Fresh from a batch of Swiss gigs, one of the hottest young properties in jazz is on his way to Strathearn next week.
Clackmannanshire-raised pianist Fergus McCreadie brings the curtain down on a four-night run of continental shows in Zurich tomorrow night.
He’s also just played in Geneva on the back of appearances at Celtic Connections last week.
Quite a contrast
It’s quite a contrast to the Mercury Prize-nominated performer’s upcoming dates.
He’s on a short jaunt around a few of the more quaint stops on Scotland’s live circuit, starting next Friday at Strathearn Arts.
Known for melding contemporary jazz with folk elements, McCreadie, 25, will follow up his Crieff appearance with mid-winter visits to grassroots venues as far-flung as Craignish, Oban, Black Isle and Plockton.
Scottish Album of the Year
Ironically, given the size of those platforms, he’s arguably enjoying the most intense exposure of a decade-long career, having become the first jazz-based act to win the coveted Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award last October.
It was his third opus, Forest Floor, that earned Fergus that honour, with the LP written in lockdown also landing him a Mercury nomination at UK level.
Such recognition furthers an impetus that started with the release of McCreadie’s 2018 self-released debut, Turas, and its follow-up, Cairn, three years later.
Further tour dates
Following his Highland excursion, the ex-Royal Conservatoire student will be playing a host of English gigs, before returning north in early March for major Glasgow and Edinburgh shows.
With that all adding up to his biggest UK tour yet, it seems likely that further opportunities to cement his now burgeoning reputation overseas – in the vein of those Swiss shows – are likely to come his way in 2023.
“There is a pressure to not lose that momentum,” Fergus admits.
“You don’t want to get too imposter syndrome-y with yourself, and you don’t want to let your foot off the gas too much either.
“I’m just trying to not think too much and just keep going.”
Work is already under way on McCreadie’s fourth album – expected to eventually see the light this time next year – and he says he already foresees its direction as being “a little different” to his previous efforts.
Different sounds
“It might be a little more folky, I’m trying to experiment with the structures a little bit,” the composer explains.
“In jazz, we can be reliant on a certain way of structuring things – we have the tune, then we improvise, then we go back to the tune.
“But there are a couple of new tunes that are very thorough-composed, and there are some that don’t have any improvising at all.
“I’m just trying to find new ways to make the folk-jazz connection interesting.”
McCreadie will be joined on his upcoming tour by his long-term cohorts David Bowden (bass) and Stephen Henderson (drums), who complete his innovative trio, with the emphasis, typically, on the unexpected.
“If people go to the gigs expecting to hear it exactly how it sounds on the album, they will be surprised, I think,” he declares.
“Sometimes a set can be entirely improvised, it just depends on the night, the audience, the room, the piano and how we’re feeling.”
February 3, 7.30pm. Tickets via strathearnarts.org
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