Multi-award-winning pianist Fergus McCreadie’s trio returns to live performance in front of an audience with two concerts for Leeds Jazz, at Seven Arts at 7pm and 8:45pm, on Thursday October 29.
The trio, like musicians around the world, had live concerts curtailed in March and although McCreadie has been giving live-streamed concerts, he has missed the interaction with an audience on which musicians thrive.
“Our last gig was on March 5 in Altrincham and we didn’t think for a minute for that we would be inactive for this long,” says McCreadie, who signed to leading European label Edition Records earlier this year and will release the follow-up to his Parliamentary Jazz Award-winning album, Turas, in January. “We managed to do a live-stream together from our drummer, Stephen Henderson’s house, before stricter rules came into force. I think that one caught some of the spirit we create on actual gigs but there’s no substitute for being onstage and feeling the audience’s presence and support.”
McCreadie went on to play solo live-streams, including one for the massive Love Supreme festival, where the trio was due to appear in July, and another for Sheffield Jazz, which hosted one of the trio’s last gigs before lockdown. His Tuesday solo streams also attracted a strong following.
“It was good to keep in touch with people that way, even if you could only tell they were out there from the comments feed on Facebook,” says McCreadie. “Part of the Love Supreme stream was broadcast on Jazz FM, so that was also good from the point of view of reaching an audience.”
Ahead of the Leeds concerts, the trio will play a live-stream as part of Edinburgh jazz collective Playtime’s new online concert programme on Thursday September 17. Broadcast from Pathhead Village Hall, just outside Edinburgh, this will enable the musicians to play together in the same room with social distancing and as it’s part of a weekly series, including fellow pianists Dave Milligan and Brian Kellock, there will be a sense of being involved again in the jazz scene.
“We’re really looking forward to both the Playtime and the Leeds concerts,” says McCreadie. “We’ve had to postpone a lot of gigs this year – everyone has – so we’re hoping that it won’t be too long now before we can get back to playing live regularly.”
Fergus McCreadie (photo by Dave Stapleton)