Rob Adams previews:
Multi-award-winning Scottish pianist Fergus McCreadie brings his trio to the 606 Club on Wednesday 4 March, the group’s first London appearance since McCreadie’s debut recording, Turas, won Album of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards in December.
The “Parlies” success followed the Best Album prize that McCreadie picked up at the Scottish Jazz Awards last summer and Turas’ shortlisting in the cross-genre Scottish Album of the Year Award, where it made the final ten from 290-plus entries, a rare feat for a jazz album.
Fergus McCreadie Trio. Photo: Rob Adams
“I’m sure nobody really expects to win awards and we certainly didn’t expect to win any with our first album,” says McCreadie, whose trio was last week announced as appearing at the Love Supreme festival in July. “Dave [Bowden, double bass], Hendo [Stephen Henderson, drums] and I felt ready to record. We wanted to document the music we’d been working on and considering that it was self-released, Turas has done really well for us.”
McCreadie, who was still studying on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s jazz course when Turas was released, used the proceeds from a further award, the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award, which his trio won in 2016, to finance the recording and manufacture of the album.
The 606 gig will be the trio’s first time at the club and follows a run of well received performances in London and the south. In August the trio appeared at Ronnie Scott’s International Piano Trio Festival, having impressed the club’s management with support slots earlier in the year, and their gig at the Crypt in Camberwell last April won effusive feedback. More recently, they opened the Turner Sims concert hall in Southampton’s latest jazz season with a performance described as “stunning” by the hall’s manager, Kevin Appleby.
“Turner Sims was fantastic,” says McCreadie. “It’s a gorgeous venue and the audience was incredibly enthusiastic, one of the biggest we’ve played to in a concert of our own, as opposed to when we’ve been part of a festival programme. Every night is different with this group, and every gig is exciting for us, but we’re looking forward especially to playing at the 606 Club. You’re always conscious of following in significant footsteps when you play in venues with long histories and the 606 is certainly one of the places you aspire to play when you set out as a jazz musician.”
LINK: Fergus McCreadie Trio at the 606 Club
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