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Review

Fergus McCreadie and Luca Manning Duo

Fergus McCreadie and Luca Manning Duo, Wall2Wall Virtual Jazz Festival 2020, Abergavenny.


by Ian Mann

October 18, 2020

/ LIVE

A hugely accomplished technician, Manning also sings with great conviction & an astonishing emotional maturity. McCreadie represents the perfect foil, technically gifted & with a keen ear for melody.

Fergus McCreadie and Luca Manning Duo

Wall2Wall Virtual Jazz Festival, 2020

Filmed and recorded at The Melville Centre, Abergavenny

Performance first streamed 17/10/2020, available online to ticket holders until 28/11/2020 via;
http://blackmountainjazz.co.uk/fergus-mccreadie-and-luca-manning-saturday-17th-october-2020-7pm/

Fergus McCreadie – piano, Luca Manning – vocals


The Scottish pianist and composer Fergus McCreadie, together with his trio featuring bassist David Bowden and drummer Stephen Henderson, played the last Black Mountain Jazz club gig at The Melville Centre before lockdown.

Their performance, to a packed house, on Sunday 26th February 2020 is widely considered to be one of the best ever seen at Black Mountain Jazz. It featured the trio performing music from their award winning début album “Turas”, which received the accolade of “Album of the Year” at the 2019 Parliamentary Jazz Awards.  As a result of their success the trio have now signed to Edition Records and will release their second album, “Cairn”, in early 2021.

Me review of the February performance by the Fergus McCreadie Trio at Black Mountain Jazz can be read here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/fergus-mccreadie-trio-black-mountain-jazz-melville-centre-abergavenny-23-02-2020

McCreadie is a musician who has been highly active and creative during lockdown, transmitting a regular series of livestream performances. In the early days these included a performance by the trio recorded in Henderson’s kitchen, plus a duo collaboration with Manning that served as a tantalising taster for this Wall2Wall ‘virtual’ performance.

As the lockdown tightened McCreadie performed a weekly series of solo piano sets directly from his home. Typically these would involve an extended improvisation in the style of Keith Jarrett, these lasting for half an hour or more and representing thoroughly compulsive viewing. These improvisation, typically lasting half an hour or more, would be followed by shorter renditions of jazz standards or solo versions of tunes from the repertoire of the McCreadie Trio. I tuned in to several of these events, which served consistent notice as to the enormity of McCreadie’s talent, he’s a supremely inventive and imaginative improviser, and those Jarrett comparisons are not at all far fetched.

In late March the pianist also took the decision to release on “official bootleg”, which was available via his Bandcamp page. This was none other than a live recording of the Abergavenny performance released under the title “Live At Black Mountain”.

We didn’t intend to release any of the music from the recording,” said McCreadie. “But given the strange circumstances we all find ourselves in, it gives us a chance to keep in touch with our audience. David, Stephen and I are also really pleased with the concert and feel it’s one of the best we’ve played so far, so it makes sense to share it with the people who have supported us.”

All the CDs and sleeves were specially made by McCreadie for each order, a labour intensive process, and the album was made available for three months.  It even got a mention in Jazzwise magazine and must surely be destined to become a ‘collectors item’.

Of course I just had to buy one, and the quality of the music on the CD confirmed just what a brilliant performance the Abergavenny show had been. What a gig for BMJ to sign off on, hopefully only temporarily.

“Live At Black Mountain” was recorded by Tony Konteczny,  who was also part of the team that filmed, recorded and edited all the Wall2Wall Festival performances at the Melville Theatre.

As far as BMJ was concerned the McCreadie Trio was first discovered by the Club’s Debs Hancock who saw them playing at the 2019 Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival and was so bowled over by their performance that she immediately approached Fergus about the possibility of bringing the trio to Abergavenny.

Ironically Debs was unable to be at the Melville to see the trio perform. She was in Sri Lanka, enjoying the holiday of a lifetime and celebrating the 60th birthday of her husband, Andrew. Nevertheless the indefatigable Debs was still in e-contact with Fergus and with BMJ’s promoter Mike Skilton to check how things were going on!

