The Spotlight Sessions featuring Matt Holborn @ The Jazz Bar, Edinburgh - Nov. 27

Matt Holborn (violin); Fraser Urquhart (piano); Dougie Urquhart (guitar); Ed Kelly (double bass); Keith Haldane (drums)

Storm Arwen did its worst. All day Saturday there was no way in or out of Edinburgh - trains, planes nor automobiles. What to do? There was no alternative but to book another night's hotel accommodation. One establishment indicated the room rate would be £455. Laughing/crying all the way out onto the freezing, windswept streets, the prospect of dossing down in a bus shelter loomed large. Then, as luck would have it, a next door establishment had one vacant room, perhaps the last available room for miles around. Room booking secured (at a much more reasonable rate), the (freezing) night was young. There's always something on at the Jazz Bar, isn't there? 

Turning into Chambers Street the place didn't look any different, the red and black shuttered frontage couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a dive bar. Don't you just love 'em?! Descending the staircase to the gentle hubbub of patrons chatting, it was good to be in from the cold. A bottle of Deuchar's, a sole vacant table, front and side to the compact stage, we were set fair for an evening of swinging jazz. 

London based swing violinist Matt Holborn was in town at the invitation of the Spotlight Session's promoter to play a gig working with some of Edinburgh's A-listers. Kicking off with Straight No Chaser this was the business! A consummate performer, Holborn cuts a shy, retiring figure. However, when it came to the introductions he stepped up, announcing the titles and he knew who his bandmates were. Sweet Lorraine, I Can't Get Started, alongside numbers written by/associated with Stuff Smith (Skip It, Nice and Warm and Blue Violin), this was just the gig to make one forget that out on the street Storm Arwen was still blowing a hoolie. 

Holborn blew hot, as on Undecided. If you believed the man, he didn't know Perdido, supposedly winging it with sterling support from the 'locals' - Messrs. Fraser Urquhart (piano), Dougie Urquhart (guitar), session fixer Ed Kelly (bass) and drummer Keith Haldane. Now there's a canny rhythm section, if ever there was one! Someone to Watch Over Me illustrated Holborn's mastery of the ballad form (including a pizzicato chorus) and to close out a marvellous set, Rodgers and Hart's This Can't Be Love. - Russell                 

Set list: Straight No Chaser; Sweet Lorraine; Undecided; I Can't Get Started;; Skip It; Nice and Warm; The Man I Love; Blue Violin; Don't Get Around Much Anymore;  Someone to Watch Over Me; Perdido; This Can't Be Love.