Jazz at The Queen’s Hall

The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra will welcome internationally acclaimed trumpet master Paolo Fresu to join them in saluting one of jazz’s most influential players, Miles Davis.  The orchestra, building on their tremendous successes of last year, start their exciting concert plans for 2013 by playing Miles Ahead and Birth of the Cool in a concert at The Queen’s Hall on 22 February 2013.

Miles Davis, one of the coolest figures in jazz, was a constant innovator and one of just a handful of musicians of whom it can be said that, had he not existed, the history of jazz would have been very different. Together with the outstanding arrangers Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan, he created Birth of the Cool and Miles Ahead.

Conceived in 1949 and 1957 respectively, they marked the beginning and continuation of Davis’s hugely rewarding relationship with Evans and found Davis responding to the prevailing moods of aggression and high energy in jazz by adopting a much softer, more reflective approach.  Miles Ahead and Birth of the Cool became two of the greatest jazz milestones and shaped new movements in jazz at that time and influences music even today.

Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu has a unique trumpet sound that is recognized as one of the most distinctive in the contemporary jazz scene.  A deeply personal communicator like Davis, Paolo together with the acclaimed SNJO, directed by artistic director Tommy Smith, will bring these two gems to the live stage with direct emotion, quiet power and vivid orchestral colour and put their own stamp on such gems as Evans’ arrangements of Delibes’ Maids of Cadiz and Blues for Pablo.

The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra continues to be showered with accolades underlining their position as ambassadors for Jazz in Scotland.  As well as picking up Best Jazz ensemble titles in both the All UK Parliamentary and the British Jazz Awards 2012, their new CD Celebration was released on the ECM label, they performed in the inaugural Shetland Festival and at Jazz sous les Pommiers and their concerts with Peter Erskine, and Randy Brecker received fabulous reviews.  The year culminated with its highly successful and critically acclaimed 5* celebration of Duke Ellington and in response to demand, their new CD, In the Spirit of Duke will be released next month on the Spartacus record Label.

FRI 22 February 2013  EDINBURGH: QUEEN’S HALL 0131 668 2019 www.thequeenshall.net