The success of the McCreadie Trio’s show back in February (it almost seems like a lifetime ago now) ensured that that it was inevitable that the pianist would be invited back for BMJ’s annual Wall2Wall Festival.

This second visit, for a performance that sadly had to take place behind closed doors, featured his duo with the Glaswegian born vocalist and songwriter Luca Manning. Now based in London Manning is still studying at the Guildhall, but his professional career is already taking off. He was the winner of the “Jazz Newcomer of the Year” award at the 2020 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, after having been nominated the previous year but just losing out to saxophonist Xhosa Cole. He has also been a winner in the “Rising Star” category at the Scottish Jazz Awards.

In 2019 Manning released his début album “When The Sun Comes Out”, credited to “Luca Manning with Fergus McCreadie”. Recorded in a ‘live in the studio’ setting in Glasgow this is essentially a duo recording, although two tracks feature guest appearances from the acclaimed alto saxophonist Laura MacDonald. The album has attracted considerable acclaim and several of the songs were featured in this online performance.

Manning is a serial collaborator and has performed with the London Vocal Project, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, the Capital Orchestra, Queertet and the vocal harmony group ThreeBop. I first heard his singing when he performed as a backing vocalist in the ensemble that singer, guitarist and songwriter Rosie Frater Taylor led at a Daylight Music event at Union Chapel, Islington in November 2019, a performance that also came under the umbrella of the EFG London Jazz Festival.

Prior to their Wall2Wall performance Luca and Fergus were interviewed by Debs Hancock with the ebullient Manning declaring that he was looking forward to his “first gig in a long time”. The duo, with Manning doing most of the talking, guided Debs through their set list, promising “a varied mixture of originals, jazz standards, and just great songs”.

The duo’s various awards and achievements were discussed with Manning praising the work of Xhosa Cole, who had just pipped him at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards in 2019. Clearly there were no hard feelings and a good deal of mutual respect.

McCreadie talked about the Scottish jazz scene and of how it has consistently “punched above its weight” thanks to such inspirational figures as saxophonist Tommy Smith, trumpeter Colin Steele and pianist Dave Milligan. It was Smith who set up the Jazz Course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland over a decade ago and the intervening years have seen a crop of brilliant young jazz musicians emerge, all with their own distinctive musical voices. “Tommy likes to encourage individuality”, McCreadie was quick to emphasise.

With regard to his own playing McCreadie was also keen to emphasise the influence of a slightly older generation of Scottish jazz pianists, among them Brian Kellock, Steve Hamilton, Paul Harrison (his former teacher), Tom Gibbs and Euan Stephenson. It’s a highly impressive list and all of these musicians have featured on the Jazzmann web pages at one time or another.

Another key influence on the young McCreadie, who began playing at the age of six, is the acclaimed pianist and educator Richard Michael.

Manning also spoke of Michael’s influence, which helped to steer the attention of the youthful “frustrated rock star” towards jazz. Manning subsequently joined Strathclyde Jazz Orchestra, where the pianists Euan Stephenson and Alan Benzie were among his tutors.

It was at a summer school organised by the National Jazz Orchestra of Scotland that Manning met the pianist and vocalist Liane Carroll, who took him under her wing and mentored him. Carroll has obviously been an enormous influence. Her ability to take any song and make it her own has clearly rubbed off on Manning, “I’m becoming more and more anti-genre”, he explains, “a good song is a good song”.

Manning and McCreadie met when the pianist was part of a student band playing at one of the singer’s auditions. Manning was already a fan of McCreadie’s trio and the pair quickly hit it off, finding plenty of musical common ground. “I shared Fergus’ passion for exploring the places where jazz and folk traditions meet” Manning has said. Both musicians have also been involved with the Glasgow based ‘nu jazz’ ensemble corto.alto.

In other respects they represent a bit of an ‘odd couple’, Manning from the city, outgoing and confident and something of a ‘larger than life’ personality. McCreadie, from the small town of Dollar in Clackmannanshire, is quieter, more thoughtful and reserved, and almost shy until he addresses the keyboard. “I bring out his fun side and he keeps me on the straight and narrow” Manning has said. It’s certainly a combination that seems to work, and one that looks to have plenty more mileage left in it.

