The Tenement Jazz Band with Morten Gunnar Larsen @ The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival - July 18

Charles Dearness (trumpet); Stephen Feast (clarinet, tárogató, tenor sax); Paddy Darley (trombone); John Youngs (banjo, vocals); Rory Clark (sousaphone) with Morten Gunnar Larsen (piano)

This year's Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival is attracting full houses and little wonder given the calibre of musician participating during ten days of non-stop jazz and blues. The Jazz Bar Big Band gig on Monday evening was one of the hotter-than-hot tickets (Bruce Adams the star guest), similarly, early Tuesday evening, an hour before curtain up, they were queuing in George Square to bag a prime seat in the world famous Spiegeltent* to listen to the Tenement Jazz Band with special guest, pianist Morten Gunnar Larsen.

The Tenements exude a casual demeanour, it's as if they've dropped by their local boozer to play a few tunes and are pleasantly surprised to find they've got themselves an audience. Maintaining a laid back approach at a prestigious festival event in front of some four hundred people is no mean feat. It helps that the band's frontman, John Youngs, is a self-deprecating sort, if we weren't already seated he could, perhaps, have suggested we 'pull up a chair'. Sitting comfortably (band and audience), for the next ninety minutes the Tenements and their special guest, virtuoso ragtime and stride pianist Morten Gunnar Larsen, played a few tunes. And how!

One after another, the songs kept on coming. Bouncing Around ('for Patti' said Youngs), Kansas City Stomp, Out of Norway/Out of Nowhere (for their Norwegian guest MGL), Kinklets, South featuring MGL, Petit Fleur (a feature for Stephen Feast playing the little-heard tárogató, from the third row the instrument resembled a metal clarinet), a cracking Copenhagen, the Tenements have got it cracked. It's not for nothing they picked up ' Best Band' at the recent Scottish Jazz Awards. 

The Tenements are undoubtedly fine soloists, their ensemble work was particularly impressive, not least on the hot numbers - Freddie Keppard's Stockyard Strut, Dusty Rag - with their guest Morten Gunnar Larsen's dazzling piano-playing something to behold. The Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival runs to time (Theon Cross was next on stage) and as John Youngs introduced his bandmates one more time, we were approaching the end of a wonderful early evening concert. New Orleans Bump, Wille the Weeper and we were done. House lights up, time to go in search of a post-gig pint before catching the last train south (make that South).                  

* Spiegeltent ('mirror tent'), Edinburgh's tent, supposedly one of only thirteen in existence, is an impressive, large travelling tent of wood and canvas construction adorned with mirrors and stained glass. Russell