, and Karma adds another to that list with a shift into a more groove- and rock-based idiom. The band made their debut in a superb concert at last year’s Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and this disc, recorded the following day, bears out the powerful impression the music […]
KARMA
Hailed on arrival by critics as the toughest and most creative group of his career, Tommy Smith’s KARMA sees the brilliant Scottish saxophonist lead a band of virtuosic musicians on a deeply grooving acid jazz adventure that draws on influences from around the world.
Kurt Elling with the SNJO
Kurt Elling with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh WHATEVER John Coltrane imagined his A Love Supreme suite inspiring – world peace would have been reasonable reward – he surely can’t have considered someone arriving who could turn the melody and saxophone solo from that masterpiece’s Resolution into a work of blistering vocal […]
Tommy Smith receives Lord Provost Award
On June 4th, 2010, Tommy was presented the Lord Provost’s Award for Music by Lord Provost, Bob Winter at the Glasgow City Chambers. The annual awards for community service, education, sport and performing arts, among others, is being given to a variety of individuals whose achievements have helped to raise Glasgow’s profile and brought honour […]
New album "Torah"
Internationally renowned Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith leads one of Europe’s leading jazz orchestras in a personal and spiritual journey of discovery. Featuring the cream of Scotland’s thriving jazz scene, Torah is orchestral jazz at its most powerfully expressive. Originally written by Smith in 1999, for American saxophone giant Joe Lovano. The 2010 Torah recordings feature […]