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 […]
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.
Peeping Tom
featuring Tommy Smith (tenor sax, WX7 solo on 1), Jason Rebello (piano), Paul Stacey (acoustic guitar, electric guitar), Terje Gewelt (bass), Ian Froman (drums, cymbals) The New Road Follow Your Heart Merry Go Round Slip Of The Tongue Interval Time Simple Pleasures Peeping Tom Quiet Picnic Affairs, Please Harlequin Boats And Boxes Biting At The […]
Paris
featuring Tommy Smith (tenor sax), Julian Argüelles (alto & soprano sax), Guy Barker (trumpet, monette), Mick Hutton (bass), Jason Rebello (piano), Jeremy Stacey (drums) Dischord True Sobriety Reflections Day Light Ping Pong Children Play Phraselogy Tear Birth Lost Fragments Occidentalism
Standards
featuring Tommy Smith (tenor sax), Niels Lan Doky (piano), Mick Hutton (bass), Ian Froman (drums, cymbals) Star Eyes Speak Low Sky Lark September Song Blacken Blue Mil Dew You’ve Changed My Secret Love Night And Day My Old Flame Julia Lover Dream Scapes Silent But Deadly
Reminiscence
feturing Tommy Smith (saxophone), Terje Gewelt (bass), Ian Froma Hope Memoir On The Ocean Floor Old Times Folk Song Emancipation Of Dissonance Day Dreams Ally Is Really This It Reminiscence Reviews Gramophone — If there is a jazz dialect appropriate to Northern lands… then this sounds like it.
Misty Morning And No Time
featuring Tommy Smith (soprano & tenor saxophones), Guy Barker (trumpet & monette), Julian Arguelles (soprano & alto saxophones), Steve Hamilton (piano), Terje Gewelt (bass), Ian Froman (drums) Intrusion Estuary Incident Memorial The Root Of It You Went Away Dipper Rag & Bone Sounds Of The Day Country Dance Misty Morning & No Time Day Break […]
Azure
featuring Tommy Smith (Saxophones), Kenny Wheeler (Trumpet & Flugel Horn), Lars Danielsson (Bass), Jon Christensen (Drums) Gold Of The Azure Escape Ladder Siesta Smile Of Flamboyant Wings Vowel Song Constellation The Morning Star Calculation Dancer Dialogue Of The Insects Blue (parts 1-3)