This unusual trio (sax, vibes, piano) are in town for the jazz festival (and they are one of the few contemporary bands featured). I nearly passed on going to their Tuesday night show, partly because I hadn't registered Garland's participation, and partly because I wasn't overly impressed on the last occasion I heard Locke live. Iestyn had been given a complimentary ticket because he had helped out Mike Hart, (the festival organiser) with a workshop, so it was he who reminded me that Tim was playing and cajoled me into going along. When I saw the 'sold out' notices at the gig, I nearly turned around and went home, but it turned out to be worth waiting as a single solitary return arrived and I was there to snap it up. The venue was our local cellar jazz co-op, a tiny place with decent seats for about thirty or so, stools and seats-behind-pillars for another few dozen and crowded standing room to make the total capacity up to a maximum of 100.

I assume Locke is familiar to most jazzlers; he has been active on the NY scene for several years. Tim Garland is a very tasteful and interesting saxophone player who was one of the principal forces behind the innovative UK folk/jazz crossover band, Lammas. Jason Rebello was with Wayne Shorter for a while, was for a time a regular visitor to Edinburgh working with Tommy Smith, and has released a few albums of his own in a fusion-ish vein, although these don't do full justice to his range. Rebello caused a little stir a couple of years back when he said he was leaving the music scene to go and meditate in a Buddhist monastery.

Locke told us something of how the band had been formed. It seems that he and Garland struck up a strong friendship after Garland had called him (at the behest of a mutual acquaintance) while visiting New York. Locke was looking for a saxophonist, had heard and liked the Lammas albums, and instantly invited Garland to join his band. Garland had played with Rebello from time to time and (it was implied) he had brought the three together. They call the project 'Storms and Nocturnes', which seems a pretty good description of the stuff they played. And Tuesday was their first-ever gig in this format.

They opened with a couple of standards -- Bill Evans' "Very Early" (not "Very Eerily" as one album in my collection lists it!) and "Make Someone Happy" -- another tune which Evans played from time to time, so reinforcing that mood. Indeed, throughout, there was a strong Evans influence, with a lot of phrasing plainly of a "Debussy/Ravel via Evans" nature and some direct quotations -- in fact, this group seemed quite strongly into pithy quotation in general. From then on until the final number (Corea's "Inner Space") they played originals, some specially written for this combination, some drawn from the members' stock of pieces written for other bands. All of the compositions featured strong melodic lines rather than changes. At the start of the second set, Don Paterson (Garland's principal co-conspirator in Lammas) sat in and played some very fine solo acoustic guitar to lead off a couple of pieces from the Lammas book.

There was a huge amount of communication going on within this band --not surprising given the relative novelty of both the setting and the individual players' relationships. The interplay between Locke and Rebello seemed particularly strong -- I guess it has to be so, because the two instruments are both of a chordal and percussive nature, and it is so easy to tread on each others' toes, as it were. There was a particularly nice point at the very end of "Inner Space" where Rebello seemed determined to avoid the final cadence, at points holding off several seconds of complete silence as everyone looked at him awaiting the 'release', and then avoiding it and throwing the phrase back towards Locke for completion. There was some feeling here of a couple of wrestlers testing each other out, but in a friendly fashion. It went on for two or three minutes until, in the end, Locke was the one who decided to throw in the towel, to laughter all round. The audience gave them little option but to play an encore (there's no green room -- walking 'off stage' lands you up right at the bar; any further and you're in the toilets! -- so it's impossible for the band to escape the pressure), and it looked as if their prepared material had been pretty much exhausted by that point. Garland played through a composition of his own with the other two accompanying.

The friendly feeling seemed to extend to the audience, who were very quiet and attentive, and obviously fully engaged with the music. We got the feeling that the positive reception was helping the band along and encouraging them to take a few risks.

Garland not only played strong tenor and languorous curved soprano, but, on one number, some lively (straight) sopranino. Apart from the Nuclear Whales, this is the first time I can recall hearing a 'nino in a live context played by someone who could handle it properly, and it really did sound exceptionally good.

Locke and I nearly collided with each other as we rounded a pillar just after the show, and he stopped to talk for a few moments after we'd excused ourselves. He seemed a very pleasant and friendly fellow.

Apparently, last night's (Wednesday's) performance was being recorded for broadcast by the BBC in Scotland.