Turning now to the duo’s performance which commenced with “Not Like This”, a song written by Jeremy Lubbock, and performed by jazz vocalist Al Jarreau, another of Manning’s influences. With McCreadie playing the Melville Centre’s upright acoustic piano, the same instrument that appears on the “Live At Black Mountain” release, this was an intimate duo performance that quickly established the very natural rapport between these two adventurous young music makers. Manning’s vocals embraced wordless melodic passages, flexible lyrical phrasing and an emotional maturity way beyond his years.

These qualities also informed the standard “Laura”, which included an exuberant scat vocal episode and an extended instrumental solo from McCreadie at the piano. As impressive as the music was the camera work, which included an aerial view of the pianist at work, plus fascinating close up shots of his fingers, the piano keys and the hammers.

Next came Manning’s original song “Our Journey”, a track from the “When The Sun Comes Out” album. Written in London but expressing a home-sickness for Scotland the words were expressed in the third person, but still felt intensely personal. McCreadie was featured with an expansive piano solo and also entered into a dialogue with Manning’s wordless vocals. This was teamed in a segue with “Strange Vessels”, featuring a Manning lyric set to the melody of a folk tune written by an Irish fiddler. During the interview Manning turned to McCreadie to announce the composer’s name, but as a simple Englishman I didn’t catch it. Still, if Luca finds it difficult what hope is there for me.

Next came an addition to the set, a piece that the duo hadn’t mentioned to Debs. This was a complex piece with lyrics referencing apple trees that amply demonstrated Manning’s impressively broad vocal range and included a rousing piano solo from McCreadie.

By way of contrast the song “Where Are The Arms”, written by the American pianist,  guitarist, vocalist and conductor Gabriel Kahane brought a refreshing simplicity with its direct, but poetic, lyrics and anthemic melodies.

The duo were back in sync with the set list that they had described to Debs as they tackled “Social Call”, a tune written by Gigi Gryce with a lyric by Jon Hendricks. This is an example of a ‘vocalese’  piece that has become something of a standard, with singers Betty Carter and Dianne Reeves among those to have covered the song. The duo’s version featured an unaccompanied vocal intro by Manning that served as another reminder of his innate musicality, plus an instrumental solo from the excellent McCreadie of course.

I seem to recall the beautiful, if slightly sinister, Joni Mitchell song “Two Grey Rooms” being part of the duo’s livestream back in March.  The song appears on Manning’s album and it has also been covered by the Printmakers group, co-led by pianist Nikki Iles and vocalist Norma Winstone. It’s become one of my favourite Mitchell songs and Manning and McCreadie more than did it justice.

An arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” brought a little old fashioned swing into the equation, but was still tinged with Manning’s underlying sense of melancholy.

Thanks to his involvement with the classic John Coltrane quartet I’ve also associated McCoy Tyner’s music with complexity and intensity. However the duo’s version of the pianist’s ballad “You Taught My Heart To Sing” was both surprisingly simple and deeply moving.

The duo closed by paying homage to their Scottish roots with an arrangement of “Loch Lomond”, a song that also appears on Manning’s album. The pair brought a jazz flourish to the famous old melody, re-emphasising the duo’s fondness for blending together jazz and folk elements.

This was an impressively diverse set that covered a diverse collection of songs sourced from a variety of musical genres. Manning, like his mentor Liane Carroll, has an innate ability to traverse categories and make every song his own. In addition to being a hugely accomplished technician he also sings with great conviction and an astonishing emotional maturity. There’s a sense that he truly owns these songs, rather than treating them as mere vocal exercises.

McCreadie represents the perfect foil, a technically gifted pianist, but also one with a keen ear for melody and an ability to communicate his ideas clearly.

This was all very impressive, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I prefer to hear McCreadie in a purely instrumental format. His 2021 release for Edition will be anticipated with much interest and excitement.

Meanwhile I also predict a bright future for the highly talented Manning. We will also be seeing and hearing a lot more from him.

 

 

 

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