Saxophonist Helena Kay set for Scottish tour

(© Benjamin Ealovega)

(Press release) Award-winning saxophonist, Helena Kay’s KIM Trio tour Scotland in support of their latest album, Golden Sands, from Thursday March 30.

The album has won both praise and plays from radio presenters in Canada, the US, Australia, Ireland and the UK. One Italian magazine even went as far as to place Golden Sands among the best of current jazz.

“That’s very flattering,” says Kay. “But the coverage that has touched me most was the programme in Atlanta that used Xian Impressions from the album as the bridge between its tribute to the great Wayne Shorter, who died earlier this month, and the new music on its playlist. Being considered good enough to follow Wayne Shorter is quite a compliment.”

(© Benjamin Ealovega)

Although still in her twenties, Kay has been impressing knowledgeable jazz observers for close on ten years now. Richard Michael, the indefatigable director of Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra was always keen to feature Kay as a teenage soloist. Then, in the final of the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year in 2015, the judges, including one of Scotland’s greatest-ever jazz musicians, the late saxophonist Bobby Wellins, selected Kay as the winner.

Perth-born Kay went on to win the much-coveted Peter Whittingham Jazz Award in 2017. Having graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London the previous year, Kay used the cash prize from the Whittingham Award to finance the recording of the KIM Trio’s first album, Moon Palace.

A period spent living, working and studying in New York followed. Kay took advantage of having access to top players, including Chilean saxophone star Melissa Aldana, Dayna Stephens, Chris Cheek and Rodney Green to take lessons with them.

The music on Golden Sands drew its influences from the places Kay has called home – Scotland, London and New York. It was brought to fruition by the new-look KIM Trio (Kay, Calum Gourlay, replacing Ferg Ireland, on bass and Dave Ingamells on drums) with the addition of Kay’s long-time colleague and friend, pianist Peter Johnstone, who will be on the tour.

“Pete and I seem to have been either in the same band or pursuing the same goals forever,” says Kay. “He won the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year title three years ahead of me. Then we played in the Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra at the same time. Now he’s in my band, which is really a quartet rather than a trio, and we’re both also playing with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.”

Kay and Johnstone also play as a duo and have added a duo concert in Linlithgow on Friday, April 14 after the KIM Trio dates.

The tour opens at the Beacon Jazz Club in Greenock on Thursday, March 30 and visits Heart of Hawick (31^st), Perth Theatre (April 1), the Merchants House in Glasgow (April 2) and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh (April 3), ending at Mareel in Lerwick on April 4.

“I can’t wait to play these concerts,” says Kay. “We’re covering quite a lot of miles, going to some lovely parts of Scotland and playing in some great venues. We’ll be playing a few new compositions as well as tracks from Golden Sands and we’re really looking forward to sharing the music with the audiences.”